Natural gas: Adding green power to industrial development



A competitive fuel

"Gas is the fuel of the future of the world." Says Daniel Yergin, president of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

The main component of natural gas is methane, which is more than 99%. Methane has high thermal stability and calorific value equivalent, compared with coal, oil and other energy, natural gas has the advantages of safe use, high calorific value, clean and so on.

Data show that for heating or industry, the carbon dioxide emissions of natural gas with the same calorific value are 25-30% less than oil and 40-50% less than coal; Used to generate electricity, it emits about 60% less carbon dioxide than coal.

As some important infrastructure construction projects of natural gas in the world are put into use, natural gas can be transported to a wider range of regions in large quantities, and the consumption of natural gas in some countries is growing rapidly, so that the share of natural gas in the energy consumption structure is gradually expanding.

At present, many countries in the world choose natural gas as a fuel for electricity generation, including countries rich in coal and hydropower resources, such as the United States and India.

Natural gas power generation can alleviate energy shortage, reduce the proportion of coal-fired power generation, reduce environmental pollution. In addition, from the perspective of economic benefits, the unit installed capacity of natural gas power generation requires less investment, short construction period, low on-grid electricity price, and has strong competitiveness. Internationally, the economic benefits of gas turbines, especially combined cycle power generation have been confirmed by a large number of facts, according to the power generation cost of coal desulfurization steam engine technology, the fuel gas price of natural gas combined cycle power generation technology can reach 4 US dollars /MBtu (equivalent to RMB 1180 yuan/thousand cubic meters).

In the chemical industry, natural gas is also the best raw material, is the best raw material for the manufacture of nitrogen fertilizer, with less investment, low cost, less pollution and other characteristics.

Because of these advantages, natural gas has become a highly competitive fuel in the fight against global climate change.

Of course, the development of the natural gas industry must first have an adequate resource base for protection.

The development of China's natural gas industry started late, but Qiu Zhongjian, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that the exploration field of natural gas is more extensive and more abundant than oil, such as petrochina has formed four major gas areas. China's recoverable conventional natural gas resources are 22 trillion cubic meters, and China's natural gas exploration is still in the early stage, and reserves can maintain a high level of rapid growth for a long time. In addition, China's tight sandstone gas, coal bed gas, shale gas and other unconventional natural gas, with the progress and improvement of relevant exploration technology, will play a positive role in promoting the rapid development of natural gas, improving the energy structure, and realizing the development of low-carbon economy.

Technological advances have also made it relatively easy to access natural gas, including advances in conventional drilling techniques, improvements in long-distance pipeline capacity, and expansion of liquefied natural gas operations.

According to the feasibility study report, while accelerating the exploration and development of domestic conventional and unconventional natural gas resources and increasing the introduction of foreign natural gas resources, it is reliable to make scientific, reasonable and effective use of natural gas resources and realize the resource base of stable gas supply for 30 years.

At the same time, with the rapid development of the natural gas industry in recent years, nearly 40,000 kilometers of natural gas pipeline networks have been laid underground. The first line of West-East gas transmission, second-line West-East gas transmission, first-line Shan-Beijing, second-line Shan-Beijing, third-line Shan-Beijing, Sichuan-East gas transmission, Shibuninglan and other long-distance backbone gas transmission networks and related supporting facilities have been completed and put into operation, and the "capillaries" of various provinces and cities are also being accelerated. The natural gas pipeline network extending in all directions will open a high-speed channel for the development of the natural gas industry.

An important bridge for the transition of the low-carbon era

Zhou Shengxian, minister of environmental Protection, said at the 2013 Annual meeting of the Guiyang International Forum on Ecological Civilization recently held that the prevention and control of PM2.5 is the top priority of environmental protection work in the next five years, and the action plan on air pollution prevention and control will be announced by the end of July and early August.

On July 10, Tao Detian, spokesman for the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said that the plan, called the "strictest" air control plan in history, would cost 1.7 trillion yuan.

The most stringent plan in history has made it clear that it will accelerate the adjustment of the energy structure, control the total consumption of coal, and strengthen the control of total energy consumption. While promoting the efficient and clean use of coal, we will increase the proportion of clean energy.

This means that the golden age of natural gas, known as "green energy", is coming.

According to the data, natural gas emits only 67% of the carbon dioxide of petroleum products and 44% of coal for the same unit of heat. Compared with the pollutants emitted by coal, the ash content is 1:148, the sulfur dioxide is 1:2700, and the nitrogen oxide is 1:29, which meets the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In the face of the serious threat posed by global warming to the ecosystem and human living environment, some western developed countries have been exploring new economic development models, and low-carbon economy has gradually been generally recognized by the international community, and is becoming a new round of international economic growth point and competition focus.

