Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

The notes for Chapter 8 appear on page 355 of this pdf.Chapter EightLiquified Natural GasNatural gas can be sent by pipeline over long distances. For a price, it can bepiped from North Sea platforms to the British mainland, from Algeria to Italy,or from Siberia to Western Europe. But pipelines are not a feasible way tosend gas across major oceans—for example, from the Mideast or Indonesia tothe United States. A high-technology way to transport natural gas overseashas, however, been developed in the past few decades, using the techniques ofcryogenics—the science of extremely low temperatures.In this method, a sort of giant refrigerator, costing more than a billion dollars,chills a vast amount of gas until it condenses into a colorless, odorless liquidat a temperature of two hundred sixty degrees Fahrenheit below zero.This liquefied natural gas (LNG) has a volume six hundred twenty timessmaller than the original gas. The intensely cold LNG is then transported atapproximately atmospheric pressure in special, heavily insulated cryogenictankers—the costliest non-military seagoing vessels in the world—to a marineterminal, where it is stored in insulated tanks. When needed, it can then bepiped to an adjacent gasification plant—nearly as complex and costly as the liquefactionplant—where it is boiled back into gas and distributed to customersby pipeline just like wellhead gas.Approximately sixty smaller plants in North America also liquefy and storedomestic natural gas as a convenient way of increasing their storage capacityfor winter peak demands which could otherwise exceed the capacity of trunkpipeline supplying the area. This type of local storage to augment peak suppliesis called “peak-shaving.” Such plants can be sited anywhere gas is availablein bulk; they need have nothing to do with marine LNG tankers.LNG is less than half as dense as water, so a cubic meter of LNG (the usualunit of measure) weighs just over half a ton. 1 LNG contains about thirty per-87