Natural gas

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Natural gas is a gas consisting primarily of methane. It is found associated with fossil fuels, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, and landfills. It is an important fuel source, a major feedstock for fertilizers, and a potent greenhouse gas.

Natural gas is often informally referred to as simply gas, especially when compared to other energy sources such as electricity. Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, it must undergo extensive processing to remove almost all materials other than methane. The by-products of that processing include ethane, propane, butanes, pentanes and higher molecular weight hydrocarbons, elemental sulfur, and sometimes helium and nitrogen.

For more information about Natural gas, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with natural gas

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New evidence supports 19th century idea on formation of oil and gas

New evidence supports 19th century idea on formation of oil and gas

Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry

created Nov 04, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 1

Scientists in Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described ...


Colorado county copes with methane mystery (AP)

Colorado county copes with methane mystery

Space & Earth / Environment

created Nov 02, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 7

(AP) -- Bernice and Jerry Angely like to show visitors the singed T-shirt a friend was wearing when their water well exploded and shot flames 30 feet high.


Scientist shines laser light on methane in pursuit of clean fuel

Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry

created Oct 22, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

An abundant greenhouse gas could someday help clean up the earth. Converting methane to liquid methanol could produce clean, low-cost fuel and prevent the potent greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere. Exploiting methane ...


Cow

Cars that Run on Cow Power?

Technology / Energy

created Oct 16, 2009 | popularity 3 / 5 (7) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Race cars have long provided a testing ground for driving technology that we eventually see in passenger cars on the road. To this end, an engineering team in Lancashire, England, is hoping ...


New NIST database on gas hydrates to aid energy and climate research

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Oct 07, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has developed a free, online collection of data on the properties of gas hydrates, naturally occurring crystalline materials that are a potential energy resource and also ...


Britain's first dual fuel bus will cut emissions by half

Britain's first dual fuel bus will cut emissions by half

Technology / Energy

created Sep 08, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

A consortium brought together by low carbon experts at the University of East Anglia (UEA) is today launching the first bus in the UK to run on clean, biomethane gas.


Hydrocarbons in the deep Earth?

Hydrocarbons in the deep Earth?

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 26, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (42) | comments 27

The oil and gas that fuels our homes and cars started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years ...


Noise pollution negatively affects woodland bird communities, says CU-Boulder study

Noise pollution negatively affects woodland bird communities

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jul 23, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study shows the strongest evidence yet that noise pollution negatively influences bird populations, findings with implications for the fate of ecological communities ...


US energy use drops in 2008

Technology / Energy

created Jul 20, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (17) | comments 7

Americans used more solar, nuclear, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did in 2007, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The nation used less coal ...


A new plant that produces gas from wood was opened in Austria

Plant making gas from wood opens in Austria

Technology / Energy

created Jun 24, 2009 | popularity 2.3 / 5 (3) | comments 1

A new plant that produces gas from wood was opened in Austria on Wednesday, paving the way towards new possibilities in renewable energy.


Fertilizer industry finds its alternative energy: corncobs

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jun 18, 2009 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

American agriculture has become increasingly dependent on foreign sources of natural gas, a key ingredient in the nitrogen fertilizer that farmers use to get high yields of crops such as corn and wheat.


Natural gas in the Arctic is mostly Russian

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 29, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1

(AP) -- Nearly one-third of the natural gas yet to be discovered in the world is north of the Arctic Circle and most of it is in Russian territory, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey.


Energy efficiency standards for appliances should include upstream costs

Technology / Energy

created May 27, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

The U.S. Department of Energy should consider gradually changing its system of setting appliance energy-efficiency standards to a full-fuel-cycle measurement, which takes into account both the energy used to operate an appliance, ...


Low-cost process produces natural gas from algae

Technology / Energy

created May 06, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (9) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new method for converting algae into renewable natural gas for use in pipelines and power generation has been transferred from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to the marketplace ...


'Ice that burns' may yield clean, sustainable bridge to global energy future

'Ice that burns' may yield clean, sustainable bridge to global energy future

Chemistry / Other

created Mar 23, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (9) | comments 4

In the future, natural gas derived from chunks of ice that workers collect from beneath the ocean floor and beneath the arctic permafrost may fuel cars, heat homes, and power factories. Government researchers ...