History of Steam Plants: USA Heyday & Accidents

[Stephen Tashi]

The term "Steam plant" can refer to a place that distributes steam for heating buildings - as opposed to a plant that generates electricity. I have the impression that there are few, if any, such steam plants in operation in the USA. When was their heyday? Were there accidents from broken steam lines that were worse than broken water lines?

 

[phinds]

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/steam-power-still-moving-us-even-in-the-21st-century

Google is your friend

 

[russ_watters]

The term "Steam plant" can refer to a place that distributes steam for heating buildings... I have the impression that there are few, if any, such steam plants in operation in the USA. When was their heyday?

That impression isn't correct. Steam is still a very convenient medium for transferring heat, and is extremely common in large commercial and industrial buildings and campuses.

Even many buildings that have hot water at the point of use, it is first distributed as steam.

Were there accidents from broken steam lines that were worse than broken water lines?

They could be (the biggest culprit was the boiler itself), but as you can imagine the technology is pretty mature and major accidents are quite rare.

 

[diogenesNY]

New York City (actually Manhattan) has (i think) three remaining operational steam plants. At one time there were as many as about a dozen. They mostly function to provide live steam heat to Manhattan buildings that have steam radiators. I lived in just such a building in the 1990s. Live steam has other uses. Until the mid 1990s (when it ceased operations) St. Vincent's Hospital, in Greenwich Village which had a legendary emergency department, used live steam to sanitize medical instruments.

Before AC electrical power transmission (Westinghouse), Live steam was used as a method of power transmission. Kinda cool to think about... a mechanism to deliver power that is thermal + mechanical, rather than electrical. Whole different way of thinking, but still delivers usable work. Notwithstanding engineering and physical issues of efficiency vs. electrical power, it does suggest a fundamentally different way of looking at the world (and its underlying physics, engineering, and the math supports same) contrasting what we are all used to and tend to assume as the default.

Advanced Exercise: Central shaft? Mechanical-->Mechanical transmission? Not just for water mills. this is how many machine shops were operated. Cool ass fact: Many of those century+ old machines are beautiful examples of fabrication craft and have been given a (deserved) extended life by being retrofitted with new ball screws, mechanical/electronic digital readouts, and electric motors. I worked on a tool-room lathe fitting the above description in a technical college class in machining that was taught by an amazing individual who had formerly been the Chief Machinist for Glaxo-Welcome before GLX shut down their machine shop.

--diogenesNY

P.S. To follow up on Russ Waters comment... Once upon a time, many urban buildings had their own boilers fueled by delivery of coal or oil. This is just a whole huge menu of things that can go wrong and be costly. Buying live steam (where available) was (and is ) a huge cost, capital, and liability saver. Why deal with all the associated hassle of burning your own coal and boiling your own water, when you can just buy the already produced live steam by the cubic yard? A good deal for the remaining buildings that use steam heat... however more modern buildings make use of other mechanisms of climate control.

 

[BillTre]

The University of Oregon used to have a steam plant powered by timber debris left over from the timber industry and bought for cheep (until the late 1990's I think).
The highest elevation on campus was the top of their pile of fuel.
Now they use steam powered by oil or gas.
Its piped around campus for various uses. Among other things, its used in autoclaves.

 

[Astronuc]

The University of Oregon used to have a steam plant powered by timber debris left over from the timber industry and bought for cheep (until the late 1990's I think).

Many universities have steam and power plants. I spent a summer and part-time during the year working as a plumber-pipe fitter in the university's steam tunnels during my undergrad program. I replaced and repaired condensate pumps and steam and condensate lines.

I know that Consolidated Edison (ConEd) provides steam in New York City.