Assignment photography (1978) of the Princess Compressor Station…
The station – suffered a massive explosion on Tuesday Feb-28-1980. The greenhouse was also destroyed.
Alberta Gas Truck Line (eventually renamed to Nova Corp – in Calgary) had a test greenhouse project near the town of Princess – which is about 15 miles northeast of Brooks. And roughly 130 miles east of Calgary.
They were capturing the waste heat generated from a gas compressor station, and transferring this energy across the road to the greenhouse – which grew mainly tomatoes and cucumbers.
I did some aerial shots from a plane, of the greenhouse building and adjoining compressor station. Near Brooks, Alberta.
One of the diesel-powered compressors, used to maintain pressure in the gas pipeline.
Heat exchangers were build around some of the exhaust stacks – coming out of the compressor station. Pipes then carried the heated liquid to the greenhouse.
The heated fluid was piped into radiators at one end of the greenhouse. Fans blew the warm air into plastic tubes suspended from the ceiling. Small vent holes in the tubes, allowed the heat to be fairly well distributed inside the space.
View of the radiators, from which the heat was taken from.
Hydroponics – water and other nutrients were piped into all the soil beds.
All the systems are monitored.
New plants are being added.
Stephene Ho was the project manager – based in Calgary, Alberta.
On May-15-1978, a small article was published in Macleans’s Magazine, Toronto, Ontario.