Steampunk Lives

January 4, 2006 1:22 PM

Some 30 billion pounds of steam every year flow beneath the streets of Manhattan from the Battery to 96th Street. While it is unknown to most New Yorkers, Con Edison's subterranean steam system is the biggest steam district in the world, larger than the next four largest U.S. steam systems combined... And it's got a robot. [MI]
posted by ursus_comiter (45 comments total)

WISOR, the Welding and Inspection Steam Operations Robot, is also the subject of a film [embedded sound] directed by Michel Negroponte.
posted by ursus_comiter at 1:23 PM on January 4, 2006

posted by Espy Gillespie at 1:28 PM on January 4, 2006

That's not just a robot, it's a pig too!
posted by bonehead at 1:28 PM on January 4, 2006

Oh, and cool post.
posted by Espy Gillespie at 1:28 PM on January 4, 2006

This is incredibly cool. The robot reminds me of one of those machines from out of the Matrix.. you know, the squiddies or whatever they called them.
posted by kbanas at 1:30 PM on January 4, 2006

Better not be a gay robot.
posted by notmydesk at 1:34 PM on January 4, 2006

But NYC steam just ain't what it used to be, they keep trying to to send us half baked steam mixed with water and it makes the radiators bang.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:39 PM on January 4, 2006

But NYC steam just ain't what it used to be, they keep trying to to send us half baked steam mixed with water and it makes the radiators bang.

That is the sound of gay robots banging.
posted by Rawhide at 1:41 PM on January 4, 2006

On the other hand, its pretty cool when a pipe explodes and blows asbestos all over the place they have to send in these big squads of workers in hazmat suits to climb the fire escapes and clean the windowsills.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:43 PM on January 4, 2006

...not when you wake up to one looking in yr window....
posted by nevercalm at 1:49 PM on January 4, 2006

...not when you wake up to one looking in yr window....

Morning wood: it's nothing to be ashamed of.
posted by nlindstrom at 2:16 PM on January 4, 2006

and another thing $#^%$%!!! oh . . . wait i'm in the wrong thread.

hhmm nice post.
posted by nola at 2:24 PM on January 4, 2006

That's cool never knew it existed. Amazing it can travel for 100+ miles of pipe and remain steamy. Or the leaks throughout don't kill the pressure.
posted by stbalbach at 3:08 PM on January 4, 2006

mass-provided utilities like this are loads more efficient than e.g. each of 500 houses in a subdivision running their own x-ton plant individually.

But such communitarian intelligence just ain't part of the American Way any more. We're all Rugged Individualists, out in the world on our own.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 3:16 PM on January 4, 2006

"On average, the plant converts a gallon of water into eight pounds of steam" um. Yeah. On average (i.e. at sea level) a gallon of water weighs 8 lbs. Why not say on average the plant converts 8 lbs of water to 8 lbs of steam, or a gallon of water to a gallon of steam?

Very cool, though.
posted by Grod at 3:30 PM on January 4, 2006

A gallon of water would make much more than a gallon of steam; the exact ammount would depend on the temperature and pressure of the steam.

Neat post.
posted by TedW at 3:49 PM on January 4, 2006

Grod, I was disappointed by that blindingly obvious statement, too.

It made me curious, and I found this table which lists the specific volume of steam at various pressures. I also found reference that states that ConEd runs their main steam pipelines at 150psi, or about 10 atmospheres.

This would mean that 1kg of water would take up about 0.19 square meters of pressurized steam, and 1 gallon would be take up about 24 cubic feet.
posted by I Love Tacos at 4:27 PM on January 4, 2006

Heh, I'm intimately familiar with the steam pipe system. In 1989, my girlfriend and I were the closest people to the Gramercy Park steam pipe explosion to survive (no great URLs for this, this one is at least short and correct.)

It was very exciting but I'm always careful now to stay away from Con Ed trucks when someone's working on them. You never know...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 5:43 PM on January 4, 2006

I myself was very surprised to find out that Con Ed actually sells steam as a commodity. It seems such an early 20th century idea...
posted by clevershark at 5:45 PM on January 4, 2006

clevershark, not only is it not an early 20th century idea...



