Why New York Is Powered By Steam - NYC Revealed
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 มี.ค. 2022
- Many don't know it, but New York is a city that runs on steam. 27 billion pounds of it per year, in fact. It's one of the few cities that relies on the old, but reliable, technology to heat some of its most famous buildings.
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This is the last episode for this season of NYC Revealed. You can watch all episodes in their entirety on CuriosityStream Thanks SO MUCH for watching!
I love curiosity stream, thanks guys
Do Los angles next
Why did this season mainly focus on Manhattan? There are four other boroughs in New York City.
sad there is no more for this series
Glad to see the old' in-house Discovery TV host/voice actor is still getting work in this post-TV world we live in! Way to go dude!
Yes! I've missed his voice.
dangg, no wonder he sounds so familiar!
Waa
I remember his voice from How it's made?
What is his name?
Honestly I’ve lived in NYC my whole life and didn’t realize how big steam was. Of course I’ve seen the smokestacks all over but I never really questioned the origins of the steam or what it’s purpose was other than to be vented into the street lol
ive lived here, not as long as you, but i always just accepted steam everywhere lol without understanding it, but being curious of course as to where it came from and why
Failure if the education. Should have learned in the history of the state and the city in elementary and middle school.
Yeah, after a while you stop questioning where it's been used for. Figured it would had to do with their subway system and didnt give it much thought after. Whenever I seee a movie taking place in NY, you just see the steam, unlike any other city I know, coming from every other block. Is it actual warm in the winter when you'd stand on it?
@@nlx78 my mom that grew up in the city just told me "its the vents for the subway" and that was the end of it. i just assumed that all the brakes on the trains made that much heat that it turned into steam and kept the subways warm
Lolll… keep on just not questioning things … see where that gets ya… just blindly lead around like cattle
True innovating idea to use steam for all those buildings as it can be very versatile. Saves space from needing appliances to create their own heating and any leaks will just leave water.
Yeah… but i dont think its very efficiënt
@@hansklok3564 it's not. Simple hot water is far more efficient.
@@mendonesiac I was thinking about that for the whole time. Glad to know it's true
Sure, back at the time when the alternative was coal. But today?
This system is EXTREMEMLY inefficient by todays standards. From an energy perspective it's a literal nightmare. Thousand hundred of miles of pipe, all super hot, just leak heat, and actual leaks of steam is energy pouring down a drain.
When he said he expected his company to keep going for another 100 years I cringed.
The couple at 1:31 looks like they're from the 90s
“NYC is powered by Steam”
Gaben will be pleased. 😁
Stream, controlled by Valve
as someone with engineering degrees i love this nyc series
well done
What the difference between a vegan and an engineer? You don't need to ask, they will tell you! 😂
@@MaximeBrochu lmao, I was thinking the same thing.
How does steam cool buildings? Also, how does propane cool RVs?
@@MaximeBrochu Don't you mean the similarity between them?
I've never realized New York is such a steampunk city.
New York City native here I use a steam stacks in order to tell the weather for today. If there's high pressure in the area then the steam will funnel up wards. If there is low pressure then the steam will lazily exit the stock and disperse closer to the ground
I see where your going with this …. But it’s mainly winds and humidity/temp… not barometric pressure
@@tjlovesrachel Which are both influenced by pressure. But I know u can't really seperate them. If we're more so focused on the form the fluids are taking though the main variable is pressure
Although I'm a born and (partly) bred New Yorker, I think what's just as impressive is how industrial London was powered hydrolically (cranes, lifts (elevators) etc) it was all powered by water pressure and gravity.
This is quite interesting-I have seen steam-powered shovels and pile drivers on construction sites in Manhattan as late as the early 1980s. I've seen a steam-powered dredge in the Hudson in the early 1990s. I used to be a boiler inspector in New York State and the vast majority of boilers used for building heat are steam boilers. A hot water boiler is fairly rare. I now live in Toronto, Canada and here the vast majority of heating boilers are hot water systems. Here, steam is mainly used in industry and rarely for building heating.
