Given all the news coverage about the rise of the Chinese economy, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world's most populous country is hogging all the world's resources, while the developed nations are fighting for scraps.

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From: http://sustainablebiofuels.wordpress.com

 

 

Biofools is a term currently being used in public discourse to describe leaders supporting contemporary biofuel technology.  Agrofuels (first generation agriculture-driven biofuels) have this spurred environmental and social backlash.  Destruction of natural resources and famine has been realized by the hand of agrofuels.  Becoming privy to the work being done by Almuth Ernsting has given me new thoughts about which technologies we choose to fund and implement with respect to agrofuels.  Additional considerations regarding environmental and social issues beyond energy production must be viewed with a more focused lens before technological implementation.

The Gallagher Report released by the Renewable Fuels Agency last week has called for employment of the European “precautionary principle” with respect to agrofuels in England.  In short, Gordon Brown is expected to bring about a slowdown of first generation biofuels to determine sustainability.  Some fuels derived from sugar cane and animal fat are considered “sustainable,” but what does this mean exactly, and to whom?  Moratoriums on certain crops are not out of the question, however, and there will be an upcoming clash with the US.

Ernsting believes that this slowdown is not sufficient, and that a total moratorium on biomass-derived liquid fuels should be enacted. He states:

“…biofuels from agricultural and forest residues that should be returned to the natural cycle because they play an important role in maintaining soil fertility and bio-diversity. Biofuels from true waste, such as biogas from manure or landfill, or waste vegetable oil, are not agrofuels.  Biofuels from algae are not agrofuels either.”

Many definitions of sustainability revolve around energy production efficiency and exchange, but other concerns are often not considered.  One outstanding issue is the future use of GM plants and microbes to produce biofuels and the potential ecological impact.

Past science and society courses have told me that there is a lack of forethought with respect to biotechnology (we can do this, but should we really?) which leads to ethical dilemma.  Is a moratorium too extreme an action at this point, or just what we need?  Ethics tells us that the deontological argument is to respect our duty to planet earth and humanity to prevent deforestation and hunger.  However, ideological contrary to this is our perogative to preserve the order of the contemporary earth, which requires energy.  Teleology complicates these sentiments by guiding us to think that the lives of millions in starvation cannot outweigh our need for liquid gold.  However, if oil reserves are completely drained without the necessary preparation, how many more will die?

This being the case, second and third generation biofuels will have bigger shoes to fill regarding public sentiment, research, and investment.  Hopefully, slowing down production of first gen biofuels may divert more grants and investors their way.  Cellulosic ethanol production is ramping up, and demonstration plants are being built by companies such as Mascoma.  Some capital investments are aimed at procuring fuel technology without forethought to environmental and social impact.  The fuels investors of the future must take this in mind because sustainability is a multifaceted problem in which energy in and out is not the only determinant of success.

To view the entire Gallagher Report, click here

For more infomation about sustainable biotechnology, visit http://sustainablebiotech.wordpress.com

 

Picture Source: http://blog.livedoor.jp/kiwahori/

Russia Proves 'Peak Oil' is a Misleading Zionist Scam While Moscow invests heavily in unlimited oil production for the future, New York squanders America's dwindling oil profits on fast cars and fast women

 

 

