Natural gas- a very versatile, efficient, and clean-burning fuel, which is used in a wide range of applications. So, what is natural gas used for exactly you ask?
In the early 19th and 20th century, the primary use of natural gas was for building and street lighting, referred to as Gaslight. Nowadays, the distribution of gas has been improved significantly. As a result of this, the usage of natural gas has increased in power plants, factories, businesses, and homes.
About 24 trillion cubic feet were consumed in the United States in the year 2011. This is equivalent to about 190 billion gallons in terms of gasoline.
Then in the year 2012, about 26 trillion cubic feet worth of natural gas was consumed in the United States. This was primarily done in the industrial and electric power sectors. In the last decade, the domestic production of natural gas has significantly increased, the consumption was still higher than the production in the year 2012.
Most of this balance was provided by the pipelines imported from Canada. In comparison, a small amount was also importer in the form of liquified natural gas through supertankers.
Between the years 2010 and 2025, it is suspected that all over the globe, gas consumption will increase by more than 50 percent. The demand will increase in China and Brazil the most.
Perhaps the most common use of natural gas nowadays is in the generation of electricity. Turbines in electric power plants make use of natural gas and generate electricity which then goes on to the grid stations.
In general, single-cycle turbines make use of the heat energy that is released due to combustion and generate electricity. These gas turbines are about 40 percent efficient. Efficiencies greater than 50 percent can be made possible by the use of combined-cycle power plants.
The NGCC plants make use of combustion gases, which drive the gas turbine. After that, the hot exhaust boils the water and converts it into steam. This steam is then used to drive steam turbines which in turn generate electricity.
In the year 1999 and early 2000s, the price of natural gas was quite low. As a result of this, gas-fired power plants were constructed very rapidly. At the same time, after 2003, natural gas became the prime energy source. In the United States, natural gas carries the highest installed capacity for electricity generation.
Currently, natural gas is considered the cheapest source for generating electricity. this is mainly because the natural gas plants are cheap to construct, in comparison to other power plants.
Coal power plants in comparison to the natural gas-fired power plants tend to have lower operational flexibility. As a result of this, the popularity of coal power plants has gone down significantly.
Moreover, since the prices of natural gas have been reduced since 2008, it has become the intermediate and base power source for electricity generation.
While power generation is the major use of natural gas, it is also used in homes for heating and cogeneration purposes very commonly.
To read more about natural gas, you can visit the official website of the natural gas company- Delek Drilling.
