The Steam in New York City

January 5th, 2006 · No Comments

You learn something new every day.

“When we used to bring people into the plant for tours, their first impression, when we have them look inside of the furnace, is that it’s huge. People are taken back by the sheer size of it - eight stories high,” says Wilton Cedeno, former manager of Con Edison’s Hudson Avenue steam plant. “There are intricate control systems — systems for treating the water, electrical systems, pressure systems. It’s all very complex.”

On average, the plant converts a gallon of water into eight pounds of steam — every hour, approximately 125,000 gallons of water are turned into more than one million pounds of steam. “We use city water, but the water has to be processed and cleaned,” says Cedeno. “If it’s not pure, you get build up on pipes and can damage the turbine blades.”

Steam (Gotham Gazette. November 10, 2003)