If the opening paragraph of this report started by claiming that completely unlimited crude oil reserves exist inside planet earth, readers might be tempted to regard the entire text as preposterous ghostwriting for a novelist like Frederick Forsyth. If the report then went on to claim that the Russians have exploited this stunning reality for nearly thirty years, right under the largely unwitting noses of western intelligence, readers could be excused for mistaking the author for a lunatic, or perhaps as a front for spy novelist John le Carré. The problem here is that unlimited oil reserves do exist inside planet earth, and the Russians long ago developed the advanced technology necessary to recover these unlimited oil reserves in an efficient and timely manner. Profoundly disturbing hard intelligence like this does not sit well with the frantic cries of western academic shills and lobbyists, determined to convince you all that the end of the oil world is nigh, or, more accurately, that America faces an imminent catastrophe when global production capacity "Peaks", i.e. when world demand for crude oil finally exceeds the rate at which we can physically pump the required product out of the ground. The gist of these false claims are outlined in a speech given at the at the University of Clausthal, by lobbyist Doctor Colin Campbell during December 2000: "In summary, these are the main points that we have to grasp: Conventional [Free flowing] oil provides most of the oil produced today, and is responsible for about 95% of all oil that has been produced so far. It will continue to dominate supply for a long time to come. It is what matters most. Its discovery peaked in the 1960s. We now find one barrel for every four we consume. Middle East share of production is set to rise. The rest of the world peaked in 1997, and is therefore in terminal decline. World peak comes within about five years" [circa 12/2005] Campbell is just the tip of a giant iceberg of academic Peak Oil 'experts' who suddenly appeared en-masse to give you this frightening news, right after President Saddam Hussein suddenly started trading his oil in Euros rather than in US Dollars, a devastating switch with the easy capacity to destroy the US Dollar in less than five years if it was left unchallenged and unchecked. So these shills [decoys] were carefully positioned to deflect your attention away from the obvious greed and incompetence of the United States Government and its Wall Street masters, and focus it elsewhere instead. Then, hopefully, a few years later down the track when prices start to bounce through the roof, and America has no Euros to buy crude oil, you will blame gasoline prices of $5.00+ per gallon at the pumps on an 'inevitable decline' in world oil production, rather than march furiously on Washington DC with locked and loaded firearms. Though attacking Campbell and his ilk is not the purpose of this report, his idiot claims can be debunked readily enough. While it is true that nowadays we only officially find one barrel of oil for every four barrels we consume, this is primarily because we temporarily stopped the incredibly expensive process of looking for crude oil when we had already physically established more than two trillion barrels of reserves in known reservoir locations around the world. When those known reserves drop to [say] one trillion barrels we may be tempted to go and find more, but not until then. And while it is true that the production rate from each individual oil well ever drilled has slowly declined over the years, there is a perfectly valid technical reason for this predictable reduced flow rate, which will be explained later. In order to understand how Russia has left the rest of the world standing in its wake, it is essential to know a little bit about where oil is located, and how it is extracted from the ground for refining and commercial use. It is an enormously complex subject, especially when considering the ultra-deep wells, which should really have a separate category all of their own. Many years ago I was personally involved at the sharp end of two ultra-deep drilling operations [one of them in direct liaison with Russian experts from the Moscow Drilling Institute], and will try to keep this drilling lesson as simple as I can. Thankfully perhaps, the underlying principle of how and where oil is recovered from is not difficult to comprehend, as illustrated by the diagram below. The theory underlying how oil is formed at such enormous depths in the mantle of the earth is not central to this report, because the Russians have already proved its point of origin in absolute drilling terms more than 300 times. Those interested in the exact process should research the archives, where there are more than two hundred Russian papers on the subject. Probably a good place to start would be "The Role of Methane in the Formation of Mineral Fuels", written by by A.D. Bondar in 1967. What is central to this report is the massive advantage that Russia's ultra-deep drilling discoveries and technical achievements give it over the western nations. The first advantage I intend to explain is nowhere near as important in global terms as the second, because it is the second advantage that finally drove the Zionist Cabal to illegally invade sovereign Iraq, and thereby bring us all to the very brink of thermonuclear war. However, from where I sit, the first advantage is much more important in simple humanitarian terms, although "humanitarian" is not an acceptable trading process on Wall Street. As we have already discovered, oil can be produced virtually anywhere on earth, provided the host country can afford the expensive [and sometimes classified] technology, and the massive cost of drilling a well to extreme depth through extremely hard rock formations. But just think what even 20 or 30 deep producing oil wells can mean for the people of a country that has no natural resources of its own, or worse still, for people who have been told by glib western lobbyists that they have no natural resources of their own. Anyone who can prove that the western nations were lying or simply wrong, will become a trusted friend forever. Vietnam is a classic example. After more than 60 years of being enslaved, pillaged, and raped by the French and then by the Americans, the poor Vietnamese were told officially by American oil multinationals that their country was barren; that western 'cutting edge' technology had failed to find anything to help them recover financially from the mess left behind by American bombs, Agent Orange, and a host of other delightful gifts from Uncle Sam. This of course was exactly where America wanted the Vietnamese to be: desperately poor and unable to take action against their former invaders. The Russians had other ideas and a very different approach. After telling the Vietnamese that the Americans had lied to them, oil experts were flown in from Moscow to prove this startling claim in a no-risk joint venture, meaning the Russians would provide all of the equipment and expertise free of charge, and only then take a percentage of the profits if oil was actually found and put into production. Vietnam had absolutely nothing to lose, and swiftly gave Russia the green light. The Vietnamese White Tiger oil field was and is a raging success, currently producing high quality crude oil from basalt rock more than 17,000 feet below the surface of the earth, at 6,000 barrels per day per well. Through White Tiger, the Russians have assisted the