There are central heating plants here that send steam to downtown office buildings and condos but in those buildings the steam goes through heat exchangers where it heats hot water which is what is used for heating. There is also deep-lake cooling where cold water from Lake Ontario, where it is taken in from one mile out and is 34 degrees year round is used for building cooling. The discharge is then sent to the potable water plants.
Ajax, Ontario has a central steam heating system as that's where all the munition plants were during WW2 and having boilers in these plants would be quite dangerous. This system is still in use but on a much reduced basis from the 1940s.
looking for your thoughts on this. I did a massive project job at a the Cliff Central cooling plant in Ottawa like 11 years ago. Re tubing chillers and stuff. One of the of the plant engineers there told me that they use High Temp High Pressure water. I asked why not steam, he said its because it needs to be really high pressure and high temperature to keep it from condensing in the pipes. Where as the high temp high pres water has such a high thermal mass as water, plus you don't need steam traps in the buildings which makes for a more reliable system. Just wondering if that was true and if you have an opinion on it.
Montreal has a small district heating system downtown, but I don't know if it's steam or hot water.
@@tylersmith1756 I have never been in a plant like that so I really can't advise on it. My boss may well have so I will ask him about it on Monday.
My cousin and I walked through 59th Street along 5th Avenue, and she avoided the steam and was upset that I lured her to it. She thought that it was dirty smoke. And I had to explain to her that it’s just steam - nothing to worry about as it is water vapor. It smells bad? It just smells like boiling water. That’s it. Completely harmless. We’re literally breathing in a lot of particulate matter coming out of exhaust pipes from cars and it builds up inside our lungs, now that’s harmful. Remember, steam is just water.
Just think of it as a free humidifier for the streets. It brings down dust and moisturizes the dry air.
cool stuff. the city of hartford connecticut runs on steam. ask the hartford steam boiler company and the hartford steam boiler insurance company. and steam produced by combustion of natural gas from the connecticut natural gas company and water from the reservoirs of water from mdc metropolitan district commision (a water commission here.
thanks for the knowledge. have a good dad and with the grace of god and good deeds a better tomorrow.
dont you think it is contradictary to say that the steam is "just water" and "completely harmless" ANNND that it "brings down dust" ... how does that work. it just disappears into another dimension and stays pure water?
@@byloyuripka9624 pure steam is clear to white. and the main ingredient is clean distilled water. and is tasteless and good..but if you add minerals it gathers tastes color toxicity and smells. in new york it is hard to keep steam smelling good.
if you go to a steam cleaning /laundry service you might be able to smell clean steam. new york city steam stinks. steam is piped though iron/steel pipes and what does iron and steel do is rust and this contaminates the steam with iron atoms that smell like iron or a rusty smell. only way around it is to use stainless steel. not sure it works correctly but in theory it should work.
@@byloyuripka9624 further clarification about water from a person named waterschoot. ice) and a gas (water vapor). steam is hot water under pressure. look at olde faithful a geyser in yellowstone natural park
the steam looks white but how clean i do not know. in winter the heat from the geyser melts snow (frozen water) for wild life to drink snow is usually white and the.snowflake is a clear ice crystal if clean.
Adsorbtion cooling made it all feasible.
The winter demand for heating made the whole system near idle during summer. So however inefficient, the airco demand filled up that hole for the show completely.
10:19 “very clean.. methane” 😂😂
plants producing Stem are West 59th street, east 74th Street,east 59th street under 59th street bridge, east river station 14th st,Hudson ave station Brooklyn,Ravenswood station in Queensalso the Woolworth bldg in lower manhattan!!!I worked in all of them! as a Welder and Mechanic!
I also worked in these places..
Great video but please lower the music volume in the audio mix. The music is often overpowering and makes it really difficult to hear dialogue properly.
The cool thing is that you can actually use this for air conditioning as well. Steamjet air conditioning was fairly common in large buildings in New York, high pressure steam was used to draw a vacuum and this vacuum lowered the pressure inside an aeration chamber that would quickly lower the boiling point a bit and this evaporation happened much quicker which would cool the water and the chilled water was pumped throughout the building through the radiators.
