Natural Gas

For us, the journey of discovery into the world of fossil fuels started with coal. This is what happens when you realise that climate breakdown is real, and you have to get involved. You have to start somewhere.

So the first question about natural gas is why is it called natural?

Natural gas is a fossil fuel which contains methane and other substances.

Methane is involved in multiple ways:
  • it is burned as part of natural gas to make electricity with CO2 and other greenhouse gases as by products
  • there has been an increase in the use of natural gas to power electricity generation as way to transition from coal (so from the worst fossil fuel to a less worse fossil fuel)
  • it is stored in permafrost which is being released with global warming, and is one of the potential tipping points https://www.sciencealert.com/the-arctic-permafrost-is-melting-strange-thermokarst-lakes-climate-change-abrupt-melting
  • methane in the atmosphere is a short lived but very powerful greenhouse gas
  • methane is also produced by farm animals
  • methane leakages from mining sites, distribution pipelines and domestic pipes
  • the clathrate gun effect, as changes in sea temperature cause release of methane from the sea bed as another tipping point
Our observation would be that science tends to fragmentation of topics, as each specific area is researched, then fragmented further, and there is a need to integrate the fragments back together again through many levels to be able to communicate them fully, including social and other implications.

Tricky.

Here's a recent snapshot of electricity generation in the UK, after a very cold night from http://grid.iamkate.com/:



The fossil fuel contribution is 63.3%, nuclear is 13.7% and interconnects from France and the Netherlands are at 7.1%, all trying to meet a demand for 41.6 GW.
Still more research to do on how variable the fossil fuel supplies are e.g. if a coal plant or gas plant are switched on, they need a certain time to get active, and individual units are either fully on or fully off. Whereas, nuclear may be more controllable to fill in. 
Gas (combined cycle)
A combined cycle gas turbine burns natural gas to drive a turbine, and uses the excess thermal energy to produce steam to drive a second turbine.

Gas (open cycle)
An open cycle gas turbine burns natural gas to drive a turbine. Thermal energy generated during the process is wasted, in contrast to a combined cycle gas turbine, which uses the excess thermal energy to produce steam to drive a second turbine.

Must also look at electricity demand per capita over time. What is the strategy for reducing demand?

Also, how are other countries doing to UK in the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, especially at times when there isn't much sun or wind. That just leaves tidal.

More on methane leaks here (thanks to great help from www.twitter.com/NLRebellion, www.twitter.com/zithertilldawn and others):

https://www.edf.org/climate/methanemaps

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/23/622727843/large-methane-leaks-threaten-perception-of-clean-natural-gas

Imagine that. Not easy to detect the leaks. Who know what reporting requirements there are in each country. Mmmmm.


Methane in CO2 equivalent units



"Fugitive" methane emissions

Here is a fragment from 2011 about "fugitive" emissions of methane from the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology POSTnote 383 dated June 2011:

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