There are some cities that do things a third way; they have a centralized facility that burns the gas (or other fuels) to generate electricity, and then also pipe the heat out to the city in the form of heated water or steam running through insulated underground pipes. Buildings tap into those pipes and run it through radiators. That has the potential to be even more efficient because you're using what would otherwise be "waste" heat, but it depends on a relatively compact city to avoid losing too much heat while sending it through the pipes. I understand this is not uncommon in Eastern European and Russian cities. I'm not familiar with the details, though, so if you want to know more about this I'd recommend Googling around a bit.
Fondots@lemmy.world 1 day ago
New York has one of, if not the largest steam systems like that. A pretty significant chunk of Manhattan is hooked up to it.
Although it should be pointed out that those systems aren’t without their own risks, there have been a handful of pretty bad explosions and such caused by that steam system. Not saying to knock it, any system where you’re trying to distribute a large amount of energy has the potential for some catastrophic accidents to happen, it’s all about weighing the relative pros and cons.
They’re also pretty common on a smaller scale for college campuses, industrial complexes, etc. places with a lot of different outbuildings and such, it can be easier/cheaper/more efficient to have one central boiler room/house and pipe steam around than it is to have heaters in ever building.
Also, bit of a tangent, but many moons ago my dad was a pipefitter/steamfitter, and worked with a lot of steam systems, and from what he’s told me about those days it sounded like absolute hell having to go into cramped service tunnels around searing hot steam pipes, all kinds of dust and asbestos everywhere, rats, high humidity, etc. that was probably almost 50 years ago, but I suspect things probably haven’t improved all that much since then, so kudos to the people who are willing to put up with all of that.