Here is an insane idea, build a nuclear power plant underground and pipe the steam that comes out (at least a good chunk of it). You get clean energy and the by-product is steam
There is a reason Nuke plant water gets treated first.
What's the difference between that and a plant that's on the ground?
That would be preferable to other fuel sources, but after the heat source, from the turbine onwards, it’s the same process.
I think for now we should focus on decommissioning coal plants, we can think about gas later. Even for a gas plant, this is doubly efficient, using its heat loss productively so it would be even further down in the list of carbon intensive infrastructure.
@@smallbeans101 because it makes it easier to pipe the steam since it goes up. I am not an expert but it might be possible to build it on the ground.
I used to work on pressure reduction stations in the buildings, and the heat exchangers. The noises they make are frightening if you don’t know what’s normal and what isn’t. Some of the heat exchangers look like huge submarines.
I thought this was an April Fools joke. I was like, “damn, you guys put a lot of effort into this”.
I thought the same thing! I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable person, when I clicked on this video I was like "well duh, of course they're powered by steam that's where most electricity comes from". Then I realized that's not what they meant. Then I thought oh ok, this is an April fool's joke. Nope! I had NO IDEA steam in NYC is piped to buildings like any other utility. Crazy!
Naw lmao its real. Im a New Yorker and ConEd sends me the steam bill every month. Its real I swear
Low-cost infrastructure allowing for a better quality of life. Nice.
@@soulseer5 your profile pic disturbs me
Salute to 638 Steamfitters. The steam pipe doctors
And some people think plumbers just snake toilets all day and don’t realize how vast our trade really is.
Out of all the times I went to New York I’m surprised I never noticed all the steam
You guys do really great videos. Nice one!
Never been this early in a Cheddar video before.
Whoppee!
Me ether
Plot Twist: That’s the underground steam vents for the underground railway for Thomas and Gang.
Why do I feel like I already watched this video? Even though it just came out, dejavu
maybe this? th-cam.com/video/QRKzA8JlYBU/w-d-xo.html
Familiar format
these guys were the first steam punks. good job keeping NY warm and well lit.
Does anyone happen to know the song that starts playing at 4:15? That funky, upbeat, Acid Jazz sound makes me want to get down on the dance floor.
Hmm informative video but I can't help but feel like this video sounds like one of those they show you when you join the company.
New York is truly an amazing city. I've had the fortune of visiting it quite a few times throughout my life. I love this series/partnership.
You call visiting new York a fortune? Lmao, I hate it here.
I wonder if they return condensate back to the steam plants. That would affect overall system efficiency.
Unfortunately, they do not. I work at one of the plants featured in this video.
@@ninevoltromeo that's surprising, does the condensate just drain somewhere?
In coordination with the city Could certain areas attach devices to the steam lines with mini turbine type generators and run some additional electrical power for small areas or some modified version of this?
If it would work like that it woul have been done like that. So no
Copper cables are much cheaper.
Very interesting. What I find very interesting is the fact that the steam is clean. If it wasn't, then the steam pipes and end-applications would corrode from the inside. And that would get very, very expensive to maintain.
So what do they do with the steam after the energy is released and it returns to water form? That would be very pure water. Do they just flush it down the storm drains? Do they send it back to the steam plant? It seems such as waste to have distilled water only to throw it away.
It would seem to me that it would be far more efficient to have a closed loop system with a pure coolant, like how a nuclear reactor works. They would have to introduce new pure water to compensate for leakage loss and steam cleaning applications.
I was wondering the same thing. Once the steam is condensed into a liquid it still contains a lot of heat (making it easier to boil than tap water). Is it pumped back to the plant to be converted to steam again or does that hot water just go down the drain?
the steam goes through a steam trap which basically just separates steam from water. The water would then be pumped back to the main plant, reheated back to steam and used again. Water makeup is always needed as you are going to have leaks in the system. but the water is just in a loop. Open ended systems probably still exist, but i would bet their are rare and in the process of being phased out.
it gets dumped down the drain.. NYC does not have a condensate return system.... they should but they dont.
