A City Shaped by Steam | Living City | The New York Times
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ต.ค. 2024
- With more than 100 miles of steam piping and nearly 2,000 buildings served, New York’s steam system is the largest in the world.
Produced by: Melanie Burford and Greg Moyer
Read the story here: nyti.ms/1ycaNts
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A City Shaped by Steam | Living City | The New York Times
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LOL I've always thought the image of steam filled dark alleys of NYC in movies were special effects.
Me too, actually! Like in the Blade Runner movies.
It's cool at night
When you visit NYC one day you’ll see its real, you feel like you’re in a film sometimes until you pass people arguing at each other on the sidewalk and cab drivers fighting (I’ve witnessed both)
The alleys are, not the steam.
In movies yes but many cities were based with steam
It was easier then to heat
Imagine if everyone need to store their firewood or coal
Born and raised in NYC and never knew why steam rose from underground.
Same, I always thought it was poop air from the sewer...
yeah nvr understood those steam.untill bow i used to think they are exhaust for subway heating
HEY IM WALKIN' OVA HEEEEERRRR
Garner Marshall I know this is old ASF but it's the same for me. Gotta love this City and State in it's totality. I recommend my City dwellers check out N.Y State in it's entirety. Beautiful to drive upstate in Spring and Fall.
I live faraway 10s of 1000s miles from New York city but we were introduced to NYC by comics and media 9/11 ofcourse and i always used to wonder even while playing GTA 4 why steam comes out of drains finally convinced myself that hot bathers in skyscrapers might have causing it😂
I didn't know what those steam vents were for until now, and I've been living in NYC for over 40 years!
Authorities in NYC are told to inform anyone that asks that it is the subway, although every major city has a subway and theirs doesn't release steam :D
We love you gaben, thanks for steam.
lol
Haha
I dont like how they failed to mention Gaben
Miniroll lol
Gaben didnt invent steam, are u stupid. Steam is water at high temprature. You need to do read some books fool.
As a kid (from England) I watched so many movies filmed in New York. I'd ask family, friends, "Why is steam coming up through the streets?"
Never got an answer...........until now. I thought it was just to create a scary atmosphere or something, like "I hear footsteps, what's beyond the steam?!"
Airgun Therapy Fred Dibnah wouldve known 🤙🏻
Sooo most of the films and shows you watched growing up most likely did not get filmed on location not sure if u new that, they were most likely filem in southern California specifically los angels, so they were movie props but still NYC is weird like that cant explain it I'm from LA myself so it's weird to see steam coming out of the streets never happens here
The irony is that it's to avoid having chimneys on the rooftops like you do in your part of the world. It was intended as a direct response to methods of urban heating in the Old World.
This explains SO MUCH about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
Now if you bothered to properly insulate buildings the heating cooling costs could drop by 80%
Good point, a lot of those older buildings probably have newspaper insulation.
We stayed in a friend's apartment in Brooklyn. The glass windows are not double plane like our apartment upstate.
@@ej_tech Does the US really still use single glass windows? In Germany triple glas is standard since more than 20 years and double glass is the lowest standard even in buildings not renovated for 50 years...
@@leonst99 Some of these buildings are well over 100 years old
@@samin90 ee are having houses that are hundreds ore sometimes over 1000 years old an they are well insulated, that's not a problem.
I love the fact that Steve loves steam. He's so excited to explain how it's all going down! I respect that.
Great video. As a retired Local 94 operating engineer I’ve worked with steam my entire career.
local 94 doesn't deal with steam local 30 does
local 94 huh, so you sat on your @ss for 20+ years until retirement.
Is there still asbestos in the steam pipes?
@@seanhicks8538 not true where did you hear that, Local 94 works w steam on a daily basis even if you don’t have a dual ticket
Fascinating. I did not know that steam was so integral to this city. Though I don't appreciate that they didn't explain what ConEd burns to gain the steam. Natural gas? Coal? Oil? Steam just doesn't magically appear out of the ground (unless you live on volcanic islands, like Iceland or Japan). And where are those emissions expelled? Near our neighborhoods? I would've liked to have known that tidbit.
The steam is made from waste heat in ConEd's electric cogeneration plants.
n0ckter yeah that’s what I was thinking wouldn’t it be far more efficient to generate steam on site but I understand it’s a by product
Tech Blogger ConEd uses wast heat from a power plant to make steam if they did not use that heat to make steam than ConEd would need large amounts of water to cool which would be river water or the city's own water supply going to a evaporative cooling tower and lost to the air.
Natural Gas.