Vietnamese to regain part of their self respect, while at the same time making them far less dependent on brutal western nations for food-aid handouts. All of a sudden in a very small way, Vietnam has joined the exclusive club of oil producing nations, and a stream of cynical U.S. Senators and Congressmen have started making the long pilgrimage to Ho Chi Minh City in order to 'mend fences'. Predictably perhaps, the Vietnamese are very cool, and try hard to ignore their new American admirers. It is truly amazing how quickly good news travels [outside of CNN], and in a very short space of time China was also engaged in a joint super deep venture with Russia. Nor did it end there. As I write this report, intelligence reports that the Russians have already moved three deep-drilling rigs into impoverished North Korea, where they intend to repeat the Vietnamese production cycle by drilling thought solid granite and basalt, with not a single trace of the 'decaying marine life' so essential to blinkered western geologists for the 'accepted' production of crude oil. It may take a while, but ultimately the North Koreans will be able to go about their sovereign business without the Zionist Cabal in New York being able to blackmail them over a few ship loads of food-aid rice. Yes indeed, Korea will eventually have an oil surplus of its own, allowing it to tell the latest in a long line of terminally insane "New World Orders" to go to hell. The White Tiger project was the first outside Russia to openly exploit and showcase this ultra-deep technology and oil production from basalt rock to the world, though the original intent was to do so much earlier in India during 1983. During that year a large drilling rig in the Ganges Delta was scheduled to drill down to below 22,000 feet into basalt, and then dramatically flare "impossible" ultra deep oil. Oil well Bodra #3 was directly supervised by teams of experienced Russian drillers and scientists from the Moscow Institute of Drilling, with the author the only westerner on site, contracted to control one of the critical advanced systems needed to reach target depth smoothly and efficiently. If Bodra #3 had been allowed to drill ahead unhindered, there is no doubt the resulting impact would have sent shock waves around the oil world, and gained enormous international prestige for the Russians. Even more importantly perhaps, the desperately poor people of West Bengal would have gained access to their own energy reserves. Unfortunately, Bodra #3 was not allowed to drill ahead unhindered. The Americans were determined to stop the project one way or the other, and played on New Delhi's obvious fear of the Communist State Government in West Bengal. After bribing a handful of corrupt central government officials, US intelligence sent in professional American saboteurs, who managed to wreck the drilling project while the author was away on a visit to Sydney in Australia. Before we continue to the second massive advantage derived from ultra deep oil, and thus the primary reason why Wall Street decided to illegally invade Iraq, it is essential to look briefly at the way in which America devours a massive portion of global oil supply. You see, the 'Peak Oil' scam is not really about the world running out of oil reserves or being incapable of producing sufficient quantities to provide for its various national users. Instead, Peak Oil was fabricated to disguise America's individual increasing greed for crude oil, and its imminent inability to pay hard cash for the product. Put simply, America is going broke fast, and Wall Street wishes to blame someone else before the angry Militias appear with their locked and loaded weapons. This sorry situation is best summarized by Professor Victor Poleo of Venezuela's Central University, who told IPS in April that, "The mechanism by which global oil prices are set is intact, but the normal behaviour of supply and demand is not." According to Poleo, the root of the problem is that the United States ''is a terminal victim of its energetic metastasis. It has neither the oil nor the natural gas needed to feed its style of development. With just six percent of the world population, it consumes nearly 25 percent of the oil and gas produced worldwide.'' Professor Poleo went on to explain that there were expectations that demand for gasoline in the United States would stabilize at around 7.2 million barrels a day by the mid-1990s, ''but that didn't happen,'' he said. ''The United States' voracity for gasoline rose to nine million barrels by 2003, one of every two liters burnt in the world.'' And domestic demand for crude oil will continue to grow. The United States imports today six of every 10 barrels of oil and two of every 10 cubic meters of gas that it consumes, and by 2020 it will import eight of every 10 barrels of oil and four of every 10 cubic meters of gas, according to U.S. government reports. Despite the fact that American intelligence already knew of Russia's achievements with ultra deep oil production from the mantle of the earth back in the early eighties, it was obvious that this slow and expensive method of adding to national oil reserves could never keep up with America's voracious appetite for gasoline. So ultimately when domestic demand grew too fast, or cash reserves were finally depleted, America would either be obliged to halve its own use of gasoline, or steal it from someone else by force. Halving gasoline usage was out of the question, so instead of building hundreds of ultra-deep drilling rigs, Wall Street squandered the cash building more aircraft carriers, with the desperate objective of attacking and permanently occupying the Middle East. This is the point at which the second massive advantage derived from ultra-deep oil comes into play. Do you remember how puzzled the reservoir engineers were when they discovered that their existing reserves were being "topped up" from below? They later discovered that what they were really observing were naturally occurring ultra-deep oil wells, leaking vast quantities of oil from the mantle of the earth upwards through fractures into what we nowadays refer to as "sedimentary oilfields", located relatively close to the surface. As the production companies draw oil out of these known reservoirs through oil wells, field pressure is slightly reduced, thereby allowing more ultra-deep oil to migrate up from the mantle and restock the reservoir from below. Russian studies of their own ultra-deep wells and those in the White Tiger field in Vietnam, indicate in very rough terms that migration from the mantle is probably 20-30% less than production at Middle East wellheads, meaning in turn that if the flow rates of existing Iraqi and Saudi wells are reduced by about 30%, oil supply and production can and will continue forever, constantly replenished by ultra-deep oil from the mantle itself. It goes almost without saying that even with production reduced by 30%, there is more than enough oil in the Middle East to provide for America's increasing usage for at least the next century. