Natural Gas- Fuel for the 21st Century Read online

  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 CH4.

  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.

  Natural Gas

  Fuel for the 21st Century

  Vaclav Smil

  This edition first published 2015

  © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Smil, Vaclav.

  Natural gas : fuel fo
r 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 (Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses), 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.

  I had written about natural gas in most of my energy books, but in January 2014, the idea of a book solely devoted to it was not even at the end of my mental book queue. But considering all the attention natural gas has been getting, it immediately seemed an obvious thing to do. And because there are so many components and perspectives to the natural gas story—ranging from the fuel as a key part of the United States’ much publicized energy revolution to its strategic value in Russia’s in its dealings with Europe and to its role in replacing coal in the quest for reduced greenhouse gas emissions—it was no less obvious that I will have to approach the task in my usual interdisciplinary fashion and that I will dwell not only with what we know but also describe and appraise many unknowns and uncertainties that will affect the fuel’s importance in the twenty-first century.

  I began to write this natural gas book on March 1, 2014, intent on replicating approach and coverage of the two beginner’s guides: the intended readers being reasonably well educated (but not energy experts) and the coverage extending to all major relevant topics (be they geological, technical, economical, or environmental). But as the writing proceeded, I decided to depart from that course because I realized that some of the recent claims and controversies concerning natural gas require more detailed examinations. That is why the book is thoroughly referenced (the two guides had only short lists of suggested readings at the end), why it is significantly more quantitative and longer than the two guides, and why I dropped the word primer from its initial subtitle.

  To many forward-looking energy experts, this may seem to be a strangely retrograde book. They would ask why dwell on the resources, extraction, and uses of a fossil fuel and why extol its advantages at a time when renewable fuels and decentralized electricity generation converting solar radiation and wind are poised to take over the global energy supply. That may be a fashionable narrative—but it is wrong, and there will be no rapid takeover by the new renewables. We are a fossil-fueled civilization, and we will continue to be one for decades to come as the pace of grand energy transition to new forms of energy is inherently slow. In 1990, the world derived 88% of its primary commercial energy (leaving aside noncommercial wood and crop residues burned mostly by rural families in low-income nations) from fossil fuels; in 2012, the rate was still almost 87%, with renewables supplying 8.6%, but most of that has been hydroelectricity and new renewables (wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels) provided just 1.9%; and in 2013, their share rose to nearly 2.2% (Smil, 2014; BP, 2014a).

  Share of new renewables in the global commercial primary energy supply will keep on increasing, but a more consequential energy transition of the coming decades will be from coal and crude oil to natural gas. With this book, I hope to provide a solid background for appreciating its importance, its limits, and a multitude of its impacts. This goal dictated the book’s broad coverage where findings from a number of disciplines (geochemistry, geology, chemistry, physics, environmental science, economics, history) and process descriptions from relevant engineering practices (hydrocarbon exploration, drilling, and production; gas processing; pipeline transportation; gas combustion in boilers and engines; gas liquefaction and shipping) are combined to provide a relatively thorough understanding of requirements, benefits, and challenges of natural gas ascendance.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Nick Schulz for starting the process (see the Preface).

  Thanks to two Sarahs—Sarah Higginbotham and Sarah Keegan—at John Wiley for guiding the book to its publication.

  Thanks again to the Seattle team—Wendy Quesinberry, Jinna Hagerty, Ian Saunders, Leah Bernstein, and Anu Horsman—for their meticulous effort with which they prepared images, gathered photographs, secured needed permissions, and created original illustrations, that are reproduced in this book.

  1

  Valuable Resource with an Odd Name

  Natural gas, one of three fossil fuels that energize modern economies, has an oddly indiscriminate name. Nature is, after all, full of gases, some present in enormous volumes, others only in trace quantities. Nitrogen (78.08%) and oxygen (20.94%) make up all but 1% of dry atmosphere’s volume, the rest being constant amounts of rare gases (mainly argon, neon, and krypton altogether about 0.94%) and slowly rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2). The increase of this greenhouse gas has been caused by rising anthropogenic emissions from combustion of fossil fuels and land use changes (mainly tropical deforestation), and CO2 concentrations have now surpassed 0.04% by volume, or 400 parts per million (ppm), about 40% higher than the preindustrial level (CDIAC, 2014).

  In addition, the atmosphere contains variable concentrations of water vapor and
trace gases originating from natural (abiogenic and biogenic) processes and from human activities. Their long list includes nitrogen oxides (NO, NO2, N2O) from combustion (be it of fossil fuels, fuel wood, or emissions from forest and grassland fires), lightning, and bacterial metabolism; sulfur oxides (SO2 and SO3) mainly from the combustion of coal and liquid hydrocarbons, nonferrous metallurgy, and also volcanic eruptions; hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from anaerobic decomposition and from volcanoes; ammonia (NH3) from livestock and from volatilization of organic and inorganic fertilizers; and dimethyl sulfide (C2H6S) from metabolism of marine algae.

  But the gas whose atmospheric presence constitutes the greatest departure from a steady-state composition that would result from the absence of life on the Earth is methane (CH4), the simplest of all hydrocarbons, whose molecules are composed only of hydrogen and carbon atoms. Methane is produced during strictly anaerobic decomposition of organic matter by species of archaea, with Methanobacter, Methanococcus, Methanosarcina, and Methanothermobacter being the major methanogenic genera. Although the gas occupies a mere 0.000179% of the atmosphere by volume (1.79 ppm), that presence is 29 orders of magnitude higher than it would be on a lifeless Earth (Lovelock and Margulis, 1974). The second highest disequilibrium attributable to life on the Earth is 27 orders of magnitude for NH3.

  Methanogens residing in anaerobic environments (mainly in wetlands) have been releasing CH4 for more than three billion years. As with other metabolic processes, their activity is temperature dependent, and this dependence (across microbial to ecosystem scales) is considerably higher than has been previously observed for either photosynthesis or respiration (Yvon-Durocher et al., 2014). Methanogenesis rises 57-fold as temperature increases from 0 to 30°C, and the increasing CH4:CO2 ratio may have important consequences for future positive feedbacks between global warming and changes in carbon cycle.