Houston Chronicle by Chris Tomlinson March 6, 2019
A particular brand of environmentalist is campaigning to leave natural gas in the ground under the pretense of fighting climate change. But alternatively, those molecules could one day replace steel and all the greenhouse emissions associated with making it.
Science is full of surprises, especially chemistry.
The main component of natural gas is methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is much more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. While burning natural gas to make electricity is cleaner than coal, methane leaks during drilling and shipping can negate the overall benefits, hence the controversy.
Methane is one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms. Carbon can be used as a fundamental building block, and hydrogen is used in fuel cells to produce clean power. The Department of Energy has awarded a $3.3 million grant to Rice University’s Matteo Pasquali and his team to find efficient ways to break down the methane to make strong carbon nanotube fibers and hydrogen fuel.
“If you take methane to a temperature of about 1,000 degrees, it wants to break up into carbon and hydrogen, and if you have the right catalyst, the carbon will arrange into nanotubes,†Pasquali told me. “It’s known how to do this, but it is not known how to do it efficiently.â€
Components of natural gas are already used to make plastics and fibers. But those processes consume energy and produce greenhouse gases. A new method for manufacturing carbon nanotubes could yield a material strong enough to replace steel as well as a clean energy resource.
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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Natural-gas-has-climate-change-fighting-qualities-13665343.php