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why your sons and daughters have died and will continue to die in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Now we come to the completely false [or deliberately misleading] claim by Peak Oil shills that production from existing oil wells is "slowing down", thereby proving that the oil fields are "running dry". This is so wrong that it is almost breathtaking. Think of this slowing down process in the same way you might think of the engine oil in your automobile. The longer you run the engine, the higher the level of contaminates that get into the oil. The higher the level of contaminates, the higher the level of friction. Sooner or later you have something closely akin to glue coating your piston rings, and the performance of your engine declines accordingly. This is an inevitable mechanical process well known to all automobile owners. Henry Ford and others managed to slow down the rate of contamination in engine oils by inventing the oil filter, through which the oil has to circulate each time it passes around inside the engine. A high percentage of the contaminates stick to the filter element, thereby allowing extra miles between oil changes, though heaven help the careless motorist who thinks he can get away without ever changing his clogged oil filter when recommended. When oil is extracted from a producing formation underground, it flows out through pores in the reservoir rock, and then into the open borehole, from where it is transported to surface by the production tubing string. So by the very nature of the beast, the bottom section of the well is "open hole" which allows the oil to flow out in the first place, but because it is comprised of exposed and sometimes unstable rock, this open hole section is also continually subject to all manner of turbulence and various contaminates. For example, tiny quantities of super fine silt may exit through the pores but not continue to the surface with the oil, tumbling around in the turbulence instead, until the silt very slowly starts to block off the oil-producing pore throats. Yes, of course there are a variety of liners that can be used to slow down the contamination, but there is no such thing as a Henry Ford oil filter 10,000 feet underground. The inevitable result of this is that over time, the initial production rate of the well will slowly decline, a hard fact known to every exploration oilman in the business. However, this is certainly not an indication that the oil field itself is becoming depleted, proved thousands of times by offset wells drilled later into the same reservoir. Any new well comes on stream at the original production rate of its older cousins, because it has not yet had time to build up a thin layer of contaminates across the open hole. Though as we shall see it is possible to "do an oil change" on a producing well and bring it back to full production, this is extremely expensive, and rarely used in the west. Look at a simple example: Say we have a small oil field in Iraq with ten wells that each started out in life producing 10,000 barrels of oil per day. Fine, for a known investment we are producing 100,000 barrels of oil per day from our small field, at least for a while. Five years later contamination may have slowed our overall production down by ten percent to 90,000 barrels per day. So we are now faced with a choice: either "do an oil change" on all ten existing wells at vast expense and down time, or simply drill one additional well into the same reservoir, thereby restoring our daily production to 100,000 barrels with the minimum of fuss. Take my word for it, ninety-nine percent of onshore producers will simply drill the extra well. Naturally there are times and places where this simple process is not an option, for example on a huge and very expensive offshore platform, which may have only 24 drilling 'slots', all of which have been used up. To restore your overall production after five years you can either build another giant platform next door for two billion dollars, or "do an oil change" on each of your existing 24 wells, one at a time. Clearly this time you are forced to carry out the time consuming business of restoring the open hole section at the bottom of the well to its old pristine condition, before various contaminates started to slow down your production rate. For this task you first pull the production tubing out of the hole, and then run back in with a drill string, to which is attached an underreamer as shown in the pictures above. When the reamer is directly opposite the top of the open hole producing section, the drill string is rotated to the right and the blades fly out under centrifugal force to a distance preset by you before lowering the tool into the hole. The objective is to cut away the contaminated face of the well to a depth you consider will once again expose pristine producing pores. As the spinning underreamer is slowly lowered, it enlarges the size of the hole, with the contaminated debris cut away and flushed back to surface by the drilling fluid. Hey presto, you have a new oil well, and it only cost one or two million dollars to restore… Remember I said this process is rarely used in the west, which is true, but it is not true of Russia, where the objective for many years has been to dominate global oil supply by continual investment. With no shareholders holding out their grubby little hands for a wad of pocket money every month, the Russian oil industry managed to surge ahead, underreaming thousands of its older existing onshore wells in less than ten years. Then along came Wall Street asset Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who fraudulently got his hands on Yukos oil for a mere fraction of its value, and was on the point of selling the entire outfit to the American multinationals when Vladimir Putin had him hauled off his private jet somewhere in Siberia. So Wall Street was finally 'cheated' of its very own 'free' Russian oil, and poor old Mikhail had better get used to the taste of prison food. To recap, 'Peak Oil' claims that because today we only find one barrel of oil for every four that we use, world oil reserves are running out. Completely misleading propaganda. as the Russians [and the CIA] know perfectly well, reserves of oil in the mantle of the earth are infinite. 'Peak Oil' also claims that we will shortly be unable to pump sufficient oil out of the ground to keep up with demand. Completely misleading propaganda again. We could drill more wells, but Wall Street cannot afford to pay for them, and never intended to, at least not while it still believed conquest and eternal occupation of the Middle East was a realistic possibility. Professor Poleo makes it quite clear which direction the west needs to go in if it is to survive in the long term, and that is to follow Russia's example by sharply reducing domestic consumption. Back in 1990 America was using around 6 million barrels per day compared to Russia's 8.4 million, but how things have changed since then. Thirteen years later in 2003, American consumption was up to 9 million, while Russian consumption had been reduced to a mere 3.2 million. A few billion folk over there in America might like to walk around their houses and switch off any electrical appliances they don't actually need. Believe me, I can almost hear the oil surging through the pipelines in New York, and I live more than 12,000 miles away in Australia. In closing I would like to pass on my greetings and thanks to the cheerful Russian drillers and scientists I had the pleasure of working with at Bodra #3 in West Bengal, without whose expertise we might all be dead today, as a direct consequence of repeated American sabotage attempts on the high pressure well. My thanks also to the Moscow Drilling Institute for the unrestricted flow of information and documents on ultra deep oil production technology, without which I could not have written this report.

