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Early Addition
By now you've probably run into one of the curbside nitrogen tanks in the city. Not too long ago we got an email inquiring about them, a reader wanted to know about "the random nitrogen tanks everywhere at the corner of city blocks. They are always bubbling and oozing out. Are they dangerous?"
There are many guesses as to why they are there (to asphyxiate rats, to reduce odors, to scare off tourists), but most tend to believe Con Ed uses the liquid nitrogen in the maintenance of cables and fiber bundles. We called Con Ed and they assured us they have absolutely nothing to do with the tanks, however. They pointed their liquid nitrogen-free finger towards Verizon.
Apparently Verizon uses the tanks to pump nitrogen gas into the phone lines to keep them dry. We contacted Verizon to put an end to this mystery once and for all, but the gentleman manning the media relations phone was uninformed. We'll update this post once someone in the know returns our call. For now, an online source supplies the following explanation: "I asked a Verizon technician about these once, and he said that they pressurize underground cables to drive out moisture. The cables are not perfect, and will occasionally leak and allow moisture in that shorts the copper strands. Remember that the cables are often below the water table, and run under creeks, drainage ditches, etc. The nitrogen is used to dry them back out."
In 2006 there was a huge settlement upstate which was the result of a liquid nitrogen tank rupturing, causing the man to lose an arm and both legs. In that case he was delivering the tank, but just imagine if a car or truck crashed into one of these on the sidewalk! Whoever is manning the tanks, it seems a bit dangerous to have them lining the busy streets of New York (a city that doesn't exactly attract the best drivers). And by the way, that warning label reads: "rapid suffocation" and "severe frostbite," amongst other things.
UPDATE: We just spoke with Verizon and they confirmed that some of the nitrogen tanks are theirs, and are there for the above mentioned reasons. They also noted that they are completely safe, saying "if a tank was punctured, nitrogen would dissipate in the air without harming anyone around it, or the environment."
Photo via K-Camp's Flickr, close-up of insert here.
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is it me or does this seem like a reckless situation? not as reckless as, say, locating an emergency commend bunker in the World Trade Center, but reckless nonetheless.
They explained this in Men In Black 2.
Agent J: Whoo! Flushed! Yeah, man, back when you was an agent, you used to love gettin' flushed. Yeah, every Saturday night, you'd be like "flush me, J! Flush me!" and I'd be like "Naw...” You can't quit on me now, K.
Kevin Brown/K: I save to world, you tell me why I stare at the stars.
Agent J: Cool.
they are actually tanks of liquid misery; the liquid reverts to a gas on release, spreading over the city and helping to maintain NYC's highly coveted misery ranking.
Pressurized tanks are all around you. There is no real danger here, aside from the usual dangers associated with living in a modern city.
Note in the case you link to, it was a large tank that ruptured, not a tank like the one in the picture.
Pretty ridiculous that cops are allowed to search backpacks in the subway, going against the Constitution's ban on unwarranted search and seizure, but pressurized nitrogen tanks are just left out on the street like this, unwatched.
Aunt Bethany: What's that sound? You hear it? It's a funny squeaky sound.
Uncle Lewis: You couldn't hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant!
Liquid nitrogen is used in a medical setting to destroy benign or malignant skin lesions, usually condyloma (venereal warts), simple warts and actinic keratoses (thickened skin lesions, often from exposure to sun). Usually, the liquid nitrogen is delivered from a tank to the skin by means of a gun-like device that controls the area in contact with the liquid nitrogen and the duration of that contact. Old-time doctors still use a giant q-tip for the same effect. Suffice it to say that prolonged contact with liquid nitrogen can lead to a nasty chemical burn and destruction of normal skin.
These tanks concern me, as they are often leaky. If a child (or a naive adult) touches the icicle of nitrogen often seen dripping from the spout of these tanks, he or she can get a burn that, depending upon the duration of contact and the amount of skin contacted, can lead to permanent scarring. If a tank were to explode or even leak under pressure, the liquid nitrogen could get into the eyes, causing a burn of the cornea, scarring and blindness. I am sure the EPA has something to say about the presence of liquid nitrogen in non-medical settings. I wonder if Verizon is following EPA guidelines?
@famdoc: Mmm...cryosurgery.
Yeah, they always look leaky to me.
Free whippits New York! Free whippits! Don't miss out, they're goooooooiiiiinnnngg faaaaaaast. I can't feel my haaands.
Walt Disney is preserved in liquid nitrogen.
