Natural Gas: Fuel for the 21st Century

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

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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.

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.

Free-living methanogens were eventually joined by archaea that are residing in the digestive tract (in enlarged hindgut compartments) of four arthropod orders, in millipedes, termites, cockroaches, and scarab beetles (Brune, 2010), with the tropical termites being the most common invertebrate CH4 emitters. Although most vertebrates also emit CH4 (it comes from intestinal anaerobic protozoa that harbor endosymbiotic methanogens), their contributions appear to have a bimodal distribution and are not determined by diet. Only a few animals are intermediate methane producers, while less than half of the studied taxa (including insectivorous bats and herbivorous pandas) produce almost no CH4, while primates belong to the group of high emitters, as do elephants, horses, and crocodiles.

But by far the largest contribution comes from ruminant species, from cattle, sheep, and goats (Hackstein and van Alen, 2010). Soil-dwelling methanotrophs and atmospheric oxidation that produces H2O and CO2 have been methane’s major biospheric sinks, and in the absence of any anthropogenic emissions, atmospheric concentrations of CH4 would have remained in a fairly stable disequilibrium. These emissions began millennia before we began to exploit natural gas as a fuel: atmospheric concentration of CH4 began to rise first with the expansion of wet-field (rice) cropping in Asia (Ruddiman, 2005; Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Methanogens in rice fields (here in terraced plantings in China’s Yunnan) are a large source of CH4.

Reproduced from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Terrace_field_yunnan_china_denoised.jpg. © Wikipedia Commons.

Existence of inflammable gas emanating from wetlands and bubbling up from lake bottoms was known for centuries, and the phenomenon was noted by such famous eighteenth-century investigators of natural processes as Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Priestley, and Alessandro Volta. In 1777, after observing gas bubbles in Lago di Maggiore, Alessandro Volta published Lettere sull’ Aria inflammabile native delle Paludi, a slim book about native inflammable air of marshlands (Volta, 1777). Two years later, Volta isolated methane, the simplest hydrocarbon molecule and the first in the series of compounds following the general formula of CnH2n+2. When in 1866 August Wilhelm von Hofmann proposed a systematic nomenclature of hydrocarbons, that series became known as alkanes (alkenes are CnH2n; alkines are CnH2n−2).

The second compound in the alkane series is ethane (C2H6), and the third one is propane (C3H8). The fossil fuel that became known as natural gas and that is present in different formations in the topmost layers of the Earth’s crust is usually a mixture of these three simplest alkanes, with methane always dominant (sometimes more than 95% by weight) and only exceptionally with less than 75% of the total mass (Speight, 2007). C2H6 makes up mostly between 2 and 7% and C3H8 typically just 0.1–1.3%. Heavier homologs—mainly butane (C4H10) and pentane (C5H12)—are also often present. All C2–C5 compounds (and sometimes even traces of heavier homologs) are classed as natural gas liquids (NGL), while propane and butane are often combined and marketed (in pressurized containers) as liquid petroleum gases (LPG).

Most natural gases also contain small amounts of CO2, H2S, nitrogen, helium, and water vapor, but their composition becomes more uniform before they are sent from production sites to customers. In order to prevent condensation and corrosion in pipelines, gas processing plants remove all heavier alkanes: these compounds liquefy once they reach the surface and are marketed separately as NGL, mostly as valuable feedstocks for petrochemical industry, some also as portable fuels. Natural gas processing also removes H2S, CO2, and water vapor and (if they are present) N2 and He (for details, see Chapter 3).

1.1 METHANE’S ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS

No energy source is perfect when judged by multiple criteria that fully appraise its value and its impacts. For fuels, the list must include not only energy density, transportability, storability, and combustion efficiency but also convenience, cleanliness, and flexibility of use; contribution to the generation of greenhouse gases; and reliability and durability of supply. When compared to its three principal fuel alternatives—wood, coal, and liquids derived from crude oil—natural gas scores poorly only on the first criterion: at ambient pressure and temperature, its specific density, and hence its energy density, is obviously lower than that of solids or liquids. On all other criteria, natural gas scores no less than very good, and on most of them, it is excellent or superior.

Specific density of methane is 0.718 kg/m³ (0.718 g/l) at 0°C and 0.656 g/l at 25°C or about 55% of air’s density (1.184 kg/m³ at 25°C). Specific densities of common liquid fuels are almost exactly, 1,000 times higher, with gasoline at 745 kg/m³ and diesel fuel at 840 kg/m³, while coal densities of bituminous coals range from 1,200 to 1,400 kg/m³. Only when methane is liquefied (by lowering its temperature to −162°C) does its specific density reach the same order of magnitude as in liquid fuels (428 kg/m³), and it is equal to specific density of many (particularly coniferous) wood species, including firs, cedars, spruces, and pines.

Energy density can refer to the lower heating value (LHV) or higher heating value (HHV); the former rate assumes that the latent heat of vaporization of water produced during the combustion is not recovered, and hence it is lower than HHV that accounts for the latent heat of water vaporization. Volumetric values for methane are 37.7 MJ/m³ for HHV and 33.9 MJ/m³ for LHV (10% difference), while the actual HHVs for natural gases range between 33.3 MJ/m³ for the Dutch gas from Groningen to about 42 MJ/m³ for the Algerian gas from Hasi R’Mel. Again, these values are three orders of magnitude lower than the volumetric energy density of liquid fuels: gasoline’s HHV is 35 GJ/m³ and diesel oil rates nearly 36.5 GJ/m³. Liquefied natural gas (50 MJ/kg and 0.428 kg/l) has volumetric energy density of about 21.4 GJ/m³ or roughly 600 times the value for typical natural gas containing 35–36 MJ/m³.