Natural gasFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaFor other uses, see Natural gas (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)

Natural gas is a gaseous fossil fuel consisting primarily of methane but including significant quantities of ethane, propane, butane, and pentane—heavier hydrocarbons removed prior to use as a consumer fuel —as well as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, helium and hydrogen sulfide.[1] It is found in oil fields (associated) either dissolved or isolated in natural gas fields (non associated), and in coal beds (as coalbed methane). When methane-rich gases are produced by the anaerobic decay of non-fossil organic material, these are referred to as biogas. Sources of biogas include swamps, marshes, and landfills (see landfill gas), as well as sewage sludge and manure by way of anaerobic digesters, in addition to enteric fermentationparticularly in cattle.

Since natural gas is not a pure product, when non associated gas is extracted from a field under supercritical (pressure/temperature) conditions, it may partially condense upon isothermic depressurizing--an effect called retrograde condensation. The liquids thus formed may get trapped by depositing in the pores of the gas reservoir. One method to deal with this problem is to reinject dried gas free of condensate to maintain the underground pressure and to allow reevaporation and extraction of condensates.

Natural gas is often informally referred to as simply gas, especially when compared to other energy sources such as electricity. Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, it must undergo extensive processing to remove almost all materials other than methane. The by-products of that processing include ethane, propane, butanes, pentanes and higher molecular weight hydrocarbons, elemental sulfur, and sometimes helium and nitrogen.

Contents [hide]

• 1 Chemical composition
• 2 Energy content, statistics and pricing
• 3 Natural gas processing
• 4 Storage and transport
• 5 Use
  • 5.1 Power generation
  • 5.2 Hydrogen
  • 5.3 Natural Gas Vehicles
  • 5.4 Residential domestic use
  • 5.5 Fertilizer
  • 5.6 Aviation
  • 5.7 Other
• 6 Sources
  • 6.1 Natural gas
  • 6.2 Town gas
  • 6.3 Biogas
  • 6.4 Hydrates
• 7 Safety
• 8 Cost comparison with heating oil in the USA
• 9 See also
• 10 External links
  • 10.1 Natural gas vehicles
• 11 References

[edit]Chemical composition

The primary component of natural gas is methane (CH4), the shortest and lightest hydrocarbon molecule. It often also contains heavier gaseous hydrocarbons such as ethane (C2H6),propane (C3H8) and butane (C4H10), as well as other sulfur containing gases, in varying amounts, see also natural gas condensate. Natural gas that contains hydrocarbons other than methane is called wet natural gas. Natural gas consisting only of methane is called dry natural gas.