@@farmerkevin - Yep, the natural gas powers a jet engine, the jet turns an electric generator, meanwhile the waste heat from the jet engine powers a boiler, the boiler can then either power a steam turbine that's attached to another generator, and the steam from that is used to heat buildings, or the turbine can be bypassed for repairs if need be.
lovely video. And all this time I wondered about the mysterious steam from NYC streets. Great work NYT
I am disappointed to see no mention of the vintage co-generation plants at Pratt University, which is a great example of how the technology NYU people mentioned was already utilized years ago. The Pratt plant is simply beautiful with its Victorian aesthetic.
Maybe because this is a video about the NYC Steam system and the Pratt plant is in Maryland? Cool wiki article so I'm glad you mentioned it lol.
@@seanclancy2587 I think @bartpa was referring to the Pratt Institute, which is in Brooklyn - www.atlasobscura.com/places/pratt-institute-engine-room
I love this series!!!!!! Keep up the good work NYT. :)
If this were posted on April 1, I'd think it was an April Fools Joke. Cool stuff; thanks for creating this and posting it! I guess I was unwittingly imagining the 'bizarro' universe the last guy mentioned, b/c I am shocked that this is a huge part of New York City.
pressurized steam is no joke, folks, and it is also extremely corrosive...
Everyone thinks of steam as the stuff you get out of your kettle it's, wet and will hurt you. But dry steam is another beast all together you can't see it and it will cut you half.
Long ago they decided to go this route to enhance New Yorker's self esteam.
Bad joke.
That joke doesn't hold any water at all.
1888
Niiiiiiiice
Surprised how many people didn't know this. I don't live in the city and I still knew about it. I've been to Washington DC and they have steam also. I've seen it rising from vents in the streets. It is however old and aging technology. It's only kept because it would be impossible to replace the entire system at this stage. NYC is too built up to replace hundreds of miles of steam piping.
A lot of people don't know a lot about a lot of things. And then they go and vote for AOC because she promotes inventing things that haven't been invented yet.
@@adamkendall997 AOC needs to run for president.
im not american but videos like this make me proud that im a steamfitter by trade.
Steam is what is part of Makes NYC so Cinematic especially at night
I have been to NYC many times since 1979 and here in 2018 this totally new to me. Wow!.
Feels like it stopped in the middle of the story.
the story doesn't have an ending :)
Very clever installation. Much more effective than every building having its own heating.
Every city in Denmark over 10.000 people or so have district heating using water instead of steam.
Getting it from burning our non recyclable rubbish makes the heating fairly cheap and saves us from dumps
All built by 638 steamfitter labor!!
Is it a pretty good union or is it garbage like most? I'm all for unions if they actually protect the worker and their job. Its hard for me to blindly trust any Union or Employer.
Labor is pretty solid here, so those guys due to their skills do well and are protected well.
Everytime I went to the city I always wondered why those steam pipes were there. I just thought they were heating the lines underground or just letting off extra steam. I still dont get why it just runs out like that and it isn't in a line concentrated. Why would it leak? Pressure relief?
100 years from now generations will look into this and say this system it's ridiculously outdated and inefficient.
Fascinating video. Many thanks 🙏🏼
As a steam fitter from California this is very cool. Its very impressive.
What an amazing system! Props to all the engineers and people inventing and working at it
So like steampunk without the corsets. Thanks for the video!
This is a great series on NY, thanks *****
Keep these videos coming
I had no idea there was such a thing as underground steam pipes for this purpose.
Always wondered why steam would come from underground in NY.
My grandpa is 92 and he always goes on about how steam is far superior to so many other options
This really steams me up!!!
Steam.exe stopped working. Steam needs to be online to update. Cannot restart Steam. *Sim-type game town dies.
AKA "New York Geyser".
I had never heard of a citywide steam system. Where else do they use these?
This is awesome!
TOO COOL!!
Wait so does New York have a bunch of small generators all around the city?
Yeah, it has small co gen units instead of running steam for miles and miles creating waterhammer they can have smaller runs and don't have to heat the steam as much.
Used to always wonder why. Was asking my Dad 6 months back about why New York has steam coming out of the roads. Now youtube recommends it. Better late than never!
Just an FYI to Con Edison, never install a polyethylene plastic gas main or service in the same area as a steam loop line. We unknowingly installed one in St Louis, Mo & the main melted as soon as a steamline developed a leak in the same proximity of the gas main. Fortunately nothing happened ( we were lucky ). I can assure you that polyethylene Main was switched over to a coated steel Main in a record time.
