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Steam based systems are just obsolete, steam under pressure leaks easily unless you do plenty of maintenance. Most district heating systems use liquid water in
by mangecoeur 3y ago
Steam based systems are just obsolete, steam under pressure leaks easily unless you do plenty of maintenance. Most district heating systems use liquid water in a closed loop. In fact most operators today are looking to further reduce temperatures to reduce losses and improve efficiency. You only let this much steam escape if you really dont care about saving energy/money
- bobthepanda 3y agoThe issue is generally for these large historic systems, the capital cost of replacement is larger than the savings. Because the streets of New York had many utilities laid out very early, there’s poor mapping and everything underground is haphazard, and disrupting somebody else’s utility system will get them to sue you.
- mangecoeur 3y agoWell it's more a infrastructure policy issue than a technical one. Steam systems are so wasteful its hard to lose money upgrading them. As you say though, if you have different utilities under different ownership, some state owned and some not, it's more a problem of managing the upgrade as part of a long term infrastructure program if its not coordinated through a central utility provider.
- bobthepanda 3y agoThat, and that even if there was a central utility, documentation was not a priority at the turn of the 20th century, and so the locations of infrastructure are either not even mapped or incorrect.