It's the solution for the 21st century!
posted by I Love Tacos at 6:26 PM on January 4, 2006

District heating, whether by steam (versatile, but has it's problems) or by hot water (easier to handle, easier to cogenerate at electric power plants, not as versatile) is a very good solution, even for the 21st century. New York's system might very well be the largest steam delivery system, but there are larger (by delivered thermal energy) water-based systems around the world. Stockholm even used to have a specifically designed nuclear plant that provided both electricity and hot water.
posted by fred_ashmore at 6:39 PM on January 4, 2006

"On average, the plant converts a gallon of water into eight pounds of steam" um. Yeah. On average (i.e. at sea level) a gallon of water weighs 8 lbs. Why not say on average the plant converts 8 lbs of water to 8 lbs of steam, or a gallon of water to a gallon of steam?

Er, it would be a lot more then a gallon of steam.

They should switch to nuclear power to make the steam. This seems like the perfect application, because nuke energy is heat first, and you wouldn't need to convert.
posted by delmoi at 7:10 PM on January 4, 2006

Chemical energy is also heat, so I don't get your point. Also, nuclear power plants are harder to convert into other kinds of plants because the heat of the reaction is not as straightforward to control as with other plants. Also, heat generation plants need to be close to people and people don't really want to live near nuclear power plants. And even though I'm vehemently I still would find it disconcerting that the stuff I'm using for heating my bedroom or cleaning stuff at work comes directly from a nuclear power plant.
posted by fred_ashmore at 7:20 PM on January 4, 2006

Also.
posted by fred_ashmore at 7:20 PM on January 4, 2006

Chemical energy is also heat

Usualy. that's not my point though. How much oil do these guy's burn through every day? If they really generate 30 billion pounds of steam, that's 14tg, and it takes 5.9terajouls of energy to produce that (given the heat of vaporisation of water, 418kj/kg).

That's 1 648 055.56 kw hours per day. How much does the oil to do that cost? Quite a bit, I would imagine.
posted by delmoi at 7:42 PM on January 4, 2006

In other words, the power output of this thing is 68 megawatts. Hmm. I guess that's not that much.
posted by delmoi at 7:46 PM on January 4, 2006

In terms of efficiency, it really isn't that bad. It prevents each individual building from having their own heating system and centralizes it in a large system where the management is strongly motivated to keep costs down and therefore fuel efficiency up. I'll bet this more than makes up for the loss of energy during transmission.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:08 PM on January 4, 2006

Not to mention switching to nuclear would mean no CO₂ emissions, or any emissions of any kind
posted by delmoi at 9:09 PM on January 4, 2006

"Not to mention switching to nuclear would mean no CO2 emissions, or any emissions of any kind"

Oh, so we don't need Yucca Mountain after all!
posted by Revvy at 11:15 PM on January 4, 2006

Revvy, is that really a fair snark? I'm not a nuclear power nut, or even particularly smart, but doesn't fuel like oil produce both undesirable byproducts and undesirable emissions, whereas nuclear power produces only undesirable byproducts?
posted by wolftrouble at 12:16 AM on January 5, 2006

but doesn't fuel like oil produce both undesirable byproducts and undesirable emissions, whereas nuclear power produces only undesirable byproducts?

But is the undesirability of nuclear's undesirable byproducts greater than the undesirability of fossil fuel's undesirable byproducts and undesirable emissions? How to compare? And then there's the money of course.
posted by biffa at 2:28 AM on January 5, 2006

Also meant to say: good, interesting link ursus. I'd be fascinated to hear more about the economics/regulation of the system and may well look into it.
posted by biffa at 2:54 AM on January 5, 2006

How does steam compare to electricity and gas as a way of distributing energy? Under what conditions does it make sense to transfer heat by steam rather than to send gas or electricity to the destination and then create the heat at the destination?

We have steam distribution in our city. Giant pipes sometimes emerge from the ground and snake up and down like sea monsters for a distance before disappearing underground again. And you can always tell where the steam pipes are in winter because there's no snow over them.