It seems wasteful, but I imagine that a pumped condensate return system for a system the size of NYC would be way more complicated than just pushing steam through pipes. Especially since condensate is corrosive, so you need to add chemicals to the steam which means you can't use it for things like humidification. That plus all the pumps you would need would be a ton of effort to maintain.
@@kelvarnsen this, is probably the main reason.
When I visited NYC for the first time last summer, I was really confused as about these Pipes and the steam that was coming out of it. You can even see my reaction in my first NYC video.
After thinking about i guessed correctly that it was about heating, but only this video gave me the answer as to why they release steam on the street
they don't intentionally release it, those are leaks or on cold days the evaporation of the hot pipes / rain water hitting the pipes and evaporating.
Detroit also has a steam system serving the downtown area. 2nd City Detroit had a review called “Detroit…Steam Cleaning While You Walk” in 1994.
"Why is there smoke coming out of your city, New York?"
"That isn't smoke. That's steam, steam from the steam power we're having. Mmmm steam power!"
What's the cost per month to heat and cool vs Electric ?
I think the percentage of new york city that is getting that steam is well under 5% of the city and probably less then 1% of people live in buildings heated by central steam ( New York City is much more than just the island of Manhattan which has less then 25% of the population after all ) . Its a hard thing to say the city is powered by it given how few people and buildings are actually heated by central steam
Underrated comment
Not that many buildings are served by steam, but the largest buildings all are. So it’s hard to know exact numbers, but just going by connected buildings is a bit misleading
You are probably right … and it’s only Manhattan that’s it
Would it be more accurate to say that Manhattan is thermally powered by steam?
@@dadanifit no , most of it is powered by hydro , nuclear and coal . a small area has some buildings getting steam for HVAC
thought you guys already did a video on this.
Right! We did an overview last year but this year we got some pretty cool access we wanted to share.
@@cheddar Thanks or the insight and hope that you all have a good day!
Is this the "How It's Made" voice??
Haha it is not! Very similar though.
Thanks Gabe
1:56 that laugh 😂
Why steam and not hot water? Do you superheat it? I've never heard of steam being used for district heating before.
My guess is water would need a lot of pumps to move up buildings.
@@Gonzo13eth Wait, so they run the steam right into radiators and boilers? Isn't it a bit dangerous to have steam right inside your home? I figured they only lead steam into a local substation, heat up water there and then distribute it through the building.
My boiler once exploded due to a faulty regulator, and not only did it ruin all of the bathroom cabinets with a limited amount of steam but I couldn't go inside to cut the valve for at least 30 seconds.
It's like you guys didn't even watch the video.
@@velikiradojica yep, the Steam condenses into hot water in the actual radiators. Old apartment buildings in New York are famous for radiator knocking instead of just hearing a quietwhoosh as the water gets pumped. It is indeed to avoid using pumps, because of how old the system is. Because the radiators are designed for steam, even if a building disconnects from the conEd steam to use a boiler in the basement, it still provides similar steam instead of just hot water.
@@DJRenee tell me Suzie where did they answer my questions in the video?
they should retrofit nuclear reactors into the cogenerating plants, free steam from the cooling system
you have to also set up a storage facility for spent fuel and that's a major hurdle.
The mixing of music vs. voiceover is really weird, especially around 06:03 to 06:26. Why turn up the music so loud at 06:16? I had to listen to it a couple of times, and when I still couldn't hear what the Con Edison-guy is saying, I was saved by the auto-generated captions.
Also, I find it so strange that New York is touting how clean and efficient it is to use steam for everything, but it's generated through burning gas... And the steam stacks that release all of that steam throughout the city seems so incredibly wasteful to me. The city in Europe that I live in uses hot water for heating and hot water, but it's not generated with any fossil fuels, and we don't dump it on the sidewalks (but we do have some heated sidewalks during the wintertime).
How do you get cooling from steam?
They use a steam jet to pull a vacuum on a closed water loop. This causes some of the water to evaporate and chill the water. The steam and evaporated water is then sent to a condenser to expel the heat. And the chilled water is sent to areas that need cooling.
