Natural Gas
Is Natural Gas renewable?
Where Natural Gas is found in the Earth
How it works to produce energy for individuals and whole groups or communities
To release the energy held in the gas, it is burned. This produces a large amount of heat, which is put to various uses. In natural gas plants, the heat is used to power large turbines known as combustion turbines, or turn steam turbines by heating water. Some advanced processes use the primary heat to move combustion turbines and excess emissions to turn water into steam. Natural gas is often preferred in these situations because it produces fewer emissions than most other types of fossil fuel.
Natural Gas and its uses
- Natural gas meets 24 percent of U.S. energy demand.
- Natural gas now heats 51 percent of U.S. households. It also cools many homes and provides fuel for cooking.
- Because natural gas burns cleaner than gasoline or diesel, many companies and municipalities are deploying fleets of natural gas-powered cars, trucks and buses to reduce emissions. There are over 120,000 natural gas vehicles operating on American roads.
Products created through the use of Natural Gas
Who uses Natural Gas?
Most of the natural gas consumed in homes is used for space heating and water heating.
The use of natural gas in commercial buildings is used mainly for space heating, water heating and sometimes for air conditioning.
Natural gas is an ingredient used to make fertilizer, antifreeze, plastics, pharmaceuticals and fabrics. It is also used to manufacture a wide range of chemicals such as ammonia, methanol, butane, ethane, propane and acetic acid.
What is the cost benifit for Natural Gas?
What is the evironmental impact?
The advantages of Natural Gas
When producing electricity, natural gas powered plants use about 60% less water than coal plants and 75% less later than nuclear power plants for the same electrical output. Additionally, natural gas power plants require the least amount of land per megawatt of production versus renewable energy sources. Wind and solar both require twenty times more land to power the same number of homes as natural gas power-plants.
Natural gas used for power production avoids many of the pitfalls facing wind, solar, nuclear, and biofuel power generation technologies. Those include visual impact, waste disposal, bird strikes and competing land uses.Natural gas is much safer to store than other fossil fuels. As a result, it is a very efficient source of energy for heating as well as generating electricity.
When gasoline reached well over $4.00 per gallon, natural gas was close to the $2.00 per equivalent gallon price.(Cheaper in price)