Methane production and power stations
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The first of our gas we produced – no, not that gas! – was derived from coal and was rather poisonous and methane is explosive (but then so it natural gas and was coal gas) if handled incorrectly. However, methane might just be one serious answer to the problems that are headed our way.
We must also remember that methane was the gas for which the for electricity generating plants were designed and to all intents and purposes me might be able to produce this gas ad infinitum. It is, after all, sewage gas and is produced by a natural process.
Every farm, every sewage plant, and others to boot, could, essentially, be a gasworks and could produce this gas for cooking and heating but, primarily, for use in generating electricity.
Each and every landfill site, all of which produce and leak methane, could be tapped for that gas; the very stuff that either, presently, is flared off or just simply vented off. A great waste of a resource in both cases and venting releases methane gas, which is one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere, thus endangering the Planet.
Methane is reckoned to be a greenhouse gas that is somewhere in the region of forty times more dangerous to the Earth than is CO2 but still at the great majority of landfill sites all over the globe this gas is just vented off, straight into the atmosphere. Clever, eh? Not very, to be honest.
Capturing and using the methane, on the other hand, now that could be a real good and clever idea.
Producing methane – on purpose – could give us fuel for power stations, especially remembering that the very first electricity generating plants were in fact designed to burn methane gas.
As methane is somewhat more volatile than is natural gas burning it in such controlled environments such as power stations, and better still local CHP plants, might be better than it being used as a gas for cooking and heating homes and such.
On the other hand, it should be possibly adding something to the gas itself in order to make it less volatile/explosive. But, that is something for the experts in the fields, of which I am not one.
All I know is that methane is a gas that we should make use of as it, basically, produces itself.
© 2010