I like how the 2 accidents aren't accidents, they're "anomalies." They can't BOTH be unique. One is unique. Then another happened.
How come the source of energy for producing the steam in the first place was not mentioned once?
What is it?
usu15550 a by product from cooling off reactors that produce electricity.
It's natural gas. They mentioned cogen units. That's what powers them.
I always wondered why fight scenes inside building corridors in movies had steam pipes that would inevitable by broken and directed toward one of the parties.
Great video. Interesting.
The Times’s outtro music reminds me instantly of he theme from Inside Out every time
I'm so proud of the Human race watching this video.
I always wondered why you would see steam on videos or movies in NYC. I never knew there was a steam system like this.
Wow, I never knew there were cites out there that had steam being used as a utility, like water, electricity or gas! It seems like something out of a steam-punk game!
really fascinating!
Cleaner and greener..... but how is all that steam made? Coal? Oil?
Let's get some of the operators and engineers on here to answer real questions.
Why is steam so efficient?
How do you heat the water, into stream?
Where do you get the water?
What is steam hammer?
What precautions are taken to minimize potentially dangerous failure events in the future?
What pressures do your systems run at?
How hot is your steam, and why is it that hot?
Why does stream seem to vent from specific locations , continuously?
Details make the cake.
1) Because it would get wasted otherwise and it's still useful, 2) Boilers, by burning something 3) River probably 4) Look up "practical engineering" they have a video on this 5) Multiple-redundant safety features. Too complicated to answer simply 6) 200psi 7) Most steam systems run at the boiling point of water unless they're superheated this is just how steam works 8) Leaks or overflow. This is also a safety feature, excess steam is allowed to vent to prevent pressure build-up. But also because in general you're making more than you need, if you made less than you need you'd periodically have not enough because nothing is perfect and the load is going to cycle.
@@lemonsqueeZ96 I don't think you get the point
Steam has a high heating value. Also before natural gas was placed in the city, having one coal plant was a lot better then every building running their own.
Steam is heated under pressure in the superheater after it leaves the steam drum. This is where the steam is 'dried'.
The water comes from the Aqueduct, so it needs to be processed via an RO, or else you will scale the boiler.
The street pressure is around 200 psi I think.
It's probably around 300-400 degrees to carry the extra btus.
Steam vents because there is a steam trap that failed. It's likely waiting to be repaired during a shutdown.
Did not know this. Really interesting.
One of those steam lines broke in an office building back in 1972. It cooked 7 people alive.
True
Fascinating!
I still dont get it...why do we have the steam system? Is it used for heating?
Very interesting in our tiny city of 36k they used hot water in the winter if I am correct, btw I was only about 10 or so :) I still remember exploring those coal boilers to this day, what an adventure still smiling :)
Free energy? ! Not really. What do you burn to produce the heat for the steam or where does the electricity come from. Pure steam powerplants is sad to say only on Iceland.
DeadGoldBass, I object to you saying "They also eject a bit of co2 but that's almost nothing".
Burning wood is oxidizing coal, and the end product is always CO2, there is no escaping that. The cleaner the burn the more CO2 is produced (and less CO). There is no way to lower CO2 emissions from burning wood, unless you capture and confine it, which is not happening.
To stay carbon neutral your only hope is to burn wood that came from recently (less than 50 years) planted trees, and not ancient rain forest or redwood.
W N most poweplants today reuse the steam to preheat the water used by the poweplant
misium so ur saying we need to reclassify co2 as food to justify confining and feeding CO2 to school children
Kenneth Hermann in ecuador the steam feeds the generators that feed the turbines
Anthony Plaza one does not exclude the other as the preheating ain't really reliant on the pressure. You can even just use the condensed water to heat houses with directly instead of sending steam around
An unseen highpressure steam leak can cut your arm clean off
Did not know this was a thing thanks
Funny watching this after seeing there was a steam pipe explosion today.
where is the water coming from? Did they say?
The old photo's of Manhattan have incredible atmosphere
Strictly speaking, the white vapor isn't really steam. Actual steam is invisible.
But where does the power to generate that steam come from? And why is it always coming out of pipes from shady alleys?
What % of condensate is recovered now?
I was just thinking that!!! How much condensate is returned to the plant and how much make up water is required.
So in the building I work in we use the condensate to preheat our hot water by passing through a heat exchanger. Then the heated water goes through a hot water generator, using steam, that heats up your tap water. The condensate goes through a cooling tank, as required by law, before it is discharged into the sewer system. As far as I know, condensate is disposed of at the consumers point of use. ConEd doesn’t recover any of the condensate.