@@kaymish6178 So they're running a heat engine on the steam coming out of another heat engine?
@@beback_ not really, it's an application of Bernoulli's principle and evaporative cooling. There's no engine involved except maybe to circulate the water. The most complicated device is the steam ejector used to pull the vacuum and that's really just a couple of pipes, 2 cones, and a steam jet.
@@kaymish6178 But the steam is doing mechanical work, isn't it?
@@beback_ OK I see what you mean, yes the steam is doing mechanical work by sucking the air/water vapour out of the loop.
It would be cool if they could utilise the 'residual' or 'surplus' steam to heat up a large tropical glasshouse
huh, I thought those things were for redirecting hot air away from the street level so it doesn't block ppl and cars' views. I didn't know it was steam, I thought it was just really hot air that just looked like that because of the cold air (I've only seen them in the winter).
Sometimes that steam leaks into other conduits underground and cooks the wires inside. Copper and fiber optic lines dont play nice with steam
Makes me proud to work at Con Edison and support its mission.
Then can you tell your company to just like update to water based DH system already ? thanks
Wow! Blown away by this. Had no idea about this. Thank you. Great video.
Super interesting glad I clicked
So can you turn salt water into fresh water with some adjustments?
How much asbestos gets into the pipes from the asbestos insulation, and how much asbestos is distributed from the vents and steam pipe bursts that are so common in NY?
I'm not too certain but I think it's just the asbestos dust that's harmful to our lungs, and the dust won't be carried out with the steam. As far as I know asbestos is only harmful if it's exposed and deteriorating or if it's being handled.
@@Progan666 The pipes burst with enormous pressure, I can't imagine how NY isn't littered with asbestos. There was one article about this happening but I fear it's highly underreported, instead it's shown as a cute quirk of a cosmopolitan city.
@@RoboticusMusic nyc is littered with asbestos. We're still chewing on asbestos from the World Trade Center.
Is it adequately protected from toxic chemicals or other materials being introduced? ב''ה
Ima let anyone outside of nyc watching this. Nyc housing heat works off this steam and in the winter it's amazing but dangerous for dry skin lol
Are these the same buildings our Dept of Energy wants to heat with heat pumps?
I'm surprised to see that only half of the steam plants generate electricity before the steam goes to customers. Might as well take advantage of the high pressure steam
That music was so bangin
Can't get enough of narrator's voice
How does Con Edison know what to charge ? Unlike electricity where a meter is used what do you use to measure how much steam is used ?
7:43 those things with the LCD screens are steam meters. I believe there's a turbine mounted inline with the service pipe that measures volume (like a large gas meter) and that's integrated over time on the computers in Mlbs (1000lb of steam). I've also seen older, smaller buildings where it's just a mechanical meter mounted right onto the pipe, but it does basically the same thing.
pounds and gallons... nice video but I didn't understand anything 😂
"Why New York Is Powered By Steam"
Welp, time to put on my top hat with brass goggles OVER the brim. It'll go nicely with my pocket watch that has extra gears on the OUTSIDE for some reason.
Steam Punk, ain't ya?
Just a note to production: audio is terrible, the music drowns out the dialog.
Guys, the music is too loud in some parts.
I used to wonder about steam in some movies about Newyork
Poor guy in the green hat couldn’t get a word in! Lol
Does the water get re-used or is it all boiled off and released?
This question was answered in the video.
Next do Chicago's Chilled water line
As a boiler operator steam is not going away anytime time soon and is going to be here for a long...long time. It's the heat source that needs to change and the answer is nuclear ☢️
how does the steam-based air conditioning work on a thermo-mechanical level?
My guess is they use the steam to turn the compressor of the AC loop. VERY inefficient and wasteful.
My guess is they mechanically condense the steam into a cold liquid.
@@slowanddeliberate6893 Possible, but doubtful it's used again for efficiency reasons. Steam jet cool was something from the 1930s: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_jet_cooling
I remember the stacks never was there it was just coming from the ground 😏👌🏽
Didn’t you upload this already?
