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Earth Notes - Steam Heat

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-868122.mp3

Flagstaff, AZ – Earth Notes: Steam Heat

Energy efficiency is in the news today, but it's not really new. For decades, buildings in one southwestern city were heated by plentiful, locally produced energy. The source was steam from a local utility, the Flagstaff Electric Light Company.

Sawdust, wood chips, and other waste wood from a local lumber mill fed the company's electrical boilers. For many years the steam had just gone up the stack, until someone thought to put it to good use.

In 1920 the Northern Arizona Leader crowed that: "after the first of next October the merchant in Flagstaff can turn on the heat as easily as he now turns on his lights . . . the friendly old stove that scorched your coat tails when you were not noticing . . . will be a thing of the past."

The steam mains ran through underground concrete tunnels. The steam was piped into radiators in each building, and condensed water was cycled back from the radiators. At one time, more than a hundred customers were heating homes and businesses this way.

Centralized power plants and natural gas heat put an end to Flagstaff's steam heat system. These days, few people know the comforting clanking of radiators the sound of a locally generated, closed system that today bears the fancy name of "cogeneration." But some are considering new power systems that might use the abundant small trees of the west to produce electricity and perhaps steam too. By generating electricity and heat locally, we might indeed return back to the future.

-Rose Houk