2:02 No wonder it's 90% humidity in the plant if they discharge steam inside. Would that be unintentional leaks? Why not discharge it outside?
It's condensate that goes to the trenches to be reused. By reusing it the efficiency goes way up. If they don't drain it then you get water hammer.
when water turns to steam it increases 1,700 times in volume. that's a ton of power. and it's just water vapor. I imagine the only reason there aren't more cities in the U.S. using steam is it would require its own infrastructure, and probably be insanely expensive to put in giant pipes underground as well as outfit buildings with everything necessary for steam. I noticed they said New York City was basically "built around steam"
Most have no idea what's under their feet.
Fantastic system ! Reminds me of the greatness of the USA ! In the future, all you have to do is make the steam in a completely sustainable way whilst retaining and improving the distribution network of pipes.
Fantastic is steam I know I worked in a chocolate factory once upon a time.
Combined heat and power phased out in London for air quality reasons - is there no pollution impact in NY?
Less of a impact then every building burning fossil fuel or electricity to heat and cool .
I never knew that steam was also necessary for a modern city
It's not necessary, but they keep using it. At least as long as electricity is generated by burning methane.
its scary how 4:56 looks almost identical to the world trade center collapse I remember people saying they thought it was another event
Rats: We use New York City steam to dig in trash cans
Ninja Turtles: We get our pizza from steam.
How do they generate all the steam? Where do they get the water and what's used to heat it?
wow i had no idea
The fact that it takes at least 7 minutes to explain the New York City steam system says a lot about this video.
@Blake Brown This video is 6:59 minutes long. It does very little to explain anything about the New York City steam system. It is a waste of time.
How do they get all of these people together for these stories? If I was making a documentary I wouldn't know where to start.
i always wondered why so much steam was coming out of the streets in nyc
The NYU cogeneration plants were interesting. On cold days does NYU generate more electricity than it can use to heat its building? Can it feed the excess electricity into the New York City grid?
But I don’t know why you need so much steam?
To heat all the city radiators/ air handler units.
Why do no other major cities do it at this level if its such a positive thing?
TheAntiEggroll Because it is outdated.
To go back and add steam now would be a nightmare but because it's already there it's a great thing to have
@@josch468 It wouldn't make sense to build a steam system today. Less and less of our energy is being produced by burning fossil fuels as the grid shifts towards renewable carbon free power sources (wind/hydro/solar/etc) NY uses it because it's been there forever. They'll continue to use it so long as they're burning fossil fuels to generate electricity for the city.
If steam is so efficient why haven’t I seen any new town or neighborhood implement this system ?
If you look at large hospitals or business parks, you will likely see steam. I work at the VA and we use steam for heating, and chilled water for cooling the entire campus. it all originates from one building and is piped to the rest, where it is fed into the air conditioning system at numerous points.
In Denmark and other Nordic countries we use hot water from powerplants and solar facilities.
They do! Large facilities such as stadiums,, hospitals and conference centers still use boilers for heating and energy transfer.
And every home has a hit water heater in it!
There are plenty of citys that use this type of steam system. The reason most places dont have it is because its expensive to implement and most of these systems were installed when the citys were in development.
I assume that if you live in a residential house or apartment in Manhattan, then there's a "steam meter" some where in the building? Like there is for other utilities like gas, water and electric?
Makes me wonder:
- what would it take to completely electrify NYC (e.g. no more steam)
- what would be gained, e.g. robustness? simplicity? cost reduction? etc
NYC is already fully electrified, as in all buildings have access to electricity. Getting rid of the steam system would require all the buildings currently using it to build new heating and cooling systems (hot water heaters and the like) that would be much more separated and likely less efficient. Not to mention, they would still have to burn natural gas and would probably be less clean in general. The steam system is not really outdated at all in terms of a centralized and efficient heating system.
Insulators covering that pipe 💪🏽
Never heard of steam being used in cities as a byproduct from power plants. The normal is to use water, not steam.
Where does New York get the oil for all the steam heat?
The main point of the steam is for radiator heat in the winter. I feel like they missed that.
So this is how you'd make a modern steampunk city....
I already have an outfit.
There are district heating networks in all cities in the Nordic countries but with hot water instead of steam. I guess you have that too in the US.
Watching because the IL cold weather is killing my skin haha.
Impressive
How is it produced?
Can we still make bagels? Sure. It's just a little steamy.
And when those pipes explode next to fiber optics....a double outage! :-)
He said they use steam for cooling... how?
I had no idea steam grids existed till thid video