ComponentTypical wt. % Methane (CH4) 70-90 Ethane (C2H6) 5-15 Propane (C3H8) and Butane (C4H10) < 5 CO2, N2, H2S, etc. balance

Nitrogen, helium, carbon dioxide and trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide, water and odorants can also be present [2]. Natural gas also contains and is the primary market source of helium.Mercury is also present in small amounts in natural gas extracted from some fields[3]. The exact composition of natural gas varies between gas fields.

Organosulfur compounds and hydrogen sulfide are common contaminants which must be removed prior to most uses. Gas with a significant amount of sulfur impurities, such ashydrogen sulfide, is termed sour gas; gas with sulfur or carbon dioxide impurities is acid gas. Processed natural gas that is available to end-users is tasteless and odorless, however, before gas is distributed to end-users, it is odorized by adding small amounts of odorants (mixtures of t-butyl mercaptan, isopropyl mercaptan|thiol, tetrahydrothiophene, dimethyl sulfideand other sulfur compounds), to assist in leak detection. Processed natural gas is, in itself, harmless to the human body, however, natural gas is a simple asphyxiant and can kill if it displaces air to the point where the oxygen content will not support life.

Natural gas can also be hazardous to life and property through an explosion. Natural gas is lighter than air, and so tends to escape into the atmosphere. But when natural gas is confined, such as within a house, gas concentrations can reach explosive mixtures and, if ignited, result in blasts that could destroy buildings. Methane has a lower explosive limit of 5% in air, and an upper explosive limit of 15%. Explosive concerns with compressed natural gas used in vehicles are almost non-existent, due to the escaping nature of the gas, and the need to maintain concentrations between 5% and 15% to trigger explosions.

[edit]Energy content, statistics and pricing

Main article: Natural gas prices

Quantities of natural gas are measured in normal cubic meters (corresponding to 0°C at 101.325 kPaA) or in standard cubic feet (corresponding to 60 °F (16 °C) and 14.73 PSIA). Thegross heat of combustion of one normal cubic meter of commercial quality natural gas is around 39 megajoules (?10.8 kWh), but this can vary by several percent. In US units, onestandard cubic foot of natural gas produces around 1,030 British Thermal Units (BTUs). The actual heating value when the water formed does not condense is the net heat of combustionand can be as much as 10% less.

The price of natural gas varies greatly depending on location and type of consumer. In 2007, a price of $7 per 1,000 cubic feet (28 m³) was typical in the United States. This corresponds to around $7 per million BTU's, or around $7 per gigajoule. In April 2008, the wholesale price was $10 per 1,000 cubic feet (28 m³) ($10/MBTU) [4]. The residential price varies from 50% to 300% more than the wholesale price. At the end of 2007, this was $12-$16 per 1000 ft3 (or MBTU) [5]. Natural gas in the United States is traded as a futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Each contract is for 10,000 MMBTU (gigajoules), or 10 billion BTU's. Thus, if the price of gas is $10 per million BTU's on the NYMEX, the contract is worth $100,000.

In the United States, retail sales are often in units of therms (th); 1 therm = 100,000 BTU. Gas meters measure the volume of gas used, and this is converted to therms by multiplying the volume by the energy content of the gas used during that period, which varies slightly over time. Wholesale transactions are generally done in decatherms (Dth), or in thousand decatherms (MDth), or in million decatherms (MMDth). A million decatherms is roughly a billion cubic feet of natural gas.

Natural gas is also traded as a commodity in Europe, principally at the United Kingdom NBP and related European hubs, such as the TTF in the Netherlands.

In the rest of the world, LNG (liquified natural gas) and LPG (liquified petroleum gas) is traded in metric tons or mmBTU as spot deliveries. Long term contracts are signed in metric tons - and to convert from one system to the other requires should better be described here, than a very isolated market. A cubic foot is a volumetric measure, MT is weight. The LNG and LPG is transported by special ships/containers, as the gas is liquified - LPG cryonic. The specification of each LNG/LPG cargo will usually contain the energy content, but this information is in general not available to the public.

