Sources

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 546.

Text 9

D. Fertilizer

C. Residential domestic use

Natural gas is supplied to homes, where it is used for such purposes as cooking in natural gas-powered ranges and/or ovens, natural gas-heated clothes dryers, and heating/cooling. Home or other building heating may include boilers, furnaces, and water heaters. CNG is used in rural homes without connections to piped-in public utility services, or with portable grills.

Natural gas is a major feedstock for the production of ammonia, via the Haber process, for use in fertilizer production.

Natural gas is commercially produced from oil fields and natural gas fields. Gas produced from oil wells is called casinghead gas or associated gas. The largest two natural gas fields are probably South Pars Gas Field in Iran and Urengoy gas field in Russia, with reserves on the order of 10¹³ m³. See also List of natural gas fields. Qatar also has 25 trillion cubic meters of natural gas (5% of the world's proven supply), enough to last 250 years at current production levels.

Town gas is a mixture of methane and other gases which can be used in a similar way to natural gas and can be produced by treating coal chemically. This is a historic technology, still used as ‘best solution' in some local circumstances, although coal gasification is not usually economic at current gas prices, depending upon infrastructure considerations.

Methanogenic archaea are responsible for all biological sources of methane, some in symbiotic relationships with other life forms, including termites, ruminants, and cultivated crops. Methane released directly into the atmosphere would be considered a pollutant, however, methane in the atmosphere is oxidised, producing carbon dioxide and water.