People have known natural gas for a long time. The ancients began to boil salt with natural gas more than 2,000 years ago. However, this is only a preliminary use of this energy resource. As an efficient energy source, natural gas has a much greater use advantage than other fuel energy sources such as coal, so it has been widely used today.
More than 2,000 years ago, the ancients used natural gas to boil salt, which was only a preliminary use of this energy resource. As an efficient energy source, natural gas has a much greater use advantage than other fuel energy sources such as coal, so it has been widely used today.
First of all, natural gas has become the fuel of choice for many contemporary thermal power plants. Since the 1980s, the global electricity generation from natural gas has increased by about 50%. Among them, Russia’s natural gas power generation accounts for about 40%, and Japan’s imported natural gas power generation accounts for about 70%; dozens of countries around the world are competing to import natural gas, with an annual consumption of more than 100 million tons, mainly for power generation. This is because compared with coal-fired power plants, natural gas power generation can save 50% of the construction cost per kilowatt of installed capacity, shorten the construction period by 30%, save 85% of the floor space, and increase the thermal efficiency of the power plant by 25% and use 40 less cooling water. %, 15% savings in power generation costs, flexible operation and convenient regulation, especially greatly reducing environmental pollution.
Natural gas is the fuel of choice for many thermal power plants
Secondly, natural gas is also a high-quality automobile fuel. It has good anti-knock performance, and because it is gaseous, it mixes evenly with air, burns completely, does not form carbon, and can increase thermal efficiency by more than 10%. Compared with the use of gasoline fuel, carbon monoxide emissions after natural gas combustion are reduced by 97%, hydrocarbons are reduced by 72%, nitrogen oxides are reduced by 39%, carbon dioxide is reduced by 24%, sulfur dioxide is reduced by 90%, and benzene, lead and other dusts are reduced by 100%. , So it is a low-polluting automobile fuel. Although the calorific value of natural gas is slightly lower than that of gasoline, its price is only 2/3 of that of gasoline. Moreover, due to its complete combustion, no carbon formation and no knock, the service life of natural gas-fueled vehicles is greatly extended, and the maintenance cost is only 70% of gasoline vehicles. Automobiles using natural gas also have the advantage of good safety, because the relative density of natural gas is lower than that of air (0.58). Once a leak occurs, it will quickly dissipate in the air. Gasoline is not easy to spread, and it is easy to catch fire when it encounters sparks.
Natural gas is not only a power source, but also an important chemical raw material. At present, the products or primary products processed with natural gas as raw materials mainly include synthetic ammonia, methanol, formaldehyde, ethylene, synthesis gas or hydrogen, acetylene, methyl chloride, carbon disulfide, hydrocyanic acid, carbon black, etc. According to statistics, currently about 76% of synthetic ammonia, 80% of methanol, 39% of ethylene (including propylene) and its derivatives in the world are produced using natural gas and natural gas condensate as raw materials. In addition, natural gas is also used in papermaking, metallurgy, quarrying, ceramics, glass and other industries, as well as waste incineration and drying and dehydration treatment.
