From Under the Ground to your Cooker
Step 1 – Extraction
Finding the Gas
- Geologists look under the sea at different rock types. They’re trying to spot formations that might suggest the presence of gas
- Gas can also be spotted by aircrafts flown over the sea. They detect certain changes in gravitational pull which suggest gas is present
- Geophysicists can find gas by sending acoustic pulses through rocks. The echo of the sound can detect certain types of rocks which may contain gas.
Drilling for Gas
- Despite these many modern, scientific tests, sometimes the drilling process can result in the discovery of a dry well and no gas is found.
- Did you know, the gas drills used are thousands of feet long, and up to 30 inches wide?
- Most gas isn’t in obvious, underground caverns, but often in porous rocks. Think of how a sponge holds water, the rocks hold gas in the same way.
- These rocks can be in hard to reach places. To get around this, some drills go sideways rather than just straight down. This makes it easier to reach the gas.
- The North Sea has 173 active platforms – this makes it the most active off-shore drilling operation in the world.
Area | Amount of Active Platforms |
The Gulf of Mexico | 100 |
Brazil | 69 |
West Africa | 65 |
- Britain gets 43% of its gas from the North Sea
- Gas rig workers work two weeks on, three weeks off. They commute by helicopters. In the North Sea alone nearly 2 million passengers a year travel between land and rig!
- There are three main types of rigs you should be aware of:
- Drill Ship
- Semi-submersible Rig
- Jack-up Rig
Step Two – Transporting and Distributing Natural Gas
Transporting the Gas
- Gas needs to be compressed 600 times in order for it to be possible to transport it on ships
- 13% of the UK’s gas supply comes from Liquid Natural Gas. This is cooled to -160°C so it can be transported.
- Did you know, natural gas is odourless and the smell we know as ‘gas’ is added after extraction in order to make leaks easier to detect?
- Once extracted, natural gas is sent hundreds of miles through sub-sea pipelines in order to reach the UK’s coast
Distributing the Gas
- Gas is then sent along pipelines called ‘feeders’ to distribution centres
- In distribution centres, gas is stored underground. These storage areas are ‘reservoirs’ and hold gas for later use
- In some cases, gas is liquified for shipping in large tankers across oceans
- This type of gas is called liquified natural gas, or LNG
- From the distribution centres, natural gas is then sent out across the country to homes and businesses through underground pipes
- The UKs gas pipes stretch 369,000 miles – that’s enough to wrap around our coast 15 times
- Gas pipelines that run across fields are marked with fluorescent poles and each week they’re checked by helicopters.
- If you’re worried about hitting an underground gas piper or cable you can call ‘Dial before you Dig’ on 0800 688588 in order to check the ground underneath you is clear!
Step Three – Usage
Powering the Country
- Natural gas is used for heating, generating electricity, and can also be used to fuel vehicles. It is also used in a number of chemical processes
- Gas is used to fuel generators. These generators produce electricity.
- When burned natural gas emits half the carbon emissions of coal, so it is a greener choice of fuel.
- As we don’t have a way of storing large amounts of energy, the transmission of electricity and gas across the UK is managed on a minute-by-minute basis
- The National Grid constantly communicates with power stations to make sure we’ve got enough electricity
- On cold days power stations can experience surges of up to 300%, so they have to work extra hard to generate enough energy
- In 2014, homes and businesses combined used the equivalent of 2.8 million Olympic swimming pools filled with gas.
- Electricity cables supply your home or business and provide you with electricity
- Pylons are used in order to ensure electricity cables above ground can reach even the most remote of places
Self-Generating
- There are other ways of generating electricity yourself, micro-generation methods like solar panels are turning some homes into min power stations
- Some new homes are now so efficient they hardly rely on the National Grid for energy at all
- In some cases, the National Grid ends up paying people to give THEM energy
- Over 600,000 homes with solar panels have registered to sell their surplus energy back to the National Grid
What Uses the Power in your Home?
Appliance | Usage change since 1990 |
Games Consoles | +897% |
Fridges | -57% |
Step Four – Niccolo
- Electricity is generated in power stations
- Energy suppliers then buy energy in the wholesale market and sell it on to customers.
- Suppliers work in a competitive market and customers can choose any supplier to provide them with gas and electricity
- We provide a competitive pricing and response service to gas customers of all sizes and requirements.