Technical and economic aspects of potential U. S. district heating systems

District heating stands as a means to conserve fossil fuel through more efficient utilization of these resources as a primary source of heat because it can supplant the application of fossil fuels to a great extent by utilizing waste heat from various sources. Of paramount interest as a source of waste heat are the steam electric generating plants, especially those powered by nuclear fission. Utilization of this by-product allows immediate cutback in fossil fuel consumption. It relieves the environment from bearing the burden of huge amounts of excess heat. It opens the supply of fossil fuels to more complex applications where these are used to greater advantage. It raises the energy conversion efficiency of these electric plants considerably and is economical. Following the Introduction, Section II presents an analysis of a study of nine urban regions that collectively display a wide variation in the parameters that are the primary determinants of unit heat cost. These regions are New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Jersey City, Newark, and Paterson. They show great variety in climate, size, population and population density, housing profile, working conditions, and labor costs. The goal of the analysis is to project heat demand in each region, design appropriate hot water piping systems to distribute this heat, and compute unit heat costs based on district heating system capital and operations costs and yearly heat demand. Section III presents a generalization of this analysis. Section IV discusses various technical and economic aspects of the adaptation of electric plants to a dual role as heat-electric energy sources. Section V contains the concluding remarks. (MCW)