New Orleans Has Been Using Same Tech to Drain the City Since the 1910s (2017)

atlasobscura.com

6 pointscsnover2 comments

A news article I read today about electricity being cut off from New Orleans due to storm damage from Hurricane Ida mentioned that about half of the pumps for the city were powered using “an archaic standard”[0]. I was curious what that standard was, and per this article, it turns out it’s 25Hz AC powered by some old steam turbines! I thought the whole story was a fascinating tale of the challenges of managing obsolete safety-critical technology, as well as an interesting example of how such old technology can continue to be remarkably useful and robust.

[0] https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_e25801f4-0923-11e...

The odd thing is that the city thinks it's worthwhile to keep a steam turbine driving a 25hz generator driving a motor driving these pumps, when, presumably, there are a number of modern solutions.

They could either replace the 25hz electric motors with a modern 60hz motor + gearbox, or a motor-generator with gearbox feeding the original 25hz motors, or a solid-state DC drive, or maybe diesel drive through a reducer.

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