The Navajo generating station near Page, Arizona is a familiar sight to anyone who has visited Antelope Canyon. It's right alongside Highway 98 just a few miles southeast of the town and towers over the canyon and its parking lot. Running full-tilt, some environmental web pages claim it produces 19 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of 3.5 million modern automobiles [nineteen million (19,000,000) tons equals 38,000,000,000 (38 billion) pounds.] It uses 8 billion gallons of water from Lake Powell for cooling. It burns through 25,000 tons of coal a day from mines on Black Mesa and provides power to Arizona, Nevada, and California, with the LA power district receiving 21% of its output. Even if these values are cut in half, this one plant has quite an impact on the environment.

The Navajo generating station near Page, Arizona is a familiar sight to anyone who has visited Antelope Canyon. ItScrubbers were installed to remove sulfur dioxide during the three-year span from 1997 to 1999. The scrubbers inject a water-based chemical solution into the exhaust stream. The chemical combines with the sulfur dioxides to form compounds that are then captured and not vented with the other exhaust gasses. One of the consequences of introducing water into hot exhaust is the production of steam, and this can be seen billowing from the smokestacks on most days, and more copiously in the winter when the weather is cooler. This image was taken on November 1, 2010.

The steam is typically white as it condenses after emerging into the cooler atmosphere above the smokestacks. However, as I was driving into Page this day, I saw conditions developing that might change this. I stopped my vehicle and waited a few minutes, and sure enough, the change occurred, but it only lasted for a couple of minutes. The orange color is the sunset light on the steam.

This was a very calm day as can be seen from the emissions simply rising straight up from the smokestacks instead of leaning one direction with the wind. The yellow, nitrous oxide haze, which likely contains other not-so-healthy substances, seems like it is settling right around the plant, instead of being carried away with the winds. This colored haze is typically seen blowing away from the plant. When you're actually in or beneath the haze you don't really notice it visually, but from a distance, as you look through its depth and compare it with the "normal" sky, it's quite obvious.