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Modern Water Wheel
Freiburg, south west corner of Germany
September 22, 2005 - about 10:00 UTC (11:00 local time)
© 2005 Erik Krause, All Rights Reserved.
This small power station produces 26 kW of electrical power, a year estimate of about 150.000 kWh, which saves 96 tons of CO2 a year and thus helps to preserve our precious climate - together with lots of other small but renewable sources of energy like solar power stations, windmills etc.
The wheel is 2.9 m in diameter and 4 m wide. It uses the water of a channel running through all of Freiburg coming from the river Dreisam. The main purpose of this 'Gewerbebach' was to support local small industry with water and energy.
I would very much like to see those small water power stations more often...
- Some other images of the wheel: http://www.hydrowatt.de/komtur2.htm
- The not submitted 'energy' panos: http://pano.erik-krause.de/energy/
Lat: 48° 0' 46.08" N
Long: 7° 51' 13.32" E
Elevation: 254m
Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.
But it was a challenge anyway. Not so much because there were rats running acros my feet or because I wanted to stand in the water. It was the dynamic range. More than 12 f-stops between the darkest shadows and the sunlit buildings outside.
I had to choose a relatively long exposure time in order too look into the shadows, hence the wheel and the water is pretty 'dynamic'. And it was my second attempt: I tried to shoot it for the 'Water' event too, but failed. You can see the previous result (after very much photoshop work) at http://pano.erik-krause.de/water/ (bottom pano).