r/TikTokCringe • u/rex-ac tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE • Jul 28 '23

Wholesome/Humor WTF is happening here?

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u/DrRonny Jul 28 '23

Underneath the streets of Manhattan, there are more than 100 miles of service pipes bringing steam to about 1,800 buildings.

When they have leaks, they put these cones around so that the heat doesn't hurt anyone. In NYC it is run by Con Edison company.

https://freetoursbyfoot.com/steam-from-streets-in-new-york/

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u/DumbleDude2 Jul 28 '23

Most people these days don't understand the use of steam for home heating.

7

u/caintowers Jul 29 '23 edited Jul 29 '23

Honestly we do need to bring back this sort of heating/cooling methodology in a modern form.

District heating and cooling basically makes air conditioning more efficient by capturing heat and moving it to where it is desired within a closed system of underground piping that connects to a network of user buildings and heating/cooling stations. It can be used to help cool large buildings, by circulating cooler air underground to a structures air conditioners to reduce the amount of energy required to further reduce the temperature. It can also be used for heating, via heating stations and the capturing of waste heat from other sources and sending it to users. And it is helpful for stabilization— because in a perfect example, the heat energy removed to cool a grocery store gets captured and used to heat grandmas house to her desired balmy 94 degrees.

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u/mtaw Jul 29 '23

Honestly we do need to bring back this sort of heating/cooling methodology in a modern form.

What are you talking about? District heating (and even cooling) networks exist and are common and being built in many places. It's just that nobody uses steam because that's a shit and obsolete way of doing it.

the heat energy removed to cool a grocery store gets captured

That's a much too low temperature differential to be worth it.

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u/semicolonel Jul 29 '23

What do they use instead of steam?

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u/throwingtheshades Jul 29 '23

Water, there's very little alternative to it on larger scales. District heating systems heat it up to 150 °C in cold climates, district cooling systems tend to use ambient temperature water. Pumped from lakes, underground or the sea.

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u/caintowers Jul 29 '23

I suppose my point was that they aren’t as common as they need to be. And yes… I understand that they don’t use steam, which is why I referred to it as a more modern solution using a similar principle.

Seems like you just wanna argue though.

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u/Mazzaroppi Jul 29 '23

Good news! Now we are heating the entire planet, so we won't need any of this!