By the way, I dread a derail, but about nuclear: I would call radiation an undesirable emission. Escaped steam usually is not a huge worry, but escaped radiation (meltdowns, leaks, explosions) could cause quite a mess that lasts a long, long time. A nuclear dump remains dangerous for at least, what, 10,000 years? That is longer than it has taken us to progress from gathering berries in the bushes to being the great mechanized despoilers we are today. Sure, hiding our deadly garbage under a mountain seems safe, but can you be sure it will remain safe for millennia? Better to scramble around for a few years looking for a better alternative than to settle for something now that we will have to live with for 10,000 years.
posted by pracowity at 3:24 AM on January 5, 2006

How does steam compare to electricity and gas as a way of distributing energy? Under what conditions does it make sense to transfer heat by steam rather than to send gas or electricity to the destination and then create the heat at the destination?

The most ideal conditions for using steam are probably where steam can be withdrawn from the ground directly and delivered to the user. Iceland uses geothermal widely but I think they only really use steam directly in electrical generation or (possibly) to heat (purer) water which is then pumped from the extraction site to the user.
I'm not sure of the figures for efficiency of delivering heat directly but the efficiency for converting fossil fuel to electricity and then using electricity for heating are very poor. Typically you might only get 35-40% efficiency for converting fossil fuel to electricity, then there are transmission losses to be taken into account as well. Using combined heat and power allows some of the heat from this process to be used (as opposed to being vented to atmosphere at the power station) but there still needs to be some mechanism for getting the heat to the user.
If the fossil fuel is gas then it is generally far more efficient to pump that to the user to be used for heating than to convert into electricity. However, if someone has electrical heating fitted then in many places they will use this and their electricity will have been generated from burning gas. Certainly in the UK gas is the cheapest way to generate electricity.
posted by biffa at 4:11 AM on January 5, 2006

How does steam compare to electricity and gas as a way of distributing energy?

Well, heat energy is far less useful for the end-user than electricity. But if the end-user needs heat-energy for heating or whatever, it's clearly more efficient to not transform it into electricity in between.
posted by fred_ashmore at 4:43 AM on January 5, 2006

But if the end-user needs heat-energy for heating or whatever, it's clearly more efficient to not transform it into electricity in between.

Wouldn't that depend on which method travels best and on how efficient central heating plant is compared of a lot of small gas or electrical furnaces? Over a few meters, a steam pipe is probably great, but over a few kilometers might it not be better to send the energy by electricity in a wire or gas in a pipe?

Assuming a long distribution distance, gas seems best for for household heating, in that, unlike with electricity, you don't need a plant on the sending end to create gas, you just need to pipe it up from the ground and to the destination.

But for household electricity, is it best to generate it centrally or to use distributed gas to fire a small local generator? Over short distances, could you use distributed steam to run a small local electical generator efficiently?
posted by pracowity at 5:00 AM on January 5, 2006

This link claims that the high temperature water (96C) they send from the Nesjavellir geothermal power station to the vicinity of Reykjavik sees a temperature decrease of less than 1C over a 27km stretch of pipe. I've been to the station and they make a similar claim there.
posted by biffa at 5:28 AM on January 5, 2006

But for household electricity, is it best to generate it centrally or to use distributed gas to fire a small local generator?

You're moving away from the question central to the thread so far, comparative fuel efficiency and into more economic areas. A lot depends on the comparative efficiency of the generators being used but you would also have to take into account capital costs of generators, costs of upgrading networks/network savings due to the reduced need for infrastructure spending and take into account local regulatory regimes and how they impact on costs for things like balancing of generation.
A comparison could still be done I guess, what you're really asking is whether the losses from generating plus the losses from transmitting electricity are greater than the losses from piping gas plus the losses from then generating at the point of use. I suspect that the latter would allow considerably more use of heat locally which might tip it in the favour of option 2. The inertia of historical reliance on central generation still tends to dominate industry thinking in most places, along with the practical reasons of the levels of investment that has gone into that paradigm.
posted by biffa at 5:41 AM on January 5, 2006

The thing is electricity generating plants create a lot of heat, after this is used to drive steam turbines, some of it usually goes to waste. However, you can also use this heat to heat some water which can then be used to heat homes. Of course, this is not true of steam, nor of the many existing dedicated district heating plants. Given the widespread existence of district heating in various places around the world I'm willing to go by the faith that someone smarter and less lazy than me has done the calculations and decided that it is at least as efficient as electric heating, especially as electric heating is not very efficient at all. I suppose if you have a lot of gas around, it's a good idea to pipe it to homes, but if you don't it's also a good idea to pipe in hot water.
posted by fred_ashmore at 7:22 AM on January 5, 2006

Seems like the efficiency would also be dependent on the population/building density. It would make sense in NY, but likely not in Omaha, NB.

