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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
@@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
Long after it closed I worked in Battersea power station London. When it was built to pacify the locals they agreed to send steam after it generated the electricity, under the Thames into buildings for heat and hot water. The company failed to see the power plant would close and need up having to install steam generationers to fulfil the contracts. It was really interesting t walk into a ruin as vast as that is and find one area still working
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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!
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
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
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.
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 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.
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
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
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.
Your giving false information about the purpose of the orange striped stacks. The stacks direct steam up from street level, the steam isn’t leaking at all, in fact the super-heated steam pipes are very hot and when ground water comes in contact with the hot pipes it flashes into steam. So the leaking steam isn’t really leaking at all. Ground water isn’t treated and may contain impurities and that’s why it might smell different. You should check your story and spend a little time reading “Lost art of steam heating “ by Dan Holohan.
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
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).
"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.
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...
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.
@@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.
nOwHeRe oN eArTh... bro, like all Eastern Europe has been this exact same thing for like 70+ years, not just big cities but even some villages and small towns... 😅
@@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.
@@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.
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).
Those tubes are only used in the winter when it's cold to keep the steam clouds above the traffic. In the warmer months it's not a problem and the tubes are removed.
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 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.
@@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
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?
Unburned. One C coming from methane and one coming from coal still makes only one CO2. Anyway, I think he meaned clean as the opposite of dirty, not of climate friendly.
Methane burns more efficiently than coal, with both reduced carbon emissions and pollution. Google is your friend. "Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide ", you seem to be confused. They are burning methane, not producing methane...
gmethane burns cleaner than coal or oil products in terms of soot and nitrous oxides, and it produces less CO2 than coal per unit of heat produced because a large part of the heat from burning methane is produced by converting the hydrogen in the methane into water, not just from converting the carbon in the methane into carbon dioxide. but yes, depending on how much methane you release unburnt, using methane could be even worse for the climate than using coal.
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.
@@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.
How does cheddar always find the absolute worst humans to interview? The fact anyone over the age of 5 would thank that steam was a result of underground water vapor or a natural gas pipe just spewing toxic gasses out in the middle of the nations largest city makes me sad.
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.
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?
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
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
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?
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
I've never realized New York is such a steampunk city.
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.
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.
That’s what an absorption chiller essentially does.
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.
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
Long after it closed I worked in Battersea power station London. When it was built to pacify the locals they agreed to send steam after it generated the electricity, under the Thames into buildings for heat and hot water. The company failed to see the power plant would close and need up having to install steam generationers to fulfil the contracts. It was really interesting t walk into a ruin as vast as that is and find one area still working
10:19 “very clean.. methane” 😂😂
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
You guys do really great videos. Nice one!
Out of all the times I went to New York I’m surprised I never noticed all the steam
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.
these guys were the first steam punks. good job keeping NY warm and well lit.
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.
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.
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.
"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!"
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 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
Is this the "How It's Made" voice??
Haha it is not! Very similar though.
It would be cool if they could utilise the 'residual' or 'surplus' steam to heat up a large tropical glasshouse
Can't get enough of narrator's voice
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?
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
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
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
Your giving false information about the purpose of the orange striped stacks.
The stacks direct steam up from street level, the steam isn’t leaking at all, in fact the super-heated steam pipes are very hot and when ground water comes in contact with the hot pipes it flashes into steam. So the leaking steam isn’t really leaking at all.
Ground water isn’t treated and may contain impurities and that’s why it might smell different.
You should check your story and spend a little time reading “Lost art of steam heating “ by Dan Holohan.
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.
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
I love to photograph those steam pipes and the steam itself creates a very atmospheric vibes on nyc
That music was so bangin
Next do Chicago's Chilled water line
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).
I used to wonder about steam in some movies about Newyork
"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?
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...
Thanks Gabe
Wow! Blown away by this. Had no idea about this. Thank you. Great video.
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.
nOwHeRe oN eArTh... bro, like all Eastern Europe has been this exact same thing for like 70+ years, not just big cities but even some villages and small towns... 😅
Wow I never thought I'd be in a steamy internet video
1:56 that laugh 😂
Just as interesting as when you released this same video last year
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?
New York City really seems like one of the coolest and most unique cities in the world, I hope to visit it one day.
Super interesting glad I clicked
Guys, the music is too loud in some parts.
pounds and gallons... nice video but I didn't understand anything 😂
Those are a lot of leaks they got there.
Wasn't there a game or a movie where the city had steam pipes everywhere?
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).
Those tubes are only used in the winter when it's cold to keep the steam clouds above the traffic. In the warmer months it's not a problem and the tubes are removed.
Or they are working on this site?
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 ☢️
First! I love that Basically everything in New York is powered by steam.
I remember the stacks never was there it was just coming from the ground 😏👌🏽
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.
Poor guy in the green hat couldn’t get a word in! Lol
Just a note to production: audio is terrible, the music drowns out the dialog.
"When you maintain... you have to maintain it"? Oh, boy, was that some "DEEP" commentary!
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 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?
Why the awful background music
Gas isnt actually cleaner than coal.
Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide
Unburned.
One C coming from methane and one coming from coal still makes only one CO2.
Anyway, I think he meaned clean as the opposite of dirty, not of climate friendly.
They dont offer methane credits for a reason
Methane burns more efficiently than coal, with both reduced carbon emissions and pollution. Google is your friend. "Methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide
", you seem to be confused. They are burning methane, not producing methane...
gmethane burns cleaner than coal or oil products in terms of soot and nitrous oxides, and it produces less CO2 than coal per unit of heat produced because a large part of the heat from burning methane is produced by converting the hydrogen in the methane into water, not just from converting the carbon in the methane into carbon dioxide.
but yes, depending on how much methane you release unburnt, using methane could be even worse for the climate than using coal.
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.
OMG IT'S THE MAN FROM HOW IT'S MADE... YESSSSSSS THAT'S SUCH A TROW BACK!
I thought it was too but they replied that it's someone else
I was hoping there would be more discussion about the efficiency of cogeneration
How does cheddar always find the absolute worst humans to interview? The fact anyone over the age of 5 would thank that steam was a result of underground water vapor or a natural gas pipe just spewing toxic gasses out in the middle of the nations largest city makes me sad.
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.
A lot of cities in Europe use steam power, especially in old soviet countries.
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.
Just subscribed to you guys, just seen this on TV about the steam is UNBELIEVABLE amazing😱
@11:05 - That man needs to clean up his Windows Desktop.
Get with the joneses. What a waste of water.
I mean cool, except I live in a country were 64%+ of the country has district heating using hot water.
The temp of this SuperheatedSteam is 0ver 700 degrees!
Geothermal FTW
Are these the same buildings our Dept of Energy wants to heat with heat pumps?
Wonderful video. Amazing how many people, including locals, don't know what's going on.
So can you turn salt water into fresh water with some adjustments?
What's the cost per month to heat and cool vs Electric ?
Milwaukee uses steam too
This is why Manhattan is sweltering in the summer. All those steam pipes under the streets. Heat rises.
There is nothing to absorb the heat. No trees, grass, all the natural things.