Routledge. - Energy economics: markets, history and policy

Table CW6.1 Historical Development of Refining Processes

Table CW8.1 Examples of Radioactivity in Bq

Table CW8.2 Likely Effects of Whole-body Radiation Doses

Natural gas is made up of primarily methane, a carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen atoms. It is the cleanest burning fossil fuel with only water and carbon dioxide as products of combustion. Carbon monoxide emissions are caused by insufficient oxygen to support combustion. Natural gas, with no nitrogen within its chemical structure, releases far less nitrous oxides than oil and coal. Formation of nitrous oxides by oxidization of nitrogen in air during combustion is a function of boiler and burner tip design, not a property of the fuel. Burning natural gas produces virtually no sulfur oxides, and no particulate and metallic emissions.

Its greater ratio of hydrogen to carbon atoms releases less carbon dioxide per unit of energy than coal and oil. Moreover, cogeneration plants fueled by natural gas have a higher thermal efficiency than coal and oil, further lowering carbon dioxide emissions for the same output of electricity.

Reservoir recovery of natural gas fields is about double (7080 percent) that of oil (3040 percent), which lessens the need to continually find new gas fields. Unlike oil, natural gas requires relatively little processing to become pipeline-quality. On the minus side, natural gas has always been a logistics challenge. In the beginning decades of the oil age, much of the natural gas found with crude oil (associated natural gas) was flared (burned) or vented to the atmosphere. Discovery of a natural gas reservoir was treated in the same light as drilling a dry hole! The primitive state of pipeline technology and reliance on reservoir pressure as a motive force to move natural gas through a pipeline restricted natural gas to local markets. Large volumes of natural gas associated with oil production were available with developing oil discoveries in the US Southwest. With natural gas stranded with no nearby markets and no means to get it to distant markets, vast quantities of associated natural gas from oil production were vented to the atmosphere. This waste of a free energy source in the Southwest and the waning of natural gas fields in Appalachia provided an economic impetus to improve pipeline technology to connect suppliers with consumers over long distances in a safe, reliable, and cost-effective manner.