Natural gas is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes.
FactSnippet No. 835,163 |
Natural gas is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes.
FactSnippet No. 835,163 |
Natural gas is colorless and odorless, so odorizers such as mercaptan, which smells like sulfur or rotten eggs, are commonly added to natural gas supplies for safety so that leaks can be readily detected.
FactSnippet No. 835,164 |
Natural gas is a fossil fuel and non-renewable resource that is formed when layers of organic matter decompose under anaerobic conditions and are subjected to intense heat and pressure underground over millions of years.
FactSnippet No. 835,165 |
Natural gas can be burned for heating, cooking, and electricity generation.
FactSnippet No. 835,166 |
Extraction and consumption of natural gas is a major and growing contributor to climate change.
FactSnippet No. 835,167 |
When burned for heat or electricity, natural gas emits fewer toxic air pollutants, less carbon dioxide, and almost no particulate matter compared to other fossil and biomass fuels.
FactSnippet No. 835,168 |
Natural gas can be found in underground geologic formations, often alongside other fossil fuels like coal and oil .
FactSnippet No. 835,169 |
Biogenic Natural gas is formed when methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, landfills, and shallow sediments anaerobically decompose but are not subjected to high temperatures and pressures.
FactSnippet No. 835,170 |
Thermogenic Natural gas takes a much longer period of time to form and is created when organic matter is heated and compressed deep underground.
FactSnippet No. 835,171 |
Natural gas is sometimes informally referred to simply as "gas", especially when it is being compared to other energy sources, such as oil or coal.
FactSnippet No. 835,172 |
Natural gas is measured in standard cubic meters or standard cubic feet.
FactSnippet No. 835,173 |
Natural gas can come out of the ground and cause a long-burning fire.
FactSnippet No. 835,174 |
The Chinese transported Natural gas seeping from the ground in crude pipelines of bamboo to where it was used to boil salt water to extract the salt in the Ziliujing District of Sichuan.
FactSnippet No. 835,175 |
The Natural gas was often viewed as a by-product, a hazard, and a disposal problem in active oil fields.
FactSnippet No. 835,176 |
Until the early part of the 20th century, most natural gas associated with oil was either simply released or burned off at oil fields.
FactSnippet No. 835,177 |
Unwanted Natural gas is often returned to the reservoir with 'injection' wells while awaiting a possible future market or to re-pressurize the formation, which can enhance oil extraction rates from other wells.
FactSnippet No. 835,178 |
Natural gas can be "associated", or "non-associated", and is found in coal beds .
FactSnippet No. 835,179 |
Natural gas extracted from oil wells is called casinghead gas or associated gas.
FactSnippet No. 835,180 |
The natural gas industry is extracting an increasing quantity of gas from challenging resource types: sour gas, tight gas, shale gas, and coalbed methane.
FactSnippet No. 835,181 |
Early shale gas wells depended on natural fractures through which gas flowed; almost all shale gas wells today require fractures artificially created by hydraulic fracturing.
FactSnippet No. 835,182 |
Since 2000, shale gas has become a major source of natural gas in the United States and Canada.
FactSnippet No. 835,183 |
The Natural gas driven off from the coal was collected and distributed through networks of pipes to residences and other buildings where it was used for cooking and lighting.
FactSnippet No. 835,184 |
Huge quantities of natural gas exist in the form of clathrates under sediment on offshore continental shelves and on land in arctic regions that experience permafrost, such as those in Siberia.
FactSnippet No. 835,185 |
Natural gas pipelines are impractical across oceans, since the gas needs to be cooled down and compressed, as the friction in the pipeline causes the gas to heat up.
FactSnippet No. 835,186 |
The large trade cost implies that natural gas markets are globally much less integrated, causing significant price differences across countries.
FactSnippet No. 835,187 |
Whenever Natural gas is bought or sold at custody transfer points, rules and agreements are made regarding the Natural gas quality.
FactSnippet No. 835,188 |
Conservation, re-injection, or flaring of natural gas associated with oil is primarily dependent on proximity to markets, and regulatory restrictions.
FactSnippet No. 835,189 |
Natural gas can be indirectly exported through the absorption in other physical output.
FactSnippet No. 835,190 |
Natural gas is used to generate electricity and heat for desalination.
FactSnippet No. 835,191 |
Natural gas is often stored underground inside depleted gas reservoirs from previous gas wells, salt domes, or in tanks as liquefied natural gas.
FactSnippet No. 835,192 |
The Natural gas is injected in a time of low demand and extracted when demand picks up.
FactSnippet No. 835,193 |
Natural gas flowing in the distribution lines is called mid-stream natural gas and is often used to power engines which rotate compressors.
FactSnippet No. 835,194 |
Natural gas mains are made from a variety of materials: historically cast iron, though more modern mains are made from steel or polyethylene.
FactSnippet No. 835,195 |
Natural gas is a major feedstock for the production of ammonia, via the Haber process, for use in fertilizer production.
FactSnippet No. 835,196 |
Natural gas can be used to produce hydrogen, with one common method being the hydrogen reformer.
FactSnippet No. 835,197 |
Natural gas is used in the manufacture of fabrics, glass, steel, plastics, paint, synthetic oil, and other products.
FactSnippet No. 835,198 |
The first step in the valorization of natural gas components is usually the of the alkane into olefin.
FactSnippet No. 835,199 |
Natural gas is intentionally released or is otherwise known to leak during the extraction, storage, transportation, and distribution of fossil fuels.
FactSnippet No. 835,200 |
Natural gas is thus a potent greenhouse gas due to the strong radiative forcing of methane in the short term, and the continuing effects of carbon dioxide in the longer term.
FactSnippet No. 835,201 |
Natural gas produces far lower amounts of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides than other fossil fuels.
FactSnippet No. 835,202 |
Natural gas extraction produces radioactive isotopes of polonium, lead and radon .
FactSnippet No. 835,203 |
Amine gas treating, an industrial scale process which removes acidic gaseous components, is often used to remove hydrogen sulfide from natural gas.
FactSnippet No. 835,204 |
Many Natural gas-bearing formations contain water, which will flow up the wellbore to the surface along with the Natural gas, in both hydraulically fractured and non-hydraulically fractured wells.
FactSnippet No. 835,205 |
Fracking for shale Natural gas, which is currently known as a source of unconventional Natural gas, involves drilling a borehole vertically until it reaches a lateral shale rock formation, at which point the drill turns to follow the rock for hundreds or thousands of feet horizontally.
FactSnippet No. 835,206 |
In contrast, conventional oil and gas sources are characterized by higher rock permeability, which naturally enables the flow of oil or gas into the wellbore with less intensive hydraulic fracturing techniques than the production of tight gas has required.
FactSnippet No. 835,207 |
The decades in development of drilling technology for conventional and unconventional oil and gas production have not only improved access to natural gas in low-permeability reservoir rocks, but posed significant adverse impacts on environmental and public health.
FactSnippet No. 835,208 |
Situations in which an odorant that is added to natural gas can be detected by analytical instrumentation, but cannot be properly detected by an observer with a normal sense of smell, have occurred in the natural gas industry.
FactSnippet No. 835,209 |
Occasionally, the Natural gas can collect in high enough quantities to cause a deadly explosion, destroying one or more buildings in the process.
FactSnippet No. 835,210 |
Gas meters measure the volume of Natural gas used, and this is converted to therms by multiplying the volume by the energy content of the Natural gas used during that period, which varies slightly over time.
FactSnippet No. 835,211 |
Consequently, natural gas is sold by the gigajoule, cubic meter or thousand cubic meters .
FactSnippet No. 835,212 |