[edit]Natural gas processingA natural gas processing plant

Main article: Natural gas processing

The image below is a schematic block flow diagram of a typical natural gas processing plant. It shows the various unit processes used to convert raw natural gas into sales gas pipelined to the end user markets.

The block flow diagram also shows how processing of the raw natural gas yields byproduct sulfur, byproduct ethane, and natural gas liquids (NGL) propane, butanes and natural gasoline (denoted as pentanes +).[6][7][8][9][10]

Schematic flow diagram of a typical natural gas processing plant

[edit]Storage and transportPolyethylene gas mainbeing laid in a trench.

The major difficulty in the use of natural gas is transportation and storage because of its low density. Natural gas pipelines are economical, but are impractical across oceans. Many existing pipelines in North America are close to reaching their capacity, prompting some politicians representing colder areas to speak publicly of potential shortages.

LNG carriers can be used to transport liquefied natural gas (LNG) across oceans, while tank trucks can carry liquefied or compressed natural gas (CNG) over shorter distances. They may transport natural gas directly to end-users, or to distribution points such as pipelines for further transport. These may have a higher cost, requiring additional facilities for liquefaction or compression at the production point, and then gasification or decompression at end-use facilities or into a pipeline.

Peoples Gas Manlove Field Natural gas storage area inNewcomb Township, Champaign County, Illinois. In the foreground is one of numerous wells for the underground storage area, with an LNG plant and above ground storage tanks in the background.

In the past, the natural gas which was recovered in the course of recovering petroleum could not be profitably sold, and was simply burned at the oil field (known as flaring). This wasteful practice is now illegal in many countries. Additionally, companies now recognize that value for the gas may be achieved with LNG, CNG, or other transportation methods to end-users in the future. The gas is now re-injected back into the formation for later recovery. This also assists oilpumping by keeping underground pressures higher. In Saudi Arabia, in the late 1970s, a "Master Gas System" was created, ending the need for flaring. Satellite observation unfortunately shows that some large gas-producing countries still use flaring[11] and venting[12] routinely. The natural gas is used to generate electricity and heat for desalination. Similarly, some landfills that also discharge methane gases have been set up to capture the methane and generate electricity.

Natural gas is often stored in underground caverns formed inside depleted gas reservoirs from previous gas wells, salt domes, or in tanks as liquefied natural gas. The gas is injected during periods of low demand and extracted during periods of higher demand. Storage near the ultimate end-users helps to best meet volatile demands, but this may not always be practicable.

With 15 nations accounting for 84% of the world-wide production, access to natural gas has become a significant factor in international economics and politics. In this respect, control over the pipelines is a major strategic factor.[13]

[edit]Use

[edit]Power generation

Natural gas is a major source of electricity generation through the use of gas turbines and steam turbines. Particularly high efficiencies can be achieved through combining gas turbines with a steam turbine in combined cycle mode. Natural gas burns cleaner than other fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, and produces less carbon dioxide per unit energy released. For an equivalent amount of heat, burning natural gas produces about 30% less carbon dioxide than burning petroleum and about 45% less than burning coal.[14] Combined cycle power generation using natural gas is thus the cleanest source of power available using fossil fuels, and this technology is widely used wherever gas can be obtained at a reasonable cost. Fuel cell technology may eventually provide cleaner options for converting natural gas into electricity, but as yet it is not price-competitive.

[edit]Hydrogen

Natural gas can be used to produce hydrogen, with one common method being the hydrogen reformer. Hydrogen has various applications: it is a primary feedstock for the chemical industry, a hydrogenating agent, an important commodity for oil refineries, and a fuel source in hydrogen vehicles.

[edit]Natural Gas VehiclesA Metrobus using natural gas

Compressed natural gas (methane) is a cleaner alternative to other automobile fuels such as gasoline (petrol) and diesel. As of 2005, the countries with the largest number of natural gas vehicles were Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Italy, Iran, and the USA. [15] The energy efficiency is generally equal to that of gasoline engines, but lower compared with modern diesel engines. Benzene vehicles converted to run on Natural Gas suffer because of the low-compression ratio their engines have, resulting in a cropping of delivered power while running on natural gas (10%-15%). CNG-specific engines, however, use a higher compression ratio, due to the higher octane (120-130) number of this fuel.

[edit]Residential domestic use

Natural gas is supplied to homes, where it is used for such purposes as cooking in natural gas-powered ranges and/or ovens, natural gas-heatedclothes dryers, heating/cooling and central heating. Home or other building heating may include boilers, furnaces, and water heaters. CNG is used inrural homes without connections to piped-in public utility services, or with portable grills. However, due to CNG being less economical than LPG, LPG (Propane) is the dominant source of rural gas.