Bottom line, if you ever watched Mr. Wizard when he freezes a rubber ball in Liquid Nitrogen and then taps it with a hammer (this is the spoiler) it shatters like glass.
Everything including steel freezes almost immediately——those tanks are filled with liquid, not gas——you would be killed instantly and would freeze it seconds.
Fun fact:
The boiling point of nitrogen is: -320.8F
@emilydickinson.. whippits with nitrogen would be even more dumb than the nitrous ones... You'd freeze the balloon, and if you managed not to do that, you'd definitely give your lungs frostbite..
everyone else:
I always figured they were to cool the underground equipment.. The frost on the tanks implies some level of discharge (think how an air blower can gets cold when you use it) So I assumed they were somewhat constantly putting out their gases.
Nitrogen makes up about 70% of the air around us anyway...
...correction, 80%.
I still don't understand why they're outside, unguarded. If one exploded while being delivered, what's so safe about them?
And it's just sloppy. Like having your roommate leave stuff all over the apartment. They shouldn't be exposed to the public that way, and should be covered or something.
I wonder if anyone ever steals them? I wouldn't leave anything lying around the city!
The tanks are always "leaking" because the liquid inside is constantly boiling and raising the pressure inside the vessel. The vessel is equipped with a valve that will bleed excess pressure. This bleed will cool the exterior of the vessel and will cause ambient water vapor to condense and freeze. It is not an icicle of nitrogen (there is no solid nitrogen at ambient pressure).
There are pressurized dangers all over the city (I think you all remember that little steam explosion), and this is just one more. The fact that it's a cold danger rather than a hot danger doesn't really change anything.
can't they harness that overflow to cool the subway platforms?
I am sure ConEd is lying, as I have seen a ConEd truck parked next to one of these tanks with ConEd uniformed workers working on a nearby manhole with hoses from the tank going into it. I am sure VZ uses them as well. More lies from ConEveryone.
compressed tanks, filled with either volatile or inert gas, are pretty dangerous and SHOULD NOT be placed w/in a few feet of moving traffic, especially NYC traffic...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx1uRdN7T0g
hasn't anyone seen the mythbusters where they shot a scuba tank filled w/ just air and it almost blew out a shipping container? imagine a car hitting a massive compressed tank of nitrogen, i bet it'd be a lot of fun watching the jaws of life snap through frozen steel...
and we'd be complaining if our phones didnt work because the lines were wet.
its all part of being a miserable new yorker....sigh
you know what would solve the problem of leaving them out in public?
Smiley faces.
If VZ painted smiley faces on them--no one would think they were dangerous, people would be happier in this "miserable" city, and it could be a PR success!
Think about it, think think about it.
"compressed tanks, filled with either volatile or inert gas, are pretty dangerous and SHOULD NOT be placed w/in a few feet of moving traffic"
You better go live in a cave, then. Every truck with air brakes has a tank filled with compressed air. Every welding truck has tanks of compressed gases. Etc.
"hasn't anyone seen the mythbusters where they shot a scuba tank filled w/ just air and it almost blew out a shipping container? imagine a car hitting a massive compressed tank of nitrogen"
The material in the tank is mostly irrelevant. Note that on Mythbusters they had to shoot the tank to get that effect. If a larger rupture is formed in the tank, the effects are not as severe. Also, these tanks should be at a much lower pressure than SCUBA tanks.
The tanks are outside and unguarded because they are remarkably safe. The chance of one of these tanks rupturing is tiny. A search of the NY Times archive since 1851 shows zero articles reporting a death from a nitrogen tank explosion.
thank you and thank you for addressing this..... I've long wondered about it.
Duh, it's for Terminator 2 emergencies in case the T1000 travels back in time looking for John Conner.
@cucarachita: I was just thinking about the stealing thing...how much would they go for do you think? Pawn shops? anyone??
Cha-Ching.
But the chances of a tank rupturing? So what if the NYT never mentions it, it could've occurred elsewhere. Where are the chemists when you need them?
Even better...the knobs on top aren't locked so anyone can mess with them.
they're filled with maple syrup gas!
The point is that if the Times hasn't seen fit to mention once in the last 158 years that a nitrogen tank exploded, let alone that one exploded and injured or killed someone. If that's the case I'd venture that the chance of one of these things actually hurting someone infinitesimally small. It is interesting to know why the tanks are around town and what the nitrogen is being used for, but they are way down on the lists of street dangers.
It's pretty hysterical that you can't bring mouthwash or nailclippers on an airplane, but it's OK for Verizon to have these things sitting on street corners in Manhattan.