Industry experts pointed out that in the promotion of low-carbon energy, natural gas, as a clean and efficient fossil energy, is a bridge to the transition to new energy and an important pillar of the low-carbon economy. In the post-international financial crisis era, large-scale development and utilization of natural gas resources is not only a realistic choice for countries to cope with climate warming, achieve energy conservation and emission reduction, but also a major strategy to maintain national energy security and improve international competitiveness.

The EU 20-20-20 programme, for example, can only achieve 62% of its emissions reduction target if it relies solely on renewables. Using natural gas at 40% of the cost of renewables would save $80 billion.

Over the years, the resource endowment of "rich coal and less oil" has made China's energy consumption structure dominated by coal. At present, natural gas accounts for less than 4% of China's primary energy consumption structure, which is far lower than the world average level of 24%.

In order to improve the energy structure and human living environment, many countries have experienced the process of high-quality energy conversion from coal, oil and natural gas.

Therefore, vigorously developing the natural gas industry has become a major event in the energy field of our country. According to the plan, by 2020, China's natural gas development planning target forecast output is 180 billion to 220 billion cubic meters, the proportion in the energy structure will rise from the current 4% to 8% to 12%. Vigorously developing natural gas can be an important bridge for the transition from traditional fossil energy to clean energy.

Post-carbon 'stabilizer'

Coal, oil, these traditional fossil energy in promoting economic development and social progress at the same time, but also brought increasingly serious "by-products". Environmental pollution, climate warming and ecological deterioration force people to devote themselves to finding cleaner energy sources.

Some say that the third revolution that has been and is coming is the transition from a low-carbon era to a carbon-free era.

According to Jeremy Rifkin, a leading American economist, the transition to renewable energy, decentralized production, storage (in the form of hydrogen), distribution through the Internet of energy, and zero-emission transportation form the five pillars of the new economic model.

Unlike the first and second Industrial revolutions, he said, the emerging third Industrial Revolution is based on widely available and largely free renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, water, geothermal, bioenergy, wave and tidal energy, distributed around the world. These dispersed resources are collected by millions of different energy harvesting points, integrated and distributed through intelligent networks to maximize the efficient use of energy and maintain economic efficiency and sustainable development.

In recent years, China's renewable energy development and utilization has also made some progress, wind power installed capacity has jumped to the top of the world, but in the short term, new energy and renewable energy is difficult to develop on a large scale and become the protagonist of energy supply.

Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy, pointed out in the book "Energy Reshaping the World" that natural gas generation will occupy a growing proportion of the power industry, this trend has become inevitable. The use of natural gas in the U.S. power industry is still expected to grow substantially, and power plants will need to respond quickly if electricity demand surges and energy efficiency improvements and renewables do not produce the desired amount of power. This is when gas-fired power plants are most likely to take on such urgent tasks. This is true not only for the United States, but also for other countries and regions.

It is worth noting that Jeremy Rifkin also acknowledged the fact that while renewable energy sources are large and clean and allow us to live in a sustainable world, they also have certain problems. The sun does not shine all the time, the wind does not blow all the time, or if there is wind, it is not the kind we need, and renewable energy is mostly supplied in intermittent bursts. Conventional energy sources, though limited and polluting, provide a stable supply.

Renewable energy in addition to the weather factors to "see the day to eat", political, technical, economic, equipment and market and other inherent factors, but also make the development of renewable energy needs a large number of subsidies, its role is expected to play a very long time.

Since the trend of the third Industrial revolution led by renewable energy is inevitable, and solar, wind and other renewable energy sources cannot guarantee a stable supply, and the storage technology of renewable energy is not yet mature, how to ensure the sustainability of energy supply in the post-carbon era?

Clean, efficient and safe natural gas is undoubtedly the most realistic "stabilizer".

In addition, hydrogen has long been seen as the winning formula in the post-carbon era, and most of the hydrogen used in commercial and industrial applications is extracted from natural gas.

According to the US Energy Information Administration's forecast of the growth rate of major energy consumption in the next 20 years, natural gas will surpass coal to become the second largest energy source in the world after 2020; After 2030, natural gas consumption will surpass oil to become the world's largest energy source.

The curtain of China's natural gas era has just begun. With the improvement of the price system and other related mechanisms, natural gas will surely become a new bright spot in improving China's energy structure and promoting the development of low carbon economy.