I’m on an email list that caters to the geeky and to engineering. This story hit my inbox over the weekend, but was written about 15 years ago, and was given the title “Engineering Pornography”. But it’s not what you think. This is about a massive engineering problem, solved in a beautifully elegant way.

If I still have your attention, here’s a highlight to whet your appetite:

Several days ago a very large number of trucks and men from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power descended on my neighborhood. They removed large sections of Pershing drive to a depth of 15 feet or so over a stretch of about a city block. I assumed they had a problem with a water main or something.

When they started building semi-permanent structures over the holes I knew something really big was up. When the large trucks full of strange power tools, mega-welding machines, breathing equipment, and racks of test equipment came I started wondering. Driving by a couple nights ago (11 PM), I noticed that the pace hadn’t slowed – they were at it 24 hours a day.

My curiosity got the best of me yesterday when they brought in the giant tanks full of liquid nitrogen. LN-2 for the DWP? I parked my car and played the lookie loo.

Fascinating.