Breathing quality air: Can natural gas reduce smog?
Smog is a problem of modern times, and is present in many cities around the world, especially those with high volumes of motor vehicles like Beijing and Metro Manila. It has also been found that prolonged exposure to smog can be fatal. Fortunately, the production and use of natural gas is gaining ground in some countries like the US and Russia, and many are expecting that air pollution will be reduced.
Smog and poor air quality in modern metropolises come from a large variety of sources, including paint, solvents, motor vehicle emissions, and smokestack emissions from coal-fired power plants, most of which use fossil fuels.
Natural gas, the cleanest of all fossil fuels, does not contribute substantially to the formation of smog, according to the US Energy Information Administration, as it only emits almost no particulate matter and only low levels of nitrogen oxides. Since nitrogen oxides mainly come from electric utilities, motor vehicles, and industrial plants, using natural gas can reduce nitrogen oxide production significantly. More widespread use of natural gas would also reduce particulate emissions, as natural gas particulate emissions are 90 percent lower than oil combustion and 99 percent lower than coal burning.
Natural gas, the cleanest of all fossil fuels, does not contribute substantially to the formation of smog, according to the US Energy Information Administration, as it only emits almost no particulate matter and only low levels of nitrogen oxides. Since nitrogen oxides mainly come from electric utilities, motor vehicles, and industrial plants, using natural gas can reduce nitrogen oxide production significantly. More widespread use of natural gas would also reduce particulate emissions, as natural gas particulate emissions are 90 percent lower than oil combustion and 99 percent lower than coal burning.
Natural gas can reduce smog formation because it is cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient than the latter. More and more companies and agencies are beginning to take advantage of the abundance of natural gas in the US, and are currently developing more efficient ways to extract it from the ground. The engineering processes used to extract natural gas are explained thoroughly in Natural Gas Engineering Handbook, written by Dr. Ali Ghalambor and Boyun Guo, experts in natural gas engineering.
Dr. Ali Ghalambor has written more than 10 books and nearly 200 articles about petroleum engineering. This Facebook page offers updates about the petroleum and natural gas industry.