Gas For Home And Industry

Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] He made the night a little brighter wherever he would go. The old lamp lighter of long long ago. Yes. The old lamp lighter has become a symbol symbol of a bygone age when gaslight first dispelled the darkness. [Music] The pattern of man's daily living was changed by this new brilliance which he had found. It shed its glow on a grateful world and gave new meaning to the evening hours. So great was its effect that its time will long be remembered as the gaslight age. [Music] Today, with man's unending search for the creation and efficient use of new forms of heat energy, he has found in this gas a fuel remarkably suited to thousands of jobs never dreamed of in the gas light era. [Music] Here is a fuel which flashes to full heat in an instant. Its shapes are unlimited up to the full scope of man's imagination. Combustion is clean and complete without soot or smoke. The heat from this versatile fuel can be carefully controlled and held constant within a few degrees by automatic thermostats. Its hot flame can be shaped to the special needs of many tasks in the growing complexity of modern living. Our constant need for clean and efficient heat has brought this fuel into our homes, too. In more than 25 million American families, cooking today is done on gas ranges. [Music] We can heat our water with gas automatically so that a supply is always on hand. And a paradox of modern science is our use of a hot gas flame to refrigerate our foods and to make ice. [Music] With gas heat, the furnace room in today's home can be as clean and pleasant as any room in the house. Indeed, year round air conditioning is now possible with this fuel for its flame heats or cools as needed in one combined heating and air conditioning unit. In the United States are well over 300,000 m of underground gas mains. A vast network of pipe carries this energy supply to the homes, the stores, and the factories. Many cities use natural gas delivered through pipelines from distant gas wells. Other cities use manufactured gas produced in local plants or a mixture of both. One type of manufactured gas is coke oven gas. Soft coal is its basic raw material. When coal is heated, volatile materials are given off as gas. The porest remainder is coke. In the manufacturer of coke oven gas, various types of coal are combined and pulverized. The powdered coal is conveyed to an overhead storage bin. Below this bin is a battery of many coke ovens. On top of these ovens runs a Larry car which discharges the powdered coal into each oven as it is needed. An averagesized oven holds some 12 1/2 tons of coal. [Music] Here is how coke oven gas is made. The coal in each oven is surrounded by a heating chamber. Heat is applied in this chamber. Gradually, the temperature of the coal is raised. As this happens, the volatile materials in the coal are released as gas. The gas passes off through a pipe at the top of each oven into a collecting mane. The gas in the collecting main contains various materials which must be removed before the fuel can be used. Here colar a valuable byproduct is removed from the gas. This equipment takes out ammonium sulfate useful as a fertilizer. Light oils are scrubbed out and after final purification the gas is ready for use. Meanwhile, after 12 to 18 hours, the coal originally charged into the coke oven has given off all its volatile materials. It is now coke and is ready to be pushed out of the oven by this huge machine. A guide conducts the coke into a waiting railroad car called the hot car. [Music] The hot car takes the red hot coke to a quenching station where streams of water cool it. [Music] After sorting, the coke is ready for scores of domestic and industrial uses. One of these uses is the manufacturer of carbureted water gas, the type of manufactured gas most often used. These huge gas machines use steam, oil, and coke, sometimes mixed with coal, as their basic raw materials. In many plants, the machines operate automatically. [Music] at regular intervals. Additional coke is charged into the machines to keep the process going. Now, here is how carbureted water gas is made. Coke is burned in a large generator. An air blast raises it to intense heat. The products of this combustion escape through a stack. Alternating with the air blast is a blast of steam. The steam combines with the carbon of the red hot coke to produce water gas, a fuel of low heating value. To enrich this water gas, it is conducted to an enriching chamber called the carburetor. The carburetor contains a honeycomb of bricks heated red hot during the air blast cycle. Oil is sprayed into this chamber. The heavier oil molecules are cracked by the heat into a rich oil gas which mixes with the water gas. In a third chamber, the superheater, this cracking process is completed. The resulting gas passes through a wash box and is further purified before being used. [Music] Another important type of manufactured gas is straight oil gas without being mixed with water gas. [Music] After purification, the gas is metered and stored, ready for distribution to its many users. The arteries of