What is the life cycle of natural gas?

The life cycle of natural gas can be divided into the following stages: production, transmission, distribution and final use. In Table 1 the inventory of Italian gas industry atmospheric emissions and energy consumption collected by Snam for the year 1995 is presented [8].

How is natural gas extracted from Marcellus Shale?

Hydraulic fracturing – commonly known as fracking – is the process used to extract shale gas. Deep holes are drilled down into the shale rock, followed by horizontal drilling to access more of the gas reserves, as shale reserves are typically distributed horizontally rather than vertically.

What does natural gas have to do with Marcellus Shale?

The natural gas is trapped in low-permeability shale, and requires the well completion method of hydraulic fracturing to allow the gas to flow to the well bore. The surge in drilling activity in the Marcellus Shale since 2008 has generated both economic benefits and considerable controversy.

Is Marcellus Shale natural gas?

According to the USGS assessment, the Marcellus Shale contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids.

What is the efficiency of a natural gas power plant?

Natural gas power plants are attractive to the power industry because of the following advantages: It has efficiency between 45% and 57%, highest efficiency for a power plant type. It has a small footprint compared to other power plant types. Construction time is short compared to other types of power plants.

Is Natural Gas Natural?

What is natural gas? Natural gas is a fossil energy source that formed deep beneath the earth’s surface. Natural gas contains many different compounds. The largest component of natural gas is methane, a compound with one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms (CH4).

What is the most common source rock for oil deposits?

Petroleum source rock is defined as the fine-grained sediment with sufficient amount of organic matter, which can generate and release enough hydrocarbons to form a commercial accumulation of oil or gas [1]. Source rocks are commonly shales and lime mudstones, which contain significant amount of organic matter [2].

How much natural gas was in the Marcellus in 2002?

As recently as 2002, the United States Geological Survey in its Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Appalachian Basin Province, calculated that the Marcellus Shale contained an estimated undiscovered resource of about 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas.

How long does a Marcellus Shale well produce?

30 to 50 years
Marcellus Shale gas wells are expected to produce for 30 to 50 years, and perhaps much longer.

Is Marcellus Shale a good reservoir rock?

Long known to be a source rock for many conventional oil and gas reservoirs in the Appalachian basin, the Marcellus shale is now being explored as an unconventional reservoir. In the past, however, the low permeability conditions of the shale reservoir made removal of hydrocarbons economically unfeasible.

What 2 countries have the biggest natural gas reserve?

Natural Gas Reserves by Country

Where does the gas in the Marcellus Shale come from?

Credit: Robert Donnan. Water is a critical ingredient for extracting gas from the Marcellus shale, which lies up to 9,000 feet underground beneath southern New York, northern and western Pennsylvania, the eastern half of Ohio, and most of West Virginia.

Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) conducted a life-cycle analysis to compare the materials, energy requirements, and emissions associated with producing, processing, transporting, and consuming natural gas produced from conventional natural gas resources and shale gas resources.

When did shale gas start to be produced?

Large- scale shale gas production started in the Barnett Shale in the 1980s, and by 2006, through advances in drilling technologies and higher NG prices, the success in the Barnett Shale led to rapid expansion into other formations, including the Haynesville, Marcellus, and Fayetteville shales.

What are the environmental impacts of shale gas?

The technologies and practices that have enabled the recent boom in shale gas production have also brought attention to the environmental impacts of its use. Using the current state of knowledge of the recovery, processing, and distribution of shale gas and conventional natural gas, we have estimated up-to-date, life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions.

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