English 12
9/12/14
Alternative Fuel Sources
As time wears on, our supply of nonrenewable fuels is decreasing at an alarming rate. If something does not change soon, our supply of oil and petroleum fuels, those most commonly used, will be diminished within the next 54 years, according to BP. With the knowledge of this impending shortage comes the urgent need for alternative fuels. An alternative fuel of recent popularity is natural gas. Natural gas is in limited supply, just like oil, but out of the three main nonrenewable fuel sources that are present on Earth, natural gas is the most abundant. With this in mind, the conclusion can be made that Natural gas will not offer a permanent solution to the fuel crisis, but it is a good alternative to be put into consideration. Before we consider natural gas as an alternative fuel source to oil and petroleum fuels, we must first ask ourselves, what is natural gas? The Environmental Protection Agency defines natural gas as: “a fossil fuel formed when layers of buried plants and animals are exposed to intense heat and pressure over thousands of years. The energy that the plants and animals originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of carbon in natural gas Natural gas is a nonrenewable resource because it cannot be replenished on a human time frame.” This definition helps us establish what natural gas is, but what about its composition makes it a good alternative to oil/petroleum fuels? For starters, natural gas’s main ingredient is methane but can contain, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and hydrogen sulfide. This chemical composition makes natural gas very reactive and flammable, which is a good thing if it is going to be used as an alternative fuel. How do we obtain natural gas? …show more content…
Natural gas can come from deposits of natural gas by itself, or it can be found in natural oil deposits. The deposits of only natural gas tend to be more lucrative and long lasting, however. According to the Natural Gas Website, there are two different kinds of natural gas deposits, deep and conventional. Natural gas is mined in a similar fashion to oil. First, expensive oil drilling equipment is used in order to dig deep enough to reach the natural gas deposit. The conventional gas is usually closer the surface and is easier to mine using conventional drill bits. But most deep gas deposits are located deep within Earth 's surface. Some of these deposits can be found as deep as 15,000 feet into the ground. This makes most deep gas deposits more expensive because it is harder to access to them. When the deposit has been reached by the drilling rig, refrigerant, such as liquid nitrogen, is used to lower the temperature and liquefy the natural gas. It is then pumped to the surface and stored or transported to refining facilities. Before its end use, natural gas go through an extensive refining process that removes all of the naturally occurring impurities. The process begins by separating the heavier hydrocarbons as well as the natural impurities out from the natural gas. This brings the natural gas up to what is known as “pipeline quality.” The gas is then processed through refrigeration and cryogenic cycles, which manipulate the temperature and pressure of the natural gas in order to achieve useable quality. Natural gas was first used in England in the late 1700s. It was a bye product of the usage of coal and was primarily used to produce light. In the United States, Baltimore used this same type of natural gas and was the first lit city in The United States. The type of natural gas we are considering as an alternative fuel, however, was first discovered by French explorers near Lake Eerie, United States. These explorers discovered it when they found Native Americans igniting the natural gas that was seeping from the ground around them. The first natural gas well was dug by William Hart, who later founded the Fredonia Gas Light Company, which was the first distributor of naturally occurring natural gas. Now, there are over 900 distributors of Natural gas in the United States alone, the largest being in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Today, natural gas has a variety of uses. An example of this is that 28% of the energy consumed by the United