Natural Gas
The primary energy source for powering new electricity generating plants in the United States is natural gas, which accounted for about 60 percent of the capacity added during the 1990s. Our pipelines supply natural gas to electricity generating plants across North America.
Also known as methane, natural gas is colorless and odorless. Because it has no natural odor, your local gas utility puts an odorant into the gas as a safety measure so that you will be able to smell a gas leak.
Benefits
Commonly associated with a blue flame, clean-burning natural gas has many benefits.
- It has significantly lower emissions than other fuel options such as coal.
- It’s readily abundant in supply basins in the United States and Canada.
- According to federal government statistics, the interstate pipeline system is the safest transportation system in the country.
- Natural gas provides the energy to heat and cool your homes without harming your quality of life.
Uses
American household uses include cooking, water heating, home heating and cooling, gas-fired dryers, fireplaces and grills. Natural gas has extensive uses in industry as well. Increasingly, natural gas is being used in combination with other fuels to improve environmental performance and decrease pollution.
Production
Natural gas is gathered, sometimes along with oil, by drilling into the Earth’s crust where pockets of natural gas were trapped hundreds of millions of years ago. Once the gas is brought to the surface, it is refined to remove impurities, such as water, other gases and sand. Then it is transmitted, through pipelines that span the continent, to communities where it is processed as a valuable energy source.