I wanna see those steam machines get powered by renewable energy
Iceland does that or something similar with geothermal.
With wind and PV panels this wouldn't make sense since they generate electricity directly.
Maybe concentrated solar could work?
soundtrack at @4:04?
Found it. Le Chat Noir
Just as interesting as when you released this same video last year
Con-ed acts like this is such an amazing system that's reliable and safe. The reality is, is extremely dangerous and the system is more than a century old in desperate need of an upgrade. The entire infrastructure in Manhattan is old and run down and con Ed refuses to spend the money to fix it. They even tried to sell Manhattan to national Grid for $1. Yes that's right ONE DOLLAR. And national Grid refused. That's how bad the entire infrastructure is. Not just steam, the gas and electric. There's always an explosion or failure somewhere. How con Ed is still licensed to operate is beyond me.
Wasn't there a game or a movie where the city had steam pipes everywhere?
I was hoping there would be more discussion about the efficiency of cogeneration
Just subscribed to you guys, just seen this on TV about the steam is UNBELIEVABLE amazing😱
Sure, burning natural gas is better than coal, but the steam produced that way still isn't "sustainable" anyway.
Power2Heat with renewable energy, geothermal... That's sustainable.
most gas power plants just waste the steam. this system is far better than most.
@@Progan666 Cogeneration is better than running a gas turbine for electricity or burning fuel for heat. I fully agree, but that wasn't my point. Burning natural gas in cogeneration still isn't sustainable - it's just better.
The temp of this SuperheatedSteam is 0ver 700 degrees!
Milwaukee uses steam too
Wow I never thought I'd be in a steamy internet video
Hol F... S...!!!
When I saw those things in TV I always thought it was some sort of sewage cleaning. The outlets look all like they are temporary "construction work" after all!
Well, they are, right? Looking at you, date.
I love steam. Milwaukee's east side from Marquette University to Lake Michigan is on a steam grid. There is nothing better than radiant heat on a cold midwestern day.
Do Manhattaners have a steam bill then?
Still a good video, but this feels more like every generic video we've seen over the past ten years. I really prefer the other style we've come to expect from Cheddar.
Can/do some buildings take supplied steam and generate electricity on-site?
I wonder if they can apply this in the coldest city on the planet?!. YAKUTIA in Russia
@11:05 - That man needs to clean up his Windows Desktop.
Ha you almost got me but I ain't falling for this April fools joke.
This isn't a joke. They use a similar system on LSU campus in Baton Rouge, LA.
@@DJRenee No way, they said they use steam for cooling. That makes no sense whatsover.
@@michaelbrules It’s actually really interesting science if you want to look it up. The steam powers the compressor rather than an electric motor. It’s separate from the refrigerant loop
I know that since I watched Bone Collector:)
How can burning gas for steam to heat buildings be sustainable?
Steam can never be sustainably produced, you always have to burn something to get it. Carbon capture seems like an afterthought...
New York City really seems like one of the coolest and most unique cities in the world, I hope to visit it one day.
1:50 SEN4 handstyle
The source of steam is water, is it suistainable in terms of source if it is normal drinking water?
The water has to be purified water. This was explained in the video.
@@DJRenee thanks for the reply. I meant the sustainability of water as a source for steam. Large volumes of water overall going to waste
@@kq7739 most of it condenses back into the system, only a little bit leaks or is vented due to pressure.
"When you maintain... you have to maintain it"? Oh, boy, was that some "DEEP" commentary!
First! I love that Basically everything in New York is powered by steam.
A lot of cities in Europe use steam power, especially in old soviet countries.
This is such a sci-fi-esque system, certainly not something an entire city could run off of - so incredibly inefficient to transfer hot fluids over vast distances - yet here we are.
It's a cool idea, but has very obvious flaws
certainly feels steampunk-like.
Nah. Made up by the number of people whp use this utility beyond heating.
you really know nothing about high power steam if you think its a liquid lmao. bet you didnt even know steam can be dry
@@bobymo101 I didn't say it was a liquid - I said it was a fluid.
I think when the city is packed like Manhattan is, loss is not too bad.