NATURAL GAS: A KEY TO THE DESIRED ENERGY TRANSITION

As part of the United Nation’s sustainable development goal, the drive to phase out the use of fossil fuels has increased. Though the discussions around it are high and the campaign is hard, the achievement in driving down the use of Coal and crude oil, the main sources of fossil fuel, has not progressed as anticipated. Those two can be referred to as the dirties in the fossil fuel family. A lot of countries and economies still depend on them. They account for a large percentage of energy sources: for generating power, fueling sea-going vessels, and heavy-duty industries like mining and iron melting plants. A lot of research is being conducted to evaluate the deployment of renewable energy to replace fossil fuels in all fields, but it has been a long and grinding task.

 In the interim and until we transition completely into clean energy and achieve complete decarbonisation, Natural gas can bridge the energy demand gap that may be created by the phasing out of the use of Coal and crude oil. Natural gas is a low-carbon source option, and it is believed to be cleaner than Coal and Crude oil. Natural gas is exploited from the subsurface. They naturally dwell thousands of miles below the ground and exist with other elements. They are in more abundance, and some research has shown that they are more abundant than crude oil.

When processed and cleaned out, they produce less greenhouse energy than crude oil and are more environmentally friendly. Natural gas needs to be purified before deployment. The reason to purify natural gas is to make it suitable for use. They come from the subsurface into the surface with a lot of impurities and water. To ensure they give the required burning specification and quality, these impurities and water are removed.

There are different types of processing techniques to remove them. Before now, conventional processing techniques were also a source of environmental concern. There are now innovative and cleaner techniques for processing natural gas, making it suitable to fill the transition gap.

In my opinion, it is the simplest and most accessible energy-bridging source the world can rely on before we achieve complete decarbonisation.