New York City’s Green Steam Pipe Network

There was recently a big steam pipe explosion in New York City that killed one person and injured a bunch more. When I saw the headline in my news reader the first thing I thought was “what do they use steam pipes for in NYC?”. I wasn’t the only one to think that and thankfully Christopher Mims at Scientific American asked the same thing and then answered it. It’s a great read that lays out the cool green factor of NYC’s steam pipe network. Here’s a quick blurb, swing over to SciAm to get the whole story…

I’m betting that even if you don’t live in New York, you heard about the explosion / subsequent volcano of steam, mud and asphalt that erupted yesterday evening at 41st st. and Lexington (a block from the Chrysler building). It’s a miracle more people weren’t hurt–one killed, 20 injured at last count.

Once I’d gotten past the shock of the tragedy itself, I began to wonder, why is there all this steam pouring out of the streets of New York City 24/7, anyway?

It turns out that Con Ed has been piping steam–which is a by-product of power generation, naturally–to buildings throughout lower Manhattan since 1882. (The pipe that blew up dates to 1924.) Incredibly, the system, which includes 7 plants, one with a boiler 8 stories tall, produces an average of one million pounds of steam per hour.

The reason that’s interesting, at least to me, is that this is a prime example of what’s known as combined heat and power generation. It’s an old idea, but one that’s making a resurgence as bills for all our petroleum-dependent energy sources–heating oil, natural gas and electricity–continue to climb. As we all know, the easiest way to “generate” more energy per dollar spent is simply to conserve.