Natural Gas E-Book

Vaclav Smil

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 461

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Natural gas is the world's cleanest fossil fuel; it generates less air pollution and releases less CO2 per unit of useful energy than liquid fuels or coals. With its vast supplies of conventional resources and nonconventional stores, the extension of long-distance gas pipelines and the recent expansion of liquefied natural gas trade, a truly global market has been created for this clean fuel. Natural Gas: Fuel for the 21st Century discusses the place and prospects of natural gas in modern high-energy societies. Vaclav Smil presents a systematic survey of the qualities, origins, extraction, processing and transportation of natural gas, followed by a detailed appraisal of its many preferred, traditional and potential uses, and the recent emergence of the fuel as a globally traded commodity. The unfolding diversification of sources, particularly hydraulic fracturing, and the role of natural gas in national and global energy transitions are described. The book concludes with a discussion on the advantages, risks, benefits and costs of natural gas as a leading, if not dominant, fuel of the 21st century. This interdisciplinary text will be of interest to a wide readership concerned with global energy affairs including professionals and academics in energy and environmental science, policy makers, consultants and advisors with an interest in the rapidly-changing global energy industry.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title page

About the Author

Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Valuable Resource with an Odd Name

1.1 METHANE’S ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS

2 Origins and Distribution of Fossil Gases

2.1 BIOGENIC HYDROCARBONS

2.2 WHERE TO FIND NATURAL GAS

2.3 RESOURCES AND THE PROGRESSION OF RESERVES

3 Extraction, Processing, Transportation, and Sales

3.1 EXPLORATION, EXTRACTION, AND PROCESSING

3.2 PIPELINES AND STORAGES

3.3 CHANGING PRODUCTION

4 Natural Gas as Fuel and Feedstock

4.1 INDUSTRIAL USES, HEATING, COOLING, AND COOKING

4.2 ELECTRICITY GENERATION

4.3 NATURAL GAS AS A RAW MATERIAL

5 Exports and Emergence of Global Trade

5.1 NORTH AMERICAN NATURAL GAS SYSTEM

5.2 EURASIAN NETWORKS

5.3 EVOLUTION OF LNG SHIPMENTS

6 Diversification of Sources

6.1 SHALE GAS

6.2 CBM AND TIGHT GAS

6.3 METHANE HYDRATES

7 Natural Gas in Energy Transitions

7.1 FUEL SUBSTITUTIONS AND DECARBONIZATION OF ENERGY SUPPLY

7.2 METHANE IN TRANSPORTATION

7.3 NATURAL GAS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

8 The Best Fuel for the Twenty-First Century?

8.1 HOW FAR WILL GAS GO?

8.2 SHALE GAS PROSPECTS

8.3 GLOBAL LNG

8.4 UNCERTAIN FUTURES

References

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 01

Figure 1.1 Methanogens in rice fields (here in terraced plantings in China’s Yunnan) are a large source of CH

4

.

Figure 1.2 Combined cycle gas turbine: energy flow and a model of GE installation.

Chapter 02

Figure 2.1 Diagenesis, catagenesis, and metagenesis.

Figure 2.2 Supergiant gas fields in Western Siberia.

Figure 2.3 Anticlines.

Figure 2.4 McKelvey box.

Figure 2.5 North Dome/South Pars gas field.

Chapter 03

Figure 3.1 Chinese percussion rig.

Figure 3.2 Modern drilling rig.

Figure 3.3 Productivity of US gas wells.

Figure 3.4 US natural gas wellhead prices.

Figure 3.5 A well cluster (one of 29) in Groningen gas field.

Figure 3.6 Sulfur in the Port of Vancouver.

Figure 3.7 Natural gas processing plant, Central Alberta, Canada. © Corbis.

Figure 3.8 US compressor stations.

Figure 3.9 US pipeline network.

Figure 3.10 Gas flaring in Pennsylvania.

Figure 3.11 Global natural gas extraction.

Chapter 04

Figure 4.1 New York 1900: light and cook with gas.

Figure 4.2 High-efficiency natural gas furnace.

