TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Coal, was From our Archives: History of Standard Oil and Bell

Coal, was From our Archives: History of Standard Oil and Bell

Danny Burstein (dannyb@panix.com)
Tue, 7 Jun 2005 01:19:47 UTC

In <telecom24.253.8@telecom-digest.org> hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> In some cities, coal was used for school building heater much later
> than normal (oil had taken over). I believe pressure from the coal
> miners forced the city to stick with coal. I wonder if they still use
> coal or since converted.

A hefty number of NYC public schools used coal until about five years
ago, so you'll probably still see lots of references to them.

Actually, for a school, with a fairly large and high pressure boiler
system, and with professionally licensed/trained operators [a], coal
is not too bad an idea. Provided, of course, that you're using modern
equipment.

[a] for the most part, high prssure boiler operators
in NYC are pretty competent. Yes, there's the periodic
news clip about the usual kickbacks and licensing games
common in any gov't agency, but most of the folk involved
take this stuff seriously.

The problem in NYC was that these were _ancient_ boiler systems. Some
had _manual_ stokers (aka "firemen") who shoveled the coal in. And
there was not even a hint of combustion control or pollution
reduction.

(And these firemen, unlike the ones on diesel trains, were actually
working hard for their money...).

As part of the deal in selling the public on an environmental bond issue,
the city and state promised to replace all the coal boilers with either
natural gas or oil. And, amazingly enough, they did it pretty close to
schedule. Last time I looked some of them still had "temporary"
trailer-mounted boilers on the sidewalk, but those were the exception.

Personally I think we'd have been better off upgrading the coal systems
and, for that matter, placing baseload electrical generators in the
schools as well, but no one asked me. NYC's local oil distribution was
pretty maxed out a few years ago, and that modest demand increase by the
schools had a pretty large impact on fuel prices.

And, if you want to see what General Electric is thinking about coal,
check out their very, err, unique advert. I've put a QuickTime version
of it up at:

http://www.panix.com/~dannyb/video/16-tons-cdr.mov

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'd personally like to see more wide-
spread research/development/use of solar power, especially for things
like heating our homes in the winter. Oops, I forgot to include the
mantra from the petroleum industry on this: "Solar power is not
practical nor efficient." PAT]

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