Re nuclear generation - there's reactor designs that are apparently fail-safe (wiki entry on pebble bed reactors) and proposals on recycling nuclear fuel to the point where there's very little left as waste, and what little is left has a short (well, a thousand year or so) half life. Embed the stuff in vitrious glass blocks, wrap it in stainless steel, bury it at Yucca Mountain, and the problem's solved... at least from an engineering standpoint.

Fossil fuels are nasty, though. The radiological and chemical contamination alone from coal should have folks worried, not to mention the arsenic, mercury and other gunk trapped in the fly ash that has a half-life of, oh, pretty much forever. But, oddly enough, there's apparently enough thorium and uranium in coal to make the fly ash kind of hazardous - at least according to current standards.

Third, large quantities of uranium and thorium and other radioactive species in coal ash are not being treated as radioactive waste. These products emit low-level radiation, but because of regulatory differences, coal-fired power plants are allowed to release quantities of radioactive material that would provoke enormous public outcry if such amounts were released from nuclear facilities. Nuclear waste products from coal combustion are allowed to be dispersed throughout the biosphere in an unregulated manner. Collected nuclear wastes that accumulate on electric utility sites are not protected from weathering, thus exposing people to increasing quantities of radioactive isotopes through air and water movement and the food chain.

All things considered, I'd like to see a shift to nuclear power over coal, gas or oil...
posted by JB71 at 8:25 AM on January 5, 2006

They have this in Toronto too. Enwave heats buildings by steam, but it also cools them with lake water.
posted by maledictory at 8:39 AM on January 5, 2006

My snark was pretty snarky, but I think I made my point. Coal produces way more waste and uses far more resources (water, especially) than nuclear power, but nuclear plants do have waste, and it's a horrible waste that requires enormous amounts of effort to deal with.
posted by Revvy at 9:08 AM on January 5, 2006

All things considered, I'd like to see a shift to nuclear power over coal, gas or oil...

But if you're going to spend that amount of money then do it on renewables...
posted by biffa at 9:37 AM on January 5, 2006

Problem with renewables is that the energy isn't dense enough (for solar), wouldn't help with CO2 (biomass), has a slice&dice + NIMBY problem (wind and wind towers), has limited availability (geothermal and hydroelectric, plus tidal - massive losses in getting electricity to the center of the country), or requires a shitload of energy in the first place (hydrogen economy).

Sometimes you've got to choose the least bad option. I don't see nuclear as being the best option, but it's the least worst if you want a lot of power available all the time.
posted by JB71 at 1:07 PM on January 5, 2006

Why don't you think biomass helps with CO2? It's carbon neutral. The biggest problem is likely to be scaling up its use to cater to industrial societies, but it can certainly help out.
Solar isn't dense enough for industrial use but is perfectly adequate for domestic and office use so that's where it might be used (In fact the biggest problem with solar PV is still its cost - it's still more expensive than the other RE technologies).
The so called slice and dice problem has been shown to be trivial in most cases. Developers take care not to put large turbine farms in rare/raptor species breeding zones and there have been numerous studies that show birds can see and avoid turbines hundreds of metres before they reach them. When you compare avian deaths from turbines with other avian mortality contributors then the impacts are utterly trivial. In the UK domestic cats kill 10s of millions of birds and other animals for example.
Wind tower nimbyism is a problem for onshore turbines in some places but not in others, for example, Denmark, Germany and Spain have seen less objection than in the UK and parts of the US. A shift to offshore wind should see an end to this problem and this is the direction that many countries are going in. With regard to nimbyism I don't see people lining up to have a nuclear power station at the bottom of their garden. What do you think people would prefer to be spoiling their view?
Hydrogen economy is neither here nor there, its a storage/delivery mechanism not a renewable energy technology, as appropriate to nuclear as RE if you're going to take fossil fuel burning vehicles off the road.
posted by biffa at 3:20 AM on January 6, 2006