Clinker Bins at White Bay Power Station, four steel clinker bins sit beneath the boiler house framework, their cross-braced.
Clinker Bins at White Bay Power Station, four steel clinker bins sit beneath the boiler house framework, their cross-braced.

Clinker Bins

Provenance

Camera
NIKON D7000
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings
24mm · f/8.0 · 1/100 · ISO 100
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

The clinker bins at the base of Boiler No. 1 in the boilerhouse, caked with the hardened residue of coal combustion. Clinker is what remains after coal burns: fused ash and impurities too heavy to carry in the flue gas. Boiler No. 1 is the only original Babcock and Wilcox boiler still in situ here.

Edition
Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

$100.00 AUD
Size
Type
Colour
✓
Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 10 to 20 business days (framed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.
See certificate sample →

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In situ

Clinker Bins at White Bay Power Station, four steel clinker bins sit beneath the boiler house framework, their cross-braced.Clinker Bins at White Bay Power Station, four steel clinker bins sit beneath the boiler house framework, their cross-braced.Clinker Bins at White Bay Power Station, four steel clinker bins sit beneath the boiler house framework, their cross-braced.Clinker Bins at White Bay Power Station, four steel clinker bins sit beneath the boiler house framework, their cross-braced.Clinker Bins at White Bay Power Station, four steel clinker bins sit beneath the boiler house framework, their cross-braced.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Clinker Bins
Series
White Bay Power Station
Catalogue
WBP-031
Process
Giclée
Captured
13 November 2015
Camera
NIKON D7000
Lens
14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture
f/8.0
Shutter
1/100 s
ISO
100
Focal length
24 mm
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size
290 × 200 mm
Location
Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia
Authenticity
C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by
Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards
02 LOCATION

Rozelle, New South Wales, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

A row of clinker bins at White Bay Power Station sits below the boiler firing chambers, the steel-walled hoppers that collected bottom ash and clinker as it fell out of the boilers. The bins are heavy fabricated steel, lined with abrasion plate where the falling clinker worked against the inner walls. Each bin tapers to a discharge gate at the bottom, with the conveyor route below carrying the material out to the ash disposal area. Clinker residue sits in the bottoms of the bins where the last operating load remained at closure: dark, fused, glassy chunks of the high-temperature waste from coal combustion.

Clinker is the harder, partly-fused waste from coal-fired boilers, distinct from the finer fly ash that goes up the flue. At a working power station, the bottom-ash bins below the boilers held the clinker before the conveyor system moved it to the ash disposal area. White Bay's clinker bins ran continuously across the working life of the plant from 1917 to Christmas Day 1983. After closure the system was shut down. The bins, the discharge gates, and the conveyor route below remain in place. The clinker residue at the bottom of each bin is the last batch from the final firing.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Four steel clinker bins sit beneath the boiler house framework, their cross-braced panels thick with corrosion and ash residue. Riveted columns rise on either side. Above, heavy I-beams and gantry steelwork layer into shadow. A single industrial lamp hangs from the ceiling. Low sun cuts across the concrete floor, casting long grid shadows from the structure behind.

Brett Patman

White Bay Power Station

The series

White Bay Power Station

2015–2018 · 124 photographs

Bricklayers laid 3.7 million bricks at White Bay across three and a quarter years of Phase 1 construction, on Wanngal Country at the western edge of Rozelle. The New South Wales Government Railways ran the build through its own Construction Department. By 3 July 1913, boilers and alternators were running before the buildings that housed them were complete.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.

Anatomy · true ratio
07 MORE FROM WHITE BAY POWER STATION

123 other prints in this series

All prints
Control Room at White Bay Power Station, a curved control console wraps across the room in a wide arc.
Control Room $100.00
Turbine Hall at White Bay Power Station, reinforced concrete walls rise three storeys on each side, their surfaces stained.
Turbine Hall $100.00
Glass Curtain at White Bay Power Station, a towering mosaic of glass and steel, where light filters through dust-streaked.
Glass Curtain $100.00
Turbine and Condenser at White Bay Power Station, a steam turbine and its condenser sit on the operating floor of White Bay.
Turbine and Condenser $100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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