Who Produces and Consumes Natural Gas

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From the course by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Energy, Environment, and Everyday Life

22 ratings

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Energy, Environment, and Everyday Life

22 ratings

For a sample of what this course will include, see the video "Energy, Environment, and Everyday Life MOOC with University of Illinois Professor David Ruzic" - http://go.citl.illinois.edu/Energy-MOOC This course teaches you everything you need to know about energy, the environment, and at least a number of things in everyday life. It starts by talking about energy itself and where it comes from. This includes how much we have, who has it, who uses it, and what that all means. The video clips are produced in a fast-paced multimedia format during which Professor Ruzic throws in fun and demonstrations. There are multiple-choice questions to check your understanding and some more in-depth exercises to guide you deeper into the subject. After explaining the main things we use energy for – our cars and electronics! – fossil fuels are examined in detail. Want to really learn about fracking or pipelines? Watch these segments. The environmental effects of fossil fuels are taught as well. Global warming, acid rain, and geoengineering all are in this part of the course. Part of their solution is too. Renewables follow, with clips on solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biofuels, etc. You’ll even see Professor Ruzic in a corn field and in the middle of a stream showing how you could dam it up. Finally, nuclear power is taught in detail – how it really works and what happens when it doesn’t work, as in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, as well as how we are making it today, which is shown here without political preconceptions. In this course, economics takes center stage. People will ultimately do whatever costs the least, so energy policy is most effective when it is targeted at the user’s wallet. Throughout the course there are 24 segments on “How Things Work." These guides to everyday life are tremendously varied, covering everything from fireworks to making beer to what happens backstage at a theater. The course is designed to be enjoyable as well as informative. We hope you will take a look!

From the lesson

Week 4: Oil and Gas – With Us Forever?

Oil and natural gas are the most used and most popular energy sources in the world. What are they? Where do they come from? Who uses, needs, and makes them? All the facts and the controversies over pipelines and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) are discussed in detail. All of this is tightly tied to economics so grab your wallets – you will really see where your money goes! "How Things Work” takes us to high places – an observatory, a cell phone tower, and a laser light show!

From the Well to You12:39

How Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) Works15:13

Fracking and the Environment: Myth and Reality15:49

Who Produces and Consumes Natural Gas7:35

Combined Cycle and Converting Coal to Run It6:39

How Things Work: Laser Light Shows9:29

Meet the Instructors

David N. Ruzic
Abel Bliss Professor
Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering

[SOUND]

On this chart,

you'll also notice that some of the numbers are bold.

We've got numbers both for production and consumption.

And I've turned the ones into a bold type to indicate the cases

where that balance between production and consumption are out of whack.

You see, transporting natural gas in a ship is not anywhere near

as easy as transporting crude oil or refinery products.

The density between a liquid and

a gas is about a factor of 10,000 to 1.

If I just took a big tanker and filled up the holes with natural gas,

and I didn't pressurize the natural gas at all,

I would need 10,000 tankers to take what one tanker could bring in oil.

Of course, that would be silly.

I can pressurize it, right?

I can have compressed natural gas.

And that certainly gets me up a factor, maybe even of 40 or 50, not of 10,000.

You could liquify the natural gas, that takes money.

You have to turn it down to cryogenic temperatures, and

keep it at that temperature as you transport it.

So transporting natural gas across oceans is possible, but not very cost effective.

The best way to transport natural gas is in a pipeline.

And that means you have to have a pipeline between the consumer and the producer.

There are two countries that border the United States, Canada and Mexico.

And indeed, we can have pipelines going between the two sources.

We used to import oil from Mexico, but

Mexico has grown and now is actually past the point of self-sufficient.

I think they're even importing oil, and possibly even some gas at this point.

But Canada, which you can see is on this list,

produces more natural gas than it consumes.

And the difference between its production and consumption is probably really close

to the difference between consumption and production in the United States.

Note that the US is the largest consumer of natural gas, and the largest producer.

Let's look at some of the other numbers involved.

You can see Russia.

Russia produces 50% more gas than they use.

And natural gas is their primary energy source in the Soviet Union and

now in Russia.

That natural gas goes to Europe.

We look here on the bottom of the list of a few countries, like Germany or Italy or

the United Kingdom.

They have to import gas.

Certainly, for the Central European nations like Germany and

Italy, that natural gas comes from Russia, because they can build a pipeline.

Notice here, these are countries that are also all net producers.

Indonesia can help fuel Japan.

The Netherlands can help fuel the UK.

Netherlands and Norway are on this list because of the North Sea.

Now, let's look at this chart.

This is the chart of natural gas flow in the United States.

And the first thing to do is to look at the far left.

And you'll see that we get gas from gas wells.

We get some gas from oil wells.

And we even get some gas from coalbed seams.

Methane, CH4, it's a very simple hydrocarbon.

And it's not surprising that it's formed and

found in all these places where we would find other hydrocarbons.

But then you can see this new entry into natural gas production in the US,

and that's from shale.

That's the tight gas that you use hydraulic fracturing to get at today.

And these statistics, which are in 2013, show that it's about one-third of

all the natural gas produced is from hydraulic fracturing of shale.

An enormous resource that ten years ago was not even there.

You might say wow, did the US import that much more natural gas?

No, we just didn't use that much more natural gas.

Almost every new power plant, electric power plant that's been put on the grid

over this last 15 years has been one that uses natural gas.

And using natural gas is actually quite efficient, because it burns completely.

The only pollution it makes is water vapor and CO2.

And you might say, that's bad, it's still making CO2.

That's a global warming gas.

Well, that's true, it is a global warming gas.

But per energy unit, I produce less CO2 by

burning methane than I do by burning oil or coal.

Oil has a ratio of carbon to hydrogen of about two hydrogens for every carbon.

Methane has four hydrogens for every carbon.

And coal is about a one-to-one mix of hydrogen and carbon.

If I have a lot more carbon-carbon bonds, I need to make a lot more CO2.

As opposed to hydrogen-carbon bonds, where that hydrogen can turn into water vapor.

So that's the production flow.

Now, there's some other interesting numbers on here.

You'll see this number, three something quads, going into repressuring.

Basically, this is the energy content that's used

to get all of that gas to where it has to go, sort of the energy cost.

Because it's a little different than the gas number here on the chart that shows

what goes into storage.

It's telling you about these vast underground porous rock formations.

Basically think of it as slightly porous gravel beds deep down underground.

I told you that you probably don't get everything out that you put in.

And indeed, if you compare the number put into storage

compared to taken out of storage, right, you can see that there's a bit less.

But that's the only way to buffer,

to create enough capacity to be able to use this fuel in the winter.

There are some imports and some exports.

The border between the US and Canada is a long one.

You can imagine that you would rather take a gas on the West, go back and

forth to the US, and then the East back and forth to Canada.

Than trying to say, it's Canadian gas, we gotta ship it all the way across

the whole country, doesn't make any sense at all.

In the end, the use of these fuels, clearly, electricity is one

of the largest, using it in industry as a pollution-free fuel.

You don't need to worry about pollution mitigation, sulfur removal,

acid rain, and so forth when you burn natural gas.

And we use it to heat buildings, commercial and residential use.

[MUSIC]

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