[edit]Fertilizer

Natural gas is a major feedstock for the production of ammonia, via the Haber process, for use in fertilizer production.

[edit]Aviation

Russian aircraft manufacturer Tupolev is currently running a development program to produce LNG- and hydrogen-powered aircraft.[16] The program has been running since the mid-1970s, and seeks to develop LNG and hydrogen variants of the Tu-204 and Tu-334 passenger aircraft, and also the Tu-330 cargo aircraft. It claims that at current market prices, an LNG-powered aircraft would cost 5,000 roubles less to operate per ton, roughly equivalent to 60%, with considerable reductions to carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions.

[edit]Other

Natural gas is also used in the manufacture of fabrics, glass, steel, plastics, paint, and other products.

[edit]SourcesNatural gas production by country (countries in brown and then red have the largest production)

[edit]Natural gas

Natural gas is commercially produced from oil fields and natural gas fields. Gas produced from oil wells is called casinghead gas or associated gas. The natural gas industry is producing gas from increasingly more challenging resource types: sour gas, tight gas, shale gas and coalbed methane.

The world's largest gas field by far is Qatar's offshore North Field, estimated to have 25 trillion cubic metres[17] (9.0×1010 cu ft) of gas in place—enough to last more than 200 years at optimum production levels. The second largest natural gas field is the South Pars Gas Field in Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. Connected to Qatar's North Field, it has estimated reserves of 8 to 14 trillion cubic metres[18] (2.8×1010 to 5.0×1010 cu ft) of gas.

See also: List of natural gas fields

[edit]Town gas

Town gas is a mixture of methane and other gases, mainly the highly toxic carbon monoxide, that can be used in a similar way to natural gas and can be produced by treating coalchemically. This is a historic technology, still used as 'best solution' in some local circumstances, although coal gasification is not usually economic at current gas prices. However, depending upon infrastructure considerations, it remains a future possibility.

[edit]Biogas

Methanogenic archaea are responsible for all biological sources of methane, some in symbiotic relationships with other life forms, including termites, ruminants, and cultivated crops. Methane released directly into the atmosphere would be considered a pollutant, however, methane in the atmosphere is oxidised, producing carbon dioxide and water. Methane in the atmosphere has a half life of seven years, meaning that every seven years, half of the methane present is converted to carbon dioxide and water.

U.S. Natural Gas Production 1900 - 2005 Source: EIA

Future sources of methane, the principal component of natural gas, include landfill gas, biogas and methane hydrate. Biogas, and especially landfill gas, are already used in some areas, but their use could be greatly expanded. Landfill gas is a type of biogas, but biogas usually refers to gas produced from organic material that has not been mixed with other waste.

Landfill gas is created from the decomposition of waste in landfills. If the gas is not removed, the pressure may get so high that it works its way to the surface, causing damage to the landfill structure, unpleasant odor, vegetation die-off and an explosion hazard. The gas can be vented to the atmosphere, flared or burned to produce electricity or heat. Experimental systems were being proposed for use in parts Hertfordshire, UK and Lyon in France.

Once water vapor is removed, about half of landfill gas is methane. Almost all of the rest is carbon dioxide, but there are also small amounts ofnitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. There are usually trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide and siloxanes, but their concentration varies widely. Landfill gas cannot be distributed through natural gas pipelines unless it is cleaned up to the same quality. It is usually more economical to combust the gas on site or within a short distance of the landfill using a dedicated pipeline. Water vapor is often removed, even if combusting the gas on site. If low temperatures condense out the water from the gas, siloxanes can be lowered as well because they tend to condense out with the water vapour. Other non-methane components may also be removed in order to meet emission standards, to prevent fouling of the equipment or for environmental considerations. Co-firing landfill gas with natural gas improves combustion, which lowers emissions.

Biogas is usually produced using agricultural waste materials, such as otherwise unusable parts of plants and manure. Biogas can also be produced by separating organic materials from waste that otherwise goes to landfills. This is more efficient than just capturing the landfill gas it produces. Using materials that would otherwise generate no income, or even cost money to get rid of, improves the profitability and energy balance of biogas production.

Anaerobic lagoons produce biogas from manure, while biogas reactors can be used for manure or plant parts. Like landfill gas, biogas is mostly methane and carbon dioxide, with small amounts of nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. However, with the exception of pesticides, there are usually lower levels of contaminants.

[edit]Hydrates

A speculative source of enormous quantities of methane is from