Cover
Title page
About the Author
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Valuable Resource with an Odd Name
1. 1.1 METHANE’S ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS
2 Origins and Distribution of Fossil Gases
1. 2.1 BIOGENIC HYDROCARBONS
2. 2.2 WHERE TO FIND NATURAL GAS
3. 2.3 RESOURCES AND THE PROGRESSION OF RESERVES
3 Extraction, Processing, Transportation, and Sales
1. 3.1 EXPLORATION, EXTRACTION, AND PROCESSING
2. 3.2 PIPELINES AND STORAGES
3. 3.3 CHANGING PRODUCTION
4 Natural Gas as Fuel and Feedstock
1. 4.1 INDUSTRIAL USES, HEATING, COOLING, AND COOKING
2. 4.2 ELECTRICITY GENERATION
3. 4.3 NATURAL GAS AS A RAW MATERIAL
5 Exports and Emergence of Global Trade
1. 5.1 NORTH AMERICAN NATURAL GAS SYSTEM
2. 5.2 EURASIAN NETWORKS
3. 5.3 EVOLUTION OF LNG SHIPMENTS
6 Diversification of Sources
1. 6.1 SHALE GAS
2. 6.2 CBM AND TIGHT GAS
3. 6.3 METHANE HYDRATES
7 Natural Gas in Energy Transitions
1. 7.1 FUEL SUBSTITUTIONS AND DECARBONIZATION OF ENERGY SUPPLY
2. 7.2 METHANE IN TRANSPORTATION
3. 7.3 NATURAL GAS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
8 The Best Fuel for the Twenty-First Century?
1. 8.1 HOW FAR WILL GAS GO?
2. 8.2 SHALE GAS PROSPECTS
3. 8.3 GLOBAL LNG
4. 8.4 UNCERTAIN FUTURES
References
Index
End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 01
1. Figure 1.1 Methanogens in rice fields (here in terraced plantings in China’s Yunnan) are a large source of CH₄.
2. Figure 1.2 Combined cycle gas turbine: energy flow and a model of GE installation.
Chapter 02
1. Figure 2.1 Diagenesis, catagenesis, and metagenesis.
2. Figure 2.2 Supergiant gas fields in Western Siberia.
3. Figure 2.3 Anticlines.
4. Figure 2.4 McKelvey box.
5. Figure 2.5 North Dome/South Pars gas field.
Chapter 03
1. Figure 3.1 Chinese percussion rig.
2. Figure 3.2 Modern drilling rig.
3. Figure 3.3 Productivity of US gas wells.
4. Figure 3.4 US natural gas wellhead prices.
5. Figure 3.5 A well cluster (one of 29) in Groningen gas field.
6. Figure 3.6 Sulfur in the Port of Vancouver.
7. Figure 3.7 Natural gas processing plant, Central Alberta, Canada. © Corbis.
8. Figure 3.8 US compressor stations.
9. Figure 3.9 US pipeline network.
10. Figure 3.10 Gas flaring in Pennsylvania.
11. Figure 3.11 Global natural gas extraction.
Chapter 04
1. Figure 4.1 New York 1900: light and cook with gas.
2. Figure 4.2 High-efficiency natural gas furnace.
3. Figure 4.3 GE gas turbine.
4. Figure 4.4 Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch.
5. Figure 4.5 Qatar Shell Pearl GTL.
Chapter 05
1. Figure 5.1 Canada–US natural gas pipeline crossings.
2. Figure 5.2 European gas networks.
3. Figure 5.3 Russian export pipelines.
4. Figure 5.4 Chinese pipelines.
5. Figure 5.5 LNG tanker Arctic Voyager.
6. Figure 5.6 Australian Karratha LNG terminal for gas exports to Asia.
7. Figure 5.7 Futtsu LNG terminal.
Chapter 06
1. Figure 6.1 Global shale deposits.
2. Figure 6.2 US shale basins.
3. Figure 6.3 Shale gas drilling site in Pennsylvania.
4. Figure 6.4 Sulige field in China.
5. Figure 6.5 Methane hydrate cage.
6. Figure 6.6 Methane hydrate global deposits.
Chapter 07
1. Figure 7.1 Global fuel transitions.
2. Figure 7.2 Decarbonization of global energy supply.
3. Figure 7.3 US gas share in primary energy production.
4. Figure 7.4 LNG filling station.
5. Figure 7.5 CNG bus in New Delhi.
6. Figure 7.6 Global methane emissions.
7. Figure 7.7 Flaring in Bakken.
8. Figure 7.8 Heavy truck carrying fracking liquid.
Chapter 08
1. Figure 8.1 Marchetti’s fuel transitions and reality.
2. Figure 8.2 Long-range global gas production forecasts.
3. Figure 8.3 Decline of shale gas well output in the United States.
4. Figure 8.4 Snøvhit LNG plant.
5. Figure 8.5 Floating LNG plant.
6. Figure 8.6 Global warming pause.

Pages

This edition first published 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smil, Vaclav.
   Natural gas : fuel for 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.

Fuel for the 21st Century