Field Trip

The night before we left for Idaho over Thanksgiving weekend Ryan had to run into work and take care of a couple of things. He called his boss and got me cleared to go out there with him! It was neat to go out and see where he works. They have a lot of security and safety restrictions so I've never actually been to his current workplace- the Refinery. Years ago I went with Ryan on a similar excursion when he was working in the smelter. We didn't get clearance, so it was really awkward when the first person we ran into was the plant manager. This trip was much less dramatic, but still very interesting.

Like an idiot, I didn't take a real camera, but I did have my cell phone, so these pictures are not very clear. Here I am standing in front of the acid baths for the annodes of copper. The process made perfect sense when Ryan was describing it to me, but I may not do it justice here. The copper migrates from the annodes onto plates that they then peel the purified copper of of in sheets. The impurities in the copper fall down into the acid bath and are collected and either further refined (in the case of gold and silver) or disposed of. There are about four football-field-sized areas for the annode baths. Then there are cranes and trains to move everything around, machinery to clean, sample, and strip the copper sheets. I knew a lot went into making their product, and it was so cool to see it happen. This is only one of the plants involved with the overall process. There's also the mine itself, the concentrator, smelter, and power plant.
Here I am posting on some bundles of finished product. They are worth about $10,000 per bundle, so you get the idea how heady that was. I wasn't allowed into the precious metals area, but someday....

And here's the man who helps it all happen. He let me borrow his awesome Harley-style steel-toed boots and the security guard gave me a much too big hard hat and safety glasses. It was definitely a night to remember.