To find true Natural gas you have to look to oil fields, coal mines and natural gas fields.
However, many of these reserves are now running dry, especially in the West, and as a result energy companies are increasingly turning to gas from less conventional sources in order to meet consumer demand.
The largest gas resources on earth could soon be completely depleted. While areas like Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran have gas reserves just now, it may not be too long before we are forced to use alternative energies to heat our homes and cook our meals.
The type of gas used to heat our homes and cook our meals is Natural Gas. It is often referred to simply as gas, especially in the context of other domestic energy sources such as electricity.
The natural gas that is supplied to our homes is in fact far from natural. True Natural gas must be treated to remove unwanted chemicals like sulphur, nitrogen and butane, before it can be used domestically.
Once the gas has been purified, a small amount of foul-smelling but non-toxic perfume (if you can call it that) is added. The reason for this is that methane gas is completely transparent, with no smell of its own, and as such it is hard to detect in its pure form.
This practice began in the 1930s after an undetected build up of methane in the New London School in the USA went undetected, causing the deaths of over three hundred staff and pupils when it ignited and the building exploded.
Natural gas has many uses as a fuel, from the generation of electricity in gas and steam turbines, to providing heating for homes.
Some automobiles can be converted to run on natural gas, and compared to petrol, it is relatively clean burning and produces fewer toxic by-products.
It may burn cleaner than petrol and oil, but Natural gas is still a finite resource which produces harmful by-products when burning, damaging the environment as it does so.