OMG iz Ironic!
I'm picturing a summertime scene of bums standing around one rubbing their hands and sweating like a reverse fire-in-an-oil-drum air conditioner.
Those ARE scary. I always avoid lighting up my cigarette when standing next to one of those. Especially if I'm wearing a lot of polyester and hairspray.
"the knobs on top aren't locked so anyone can mess with them."
The blog post you link to is misinformed. The valves may not be locked, but there is no way to disable the safety system via a valve.
There was a mishap at Texas A&M 4 years ago with a nitrogen tank. The tank failed because someone had welded the safety plugs.
I can't find any info about the Genex/Praxair incident that talks about why the failure occurred.
I'm going to have bumper stickers made up that say "Place Tongue Here" with an arrow pointing to the coldest part of the tank.
You can light up all you want next to a liquid nitrogen tank, bklyngrrl. Nitrogen isn't flammable and it doesn't explode. If the tank says oxygen or hydrogen then it is best to avoid producing flames.
They've filled with PEOPLE!!! PEEEEEEEPOOOOOOLEEEE!!!!
I think Gothamist should write an article about the hazard of all these metal objects, moving at high speeds in the city, carrying TANKS OF GASOLINE!! My god, they're in every vehicle! What if there's ever a car accident.....the whole city will go up in flames!
Sheesh it's just nitrogen (you guys do know of course that air is 78% nitrogen). Nitrogen must be cooled to extremely low temperatures to condense into a liquid and then the only way to keep it a liquid in a normal temperature setting is to keep it under pressure. So the frost and such on the outside of the tank is due to the extremely cold temperatures inside which causes the moisture in the outside air to condense and freeze on the outside of the tank.
If one did happen to suddenly rupture it would be a real problem for whoever was standing right next to it. The liquid nitrogen itself isn't really going to do anything to you but it's the temperature of the liquid that's an issue. If you managed to get doused with freshly released liquid nitrogen, "severe frostbite" would be an understatement.
However, if released it would boil off very quickly since normal ambient temperatures are way way above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The liquid wouldn't make it too far from the tank before boiling off.
I would suspect that worrying about these tanks is a complete waste of your time and energy. Pressure tanks are very robustly built and I bet they would survive some pretty severe blunt impacts (i.e. cars) pretty well. I wouldn't shoot at one with a rifle though. Handgun might be OK, but I'd only try it from a distance just in case.
I imagine that if you must worry, you should worry about something that might actually have a remote chance of killing or injuring you, such as that cab that's about to run you down while crossing the street. Anybody who's worried about these tanks exploding but who still smokes cigarettes has their priorities really screwed up in a statistical sense, given which one is far more likely to kill or disable you.
You're right, sj. I've never seen such a collection of ill-informed comments as I've seen here... Oh, wait, this is Gothamist, after all. Most of these people would flunk 6th grade science if they had to take it again. The nitrogen isn't compressed. It's in essentially a giant Thermos bottle. People like edEx point to Mr. Wizard, forgetting that he was dipping things into an open flask of liquid nitrogen, obviously not pressurized. Pressurized and liquified gases are two completely different things.
I worked with these tanks for 16+ years as a Verizon technician. The tanks are safe!
The main reason for the tanks is this:
Inside of a common telephone cable exist thousands of copper wires with paper or pulp insulation. They are twisted into pairs (tip and ring) and bundled into groups of 100 pairs (4200 pairs is the largest). These bundles are tightly wrapped with various layers of protection called sheathing.
Verizon pressurizes the cables to keep moisture out and air flows through them constantly. But, the subterranean world below the streets of Manhattan are a brutal world for these cables. In particular, Con Edison's steam.
What happens is this; as the air flows through a section of cable that is being heated by a steam leak, it rapidly heats. When the heated air passes by the heated section it rapidly cools, which in turn creates condensation INSIDE of the cable. Condensation inside of a cable with paper or pulp insulated wires will cause service outages. Verizon calls this a "steam section" or a "steamer".
Here's where the tanks come into play.
The tanks are filled with liquid nitrogen, but Verizon uses the nitrogen in the form of gas because it is almost perfectly dry. This dry nitrogen is forced into the cable and through the section that is in trouble thereby absorbing the condensation in the process. At the next accessible point of the cable, beyond the steam section, a "bleeder" is placed to allow the moistened nitrogen to escape and not travel through the remaining length of the cable.
splicingdan is cool. thanks!