the gas distribution system lead from huge gas holders such as these. Such man-made storage facilities are dwarfed, however, by the immense reservoirs of nature. Here in underground rock formations, the energy of primeval sunshine has been stored as natural gas. Wells often drill down thousands of feet bring this precious fuel to the surface. On each well, a series of valves called a Christmas tree controls the tremendous pressure of the stored gas. Some fields produce wet gas from which liquids must be removed. Other fields supply dry gas ready for use as it comes from the wells. Tremendous batteries and pumps supply the pressure needed to keep this gas moving on its long way from well to user through pipelines hundreds of miles long. With the increasing demand for this natural fuel, new pipelines are constantly being built. The laying of endless miles of pipe, welded, painted, and wrapped to resist corrosion, is a major engineering feat. These hollow highways provide economical transportation for an important energy resource, which has had a tremendous effect on our entire national economy. [Music] As pipelines reach into more and more sections of the country, the impact of the new fuel which they bring is strongly felt. [Music] Industries in particular find this natural fuel an answer to their constant search for a cheap and efficient source of heat energy. Where piped gas is not available, this fuel can still be used in the form of bottled gas. This is a highly compressed liquid which returns to gaseous form when released from the tank. Formerly a byproduct of petroleum refining, this gas may be butane, propane, or a mixture of both. Not only are these gases recovered from petroleum, but a major source has been found in wet gas fields. Industries keep this fuel as an emergency supply and small utilities sometimes distribute it through their mains and service piping with butane and propane recovered from petroleum which is also the raw material for oil gas with natural gas taken directly from the earth and with coal the basic raw material for manufactured gas. It is evident that whatever type of gas ultimately reaches the user originally it all comes from the ground. How long then will our supply of this important heat energy continue? Natural gas is found in many parts of the world often together with petroleum. Many of these fields are too remote from industrial centers to be of commercial value. Gas found in the petroleum wells of these fields is often burned off and wasted. Although this type of waste has been largely stopped in the United States, our southwestern oil and gas fields contain almost 3/4 of the nation's supply. About a sixth of our supply is found in the Midwest, and the remainder is scattered through other parts of the country. Already, many gas wells have been exhausted. Yet each year, new wells are sunk, new fields are found. The amount of natural gas produced each year has always been but a small fraction of the known reserves. In recent years, the use of natural gas has increased tremendously. But for each cubic foot used, more than 20 cubic feet of known reserves have been found. Yet the supply is limited. Someday we may use it up completely. What are we doing to guard against this possibility? [Music] In laboratories throughout the nation, this problem is being attacked on a three-fold front. Conservation, improvement, and invention. Training is an important part of the program, but these matters can be solved only through the minds of men. This intensive activity needs the services of increasing numbers of men skilled in gas science and technology. One problem is the utilization of this fuel for efficient and safe use is an important factor in conservation. An extensive program of testing and improving gas burning equipment helps us keep waste to a minimum. The program extends even to the correct adjustment of burners for maximum efficiency. And so small a thing is turning down the gas when the water boils becomes important in the conservation picture when multiplied by the millions of gas users. Scientific research and investigation are improving our ways of making gas. We are learning to fluidize gas making solids such as coal to make possible continuous methods of gas manufacturer. We are constantly studying petroleum and other hydrocarbons to understand better their gas making properties. From our laboratories have sprung inventions which may revolutionize the technology of gas manufacturing. This pilot plant makes gas by using a catalyst to help break up the molecules of heavier hydrocarbons. This catalyst cracking process is now being used on a commercial scale in a number of cities. A different process which completely gasifies pulverized coal is operating successfully in this full-scale demonstration plant. And fuel gas may be an important byproduct of this revolutionary process for making synthetic oil from coal and hydrogen. New ways or old, the production of gas has become a major concern in today's economy. The intensive research now going on promises to maintain our supply of this world energy resource for years to come to feed the fires of modern technology.