Figure 4.3 GE gas turbine.

Figure 4.4 Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch.

Figure 4.5 Qatar Shell Pearl GTL.

Chapter 05

Figure 5.1 Canada–US natural gas pipeline crossings.

Figure 5.2 European gas networks.

Figure 5.3 Russian export pipelines.

Figure 5.4 Chinese pipelines.

Figure 5.5 LNG tanker

Arctic Voyager

.

Figure 5.6 Australian Karratha LNG terminal for gas exports to Asia.

Figure 5.7 Futtsu LNG terminal.

Chapter 06

Figure 6.1 Global shale deposits.

Figure 6.2 US shale basins.

Figure 6.3 Shale gas drilling site in Pennsylvania.

Figure 6.4 Sulige field in China.

Figure 6.5 Methane hydrate cage.

Figure 6.6 Methane hydrate global deposits.

Chapter 07

Figure 7.1 Global fuel transitions.

Figure 7.2 Decarbonization of global energy supply.

Figure 7.3 US gas share in primary energy production.

Figure 7.4 LNG filling station.

Figure 7.5 CNG bus in New Delhi.

Figure 7.6 Global methane emissions.

Figure 7.7 Flaring in Bakken.

Figure 7.8 Heavy truck carrying fracking liquid.

Chapter 08

Figure 8.1 Marchetti’s fuel transitions and reality.

Figure 8.2 Long-range global gas production forecasts.

Figure 8.3 Decline of shale gas well output in the United States.

Figure 8.4 Snøvhit LNG plant.

Figure 8.5 Floating LNG plant.

Figure 8.6 Global warming pause.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Natural Gas

Fuel for the 21st Century

Vaclav Smil

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smil, Vaclav.   Natural gas : fuel for the 21st century / Vaclav Smil.        pages cm   Includes bibliographical references and index.

   ISBN 978-1-119-01286-3 (pbk.)1.  Natural gas. 2.  Gas as fuel. I.  Title.   TP350.S476 2015   665.7–dc23

                                 2015017048

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 9781119012863

Cover image: sbayram/iStockphoto

About the Author

Vaclav Smil conducts interdisciplinary research in the fields of energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk assessment and public policy. He has published 35 books and close to 500 papers on these topics. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Science Academy) and the Member of the Order of Canada, and in 2010 he was listed by Foreign Policy among the top 50 global thinkers.

Previous works by author

China’s Energy

Energy in the Developing World

(edited with W. Knowland)

Energy Analysis in Agriculture

(with P. Nachman and T. V. Long II)

Biomass Energies

The Bad Earth

Carbon Nitrogen Sulfur

Energy Food Environment

Energy in China’s Modernization

General Energetics

China’s Environmental Crisis

Global Ecology

Energy in World History

Cycles of Life

Energies

Feeding the World

Enriching the Earth

The Earth’s Biosphere

Energy at the Crossroads

China’s Past, China’s Future

Creating the 20th Century

Transforming the 20th Century

Energy: A Beginner’s Guide

Oil: A Beginner’s Guide

Energy in Nature and Society

Global Catastrophes and Trends

Why America Is Not a New Rome

Energy Transitions

Energy Myths and Realities

Prime Movers of Globalization

Japan’s Dietary Transition and Its Impacts

(with K. Kobayashi)

Harvesting the Biosphere

Should We Eat Meat?

Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing

Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization

Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses

Preface

This book, my 36th, has an unusual origin. For decades, I have followed an unvarying pattern: as I am finishing a book, I had already chosen a new project from a few ideas that had been queuing in my mind, sometimes coming to the fore just in a matter of months and in two exceptional cases (books on creating and transforming the twentieth century) after a wait of nearly two decades. But in January 2014, as I was about to complete the first draft of my latest book (: ), I was still undecided what to do next. Then I got an e-mail from Nick Schulz at ExxonMobil who is also a reader (and a reviewer) of my books, asking me if I had considered writing a book about natural gas akin to my two beginner’s guides (to energy and to oil) published by Oneworld in Oxford in, respectively, 2006 and 2008.