CHAPTER ONE GOD’S BREATH AN UNEARTHLY FORCE SEEMED TO BE AT WORK Flames came shooting out of the ground but their source was a mystery Was it the work of God Of the devil Ancient peoples didn’t know the answer They thought that the very air itself was burning It wasn’t of course There was something else mixed in the air colorless odorless natural gas that had escaped from underground The Chimera eternal flames in present-day Turkey are named for a mythological fire-spouting beast 6
Occasionally lightning ignited these gas seeps causing the ancient Greeks to believe a divine force was at work creating what they called an eternal flame They even built temples on the spots where God’s Breath seeped out of the ground In China 2,500 years ago people figured out a way to use this gas First they channeled it through hollow bamboo poles These poles led to a fire that boiled pots of seawater to extract the salt Since then the applications of natural gas have come a long way Today natural gas is used to heat homes and businesses as well as to fuel electric power plants It’s an important feedstock for the chemical industry Natural gas is used to make paper metal stone clay plastic and glass In North America many food crops are grown with the help of an ammonia-based fertilizer This fertilizer was produced with natural gas Have leftovers from a restaurant Get a take-home box made with ethylene a chemical that comes from natural gas 7
People have been using natural gas for thousands of years but it has existed in the earth for much longer Millions of years ago decaying plants were buried in the earth Layers of dirt and rocks pressed down on them creating conditions of extreme heat and pressure Over time the compressed plant material turned into what are now called fossil fuels coal oil and natural gas Natural gas is usually found next to coal or oil at depths of between 3,000 and 25,000 feet 914 7,620 m Most of the world’s known gas deposits were formed somewhere between 10 and 270 million years ago The main ingredient in natural gas is methane but it’s often mixed with liquid hydrocarbons such as propane and butane Natural gas in this state is called wet gas These liquid hydrocarbons must be separated from the methane before it can be used as dry gas Natural gas can be divided into the two broad categories of conventional and unconventional Conventional gas is found in permeable rocks such as sandstone Permeable rocks are not completely solid and can be penetrated by the gas These rocks are sandwiched between layers of impermeable rocks which cannot be penetrated They keep the gas from escaping to the surface Today gas is being found in more unconventional places Shale gas is found within a type of rock called shale Shale is relatively impermeable so the gas does not leak out Tight gas is packed into sand or silt that is not porous enough to allow the gas to flow from one place to another Unconventional deposits can hold large amounts of natural gas but it’s harder to extract 8 Sandstone is likened to a hard sponge because of its pores that trap oil water and natural gas
it Another type of unconventional gas is coalbed methane which is found with coal deposits There are large deposits of natural gas in Russia and the United States Together these two countries are responsible for almost 40 percent of the natural gas produced worldwide They are also the world’s biggest consumers of natural gas Turkmenistan Iran and Qatar also have very large reserves but do not produce as much of it Estimates vary as to how much recoverable natural gas exists worldwide The oil company British Petroleum BP reported more than 200 trillion cubic meters 261 trillion cubic yards at the end of 2011 That would be enough to satisfy the world’s population for more than 60 years But the International Energy Agency IEA put the estimate much higher It reported a number closer to 800 trillion cubic meters 1,046 trillion cubic yards That amount could stretch for 250 years at our current rates of use Unconventional gas sources account for the higher IEA figure but such gas is harder to reach and more expensive Scientists aren’t sure how much of it can even be collected Shale is often found in areas such as river deltas near slow-moving water 9
