Advantages of Natural Gas Use

Natural Gas and its Uses

Natural gas is a valuable energy resource and a great asset to the global economy. Its use is becoming more and more popular since it can be used in a variety of sectors (industrial, commercial, residential, electric power generation, transportation, etc.).

Advantages of Natural Gas Use

Some of the main advantages in using natural gas are listed below:

Economy:

Natural gas is cheaper compared to other fossil fuels and cheaper than electricity when used for supplying home appliances. Natural gas appliances are also cheaper compared to electrical ones.

Environment: It does not pollute the ground or the underground water because its byproducts are in gaseous form. Another important fact is that natural gas burns without releasing any soot or sulfur dioxide. It also emits 45% less carbon dioxide than coal and 30% less than oil.

Transportation: Transportation is made via sea (tankers) and land (pipelines and small tanks). This fact allows natural gas to be easily transferred from power plants to residential areas.

Multi-uses: Natural gas is a multi-use fuel. It is used inside the house for cooking, heating, drying, etc. It can be used for generating electric power, powering vehicles (by substituting for diesel and gasoline), producing plastics, paints, fertilizers, and many more uses.

Availability: It is abundant and almost worldwide available.

Conversion to Hydrogen Fuel: It is currently the cheapest fossil fuel source for producing hydrogen.

Disadvantages of Natural Gas Use

Flammable and Toxic: Natural gas leaks can be proven to be extremely dangerous. Such leaks may be the cause of fire or explosions. The gas itself is extremely toxic when inhaled. The main risk comes from the fact that it is naturally odorless and cannot be detected by smell, unless an odorant has been added to the gas mixture. In the case of an underground leak, the odorant may gradually become weaker and the gas may go undetected.

Environmental Impact: When natural gas burns, carbon dioxide, monoxide, and other carbon compounds are emitted in the atmosphere contributing to the greenhouse effect. Although it is cleaner than other fossil fuels (oil, coal, etc.) as far as byproducts are concerned, natural gas leaks can become more hazardous since methane is 21 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide.

Processing : In order to use it as a fuel, all constituents other than methane have to be extracted. The processing results in several byproducts: hydrocarbons (ethane, propane, etc.), sulfur, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and even helium and nitrogen.

Non-Renewable: It is a finite source of energy and cannot be considered a long-term solution to our energy supply problem.

Installation: The whole pipe installation may be very expensive to construct since long pipes, specialized tanks, and separate plumbing systems need to be used. Pipe leakage may also be very expensive to detect and fix.

Efficiency in Transportation: When natural gas is used as a fuel in cars, the mileage is lower than gasoline.

Conversion to Hydrogen Fuel: A drawback in producing hydrogen from natural gas is that efficiency drops to almost 50% compared to the original chemical energy.

A Small Conclusion

Despite the disadvantages, it is remarkable that the entire cycle of producing, processing, transporting and using natural gas provides us with a total energy efficiency of almost 90%. It is by far the best choice among the fossil fuel energy sources from all aspects.

Japan and Earthquakes

To the Japanese, earthquakes are nothing new. They adopt building architectures capable of withstanding earthquakes all the way to 6.0 on the Richter scale. But the earthquake of the magnitude 9.0 that Japan saw on March 11th was something out of the blue. It was the worst earthquake that the industrialized world has ever seen.

This earthquake not only triggered a tsunami, but also damaged the Fukushima I reactor to such an extent that many were afraid of a possible Chernobyl-like incident, or something even worse.

This was something that was not expected when the reactor was designed, although it was designed to withstand earthquakes up to the magnitude of 8.2. The incomplete shutdown led to the explosion of two reactors.

The damage caused to the nuclear reactor was so bad that the core of the nuclear reactor was exposed in the days that followed. This led to the increase in nuclear radiation level around the surrounding areas.

Intermediate Level Waste

This waste is more radioactive than the low level waste and is made up from metal or alloy cladding fitted around fuel rods sludges from various processes, and resins used in coating components.

High Level Waste

These are prevalent in spent fuel and are highly contagious. Fuel rods are replaced periodically and the used ones are highly contagious containing uranium, plutonium along with minor actinides such as curium and neptunium isotopes.

Storage in Synroc

This is a synthetic crystalline rock incorporating minerals which effectively act as hosts and fix the major long lived elements of plutonium, strontium, caesium and barium contained in the HLW.

Undersea Storage

The disposal of radioactive wastes into the sea was a legal and common practice carried out by some countries between the end of the second world war and as late as 1980’s. This practice has now been banned by International Law.