The only other machine of this scale I’ve seen up close was in Kuwait - an oil refinery the size of Manhattan and lit up twice as bright.  In Iskandariyah, sixty percent of Iraq’s electricity is churned into existence at the Korean power plant, a complex of thundering smokestacks and shrieking rusted pipes 25 miles south of Baghdad along the Euphrates River.

Built in the 1980s, bombed to rubble in 1991, rebuilt 10 years later and still limping along like the old Hyundai motor that it is.  Though it will burn pretty much anything you feed it, the plant currently burns raw crude, pumped straight out of the country’s south and trucked up in bullet-riddled tankers to the monster’s gaping maw.

In the control room, a galaxy of blinking, bleeping meters relay information to the blue-suited Iraqi technicians, but very little can actually be controlled from this room.  To make any substantial adjustments to the creature’s temperament takes wrenches and ropes, fire and oil and surely blood.  They say the steam can leak out of the pipes so hot you can’t see it, and so fast it will slice you apart like a light saber.

Outside, the unrefined oil is thick on the ground, built up along the curbs and covering every door handle and light switch.  The lazy green river cools the great screaming turbines, and the carp and catfish gather above the warm outflow pipes.