Outside Facebook HQ
Eighty percent of the San Francisco Bay Area wetlands - 16,500 acres - has been developed for salt mining. Water is channeled into these large ponds, leave through evaporation, and the salt is then collected. The tint of each pond is an indication of its salinity. Micro-organisms inside the pond change color according to the salinity of its environment. This high salinity salt pond is located right next to Facebook HQ where ~4,000 people work every day.
This photo won second prize for the for the . National Geographic Photographer of the Year Award - in the environmental issues category.
Black Friday
The Port of Los Angeles is the largest freight system in the U.S. and this is arguably their biggest day of the year - Black Friday. This port alone moves a staggering 1.2 billion dollars worth of goods each day and employs 896,000 people. In this photograph, you can get a real sense of movement from both the railway line exiting to the left and the trucking line exiting to the right.
Sun Power
This is a section of the largest corporate solar installation in all of California when it was first built in 2005. All of this power feeds directly into the FedEx West Coast hub located in the Oakland International Airport, which processes 100,000 pounds of packages daily.
Self Distributed Cars
Pictured is a very tiny section of roughly 300,000+ cars waiting to be distributed all over the Western Coast of the United States. These patterns decorate 168 acres of land in Los Angeles.
Petabytes of Storage
Although we sometimes forget, oil powers the overwhelming majority of our country's energy needs. This particular oil refinery is just 5 minutes away from where I grew up, and I was unable to really appreciate its massive scale before. Each of these storage tanks below has the capacity to hold an incredible 2,000,000 litres of refined oil.
Containerization
Standard containers are the defining symbol of globalization. It was these containers that first allowed products to move from origin, water, and land - to your doorstep.
Salt Veins
Alvisio Salt Ponds
Last Mile Distribution
Products from containers end up in distribution centers where goods are held in inventory, packaged, and then delivered to the doorstep. This particular distribution center is built by Prologis who owns and operates 3,000 distribution facilities around the world.
Self Distributed Cars
Pictured is a very tiny section of roughly 300,000+ cars waiting to be distributed all over the Western Coast of the United States. These patterns decorate 168 acres of land in Los Angeles.
Building Blocks - Los Angeles
Standard containers are the building blocks of globalization. It was these containers that allow products to move from origin, water, and land - to your doorstep.
Building Blocks - Oakland
Standard containers are the building blocks of globalization. It was these containers which allow products to move from origin, water, and land - to your doorstep. To give some perspective on scale - each container on a cargo ship can contain up to 24 tons of product. All of this came off a ship which traveled from Xiamen, China to Oakland, California holding 197,849 gross tonnage of cargo.