Methane’s low energy density is no obstacle to high-volume, low-cost, long-distance terrestrial transport. There is, of course, substantial initial capital cost of pipeline construction (including a requisite number of compression stations), and energy needed to power reciprocating engines, gas turbines, or electric motors is the main operating expenditure. But as long as the lines and the compressors are properly engineered, there is no practical limit to distances that can be spanned: multiple lines bring natural gas from supergiant fields of Western Siberia to Western Europe, more than 5000 km to the west. Main trunk of China’s West–East pipeline from Khorgas (Xinjiang) to Guangzhou is over 4,800 km long, and eight major branches add up to the total length of 9,100 km (China.org, 2014). Moreover, pipelines transport gas at very low cost per unit of delivered energy and can do so on scales an order of magnitude higher than the transmission of electricity where technical consideration limit the maxima to 2–3 GW for single lines, while gas pipelines can have capacities of 10–25 GW (IGU, 2012).

Undersea pipelines are now a proven technical option in shallow waters: two parallel 1,224 km long lines of the Nord Stream project built between 2010 and 2012 between Russia and Germany (from Vyborg, just north of Sankt Petersburg to Lubmin near Greifswald in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) to transport 55 Gm³/year were laid deliberately in the Baltic seabed in order to avoid crossing Ukraine or Belarus before reaching the EU (Nord Stream, 2014). Crossing deep seas is another matter: low energy density of natural gas precludes any possibility of shipborne exports at atmospheric pressure, and the only economic option for intercontinental shipments is to liquefy the gas and carry it in insulated containers on purpose-built tankers; this technique, still much more expensive than pipeline transportation, will be appraised in detail in Chapter 5. Methane’s low energy density is also a disadvantage when using the fuel in road vehicles, and once again, the only way to make these uses economical is by compression or liquefaction of the gas (for details, see Chapter 7).

Low energy density would be a challenge if the only storage option would be as uncompressed gas in aboveground tanks: even a giant tank with 100 m in diameter and 100 m tall (containing about 785,000 m³ or roughly 28 TJ) would store gas for heating only 500 homes during a typical midcontinental Canadian winter. Obviously, volumes of accessible stores must be many orders of magnitude higher, high enough to carry large midlatitude cities through long winters. The easiest, and the most common, choice is to store the fuel by injecting it into depleted natural gas reservoirs; other options are storage in aquifers (in porous, permeable rocks) and (on a much smaller scale but with almost perfect sealing) in salt caverns.

High combustion efficiency is the result of high temperatures achievable when burning the gas in large boilers and, better yet, in gas turbines. Gas turbines are now the single most efficient fuel convertors on the market and that high performance can be further boosted by combining them with steam turbines. When exiting a gas turbine, the exhaust has temperature of 480–600°C, and it can be used to vaporize water, and the resulting steam runs an attached steam turbine (Kehlhofer, Rukes, and Hannemann, 2009). Such combined cycle generation (CCG, or combined cycle power plants, CCPP) can achieve overall efficiency of about 60%, the rate unsurpassed by any other mode of fuel combustion (Figure 1.2). And modern natural gas-fired furnaces used to heat North America’s houses leave almost no room for improvement as they convert 95–97% of incoming gas to heat that is forced by a fan through ducting and floor registers into rooms.

Figure 1.2 Combined cycle gas turbine: energy flow and a model of GE installation.

Reproduced courtesy of General Electric Company.

Little needs to be said about the convenience of use. The only chore an occupant has to do in houses heated by natural gas is to set a thermostat to desired levels (with programmable thermostats, this can be done accurately with specific day/night or weekday/weekend variations)—and make sure that the furnace is checked and cleaned once a year. Electronic ignition, now standard on furnaces as well as on cooking stoves, has eliminated wasteful pilot lights, and auto reignition makes the switching a one-step operation (turning a knob to desired intensity) instead (as is the case with standard electronic ignition) of turning a knob to on position (to open a gas valve), waiting a second for ignition, and then turning a knob to a preferred flame intensity.

Combination of these desirable attributes—safe and reliable delivery by pipelines from fields and voluminous storages, automatic dispensation of the fuel by electronically controlled furnaces, effortless control of temperature settings for furnaces and stoves, and low environmental impact—means that natural gas is an excellent source of energy for densely populated cities that will house most of the world’s population in the twenty-first century. As Ausubel (2003, 2) put it, the strongly preferred configuration for very dense spatial consumption of energy is a grid that can be fed and bled continuously at variable rates—and besides electricity, natural gas is the only energy source that can be distributed by such a grid and used directly in that way.

As for the cleanliness of use, electricity is the only competitor at the point of final consumption. Combustion of pure methane, or a mixture of methane and ethane, produces only water and carbon dioxide . There are no emissions of acidifying sulfur oxides (as already noted, H2S is stripped from natural gas before it is sent through pipelines), while heating houses with coal or fuel oil generates often fairly high emissions of SO2. Moreover,