Chapter 893: The Start of the Natural Gas Industry
September 1894.
Western Great Lakes Province, East Africa.
"What is such a long steel pipe used for? It looks as thick as a hug, right?" This is a question many people have.
"I heard it's a natural gas pipeline, and the gas it transports is the same gas used in gas lamps."
What everyone was talking about was East Africa's first industrial-scale long-distance natural gas pipeline, which is a project that the current East African government or Ernst is focusing on.
The three giants of conventional energy minerals are coal, oil and natural gas. East Africa has no shortage of coal, but oil is a resource with relatively small reserves in East Africa, so Ernst naturally focused his attention on natural gas.
On the one hand, East Africa is rich in natural gas resources. In the past, Tanzania, Mozambique and other countries in East Africa now have large amounts of natural gas resources.
On the other hand, the application technology of natural gas has matured, so East Africa urgently needs to popularize the use of natural gas to replace some industrial and domestic fuels.
Humans have a long history of using natural gas, but modern large-scale application of natural gas began in the UK.
In 1732, Calisher Spalding of England proposed using methane from coal mines to illuminate the streets of Whitehaven.
By 1813, the London and Westminster Gas Lighting and Coke Company in England had secured the first ever municipal gas lighting contract.
The second is the United States. The American natural gas lighting industry began in 1816 when Baltimore, Maryland began using natural gas for street lighting. In 1886, the United States had built the world's first industrial-scale long-distance gas pipeline.
Therefore, East Africa started developing and utilizing natural gas relatively late. Even with heavy investments, it still took some time to catch up with the technology. However, the results were remarkable. For example, this natural gas pipeline in East Africa was only nine years later than that in the United States.
What constrains the construction of the East African natural gas pipeline is not the lack of technology, as the relevant technology had been mature several years ago, but East Africa's experiments with natural gas power generation technology.
The primary purpose of building this gas pipeline is to supply energy to East Africa's first natural gas power plant, and then transmit it to cities such as Bujumbura and Mbeya through a high-voltage power grid.
As for promoting the use of natural gas among the public, safety knowledge must be popularized first. Natural gas is flammable and explosive, and natural gas leaks themselves can easily lead to suffocation and death. Therefore, considering public safety issues, only a small amount of experimental promotion can be carried out first. This is the same as the popularization of electricity in East Africa, which was accompanied by a large amount of safety science popularization.
However, apart from the lack of knowledge on usage, other aspects are already complete. Residents use natural gas by simply using gas cylinders and special stoves. This is not a difficult problem for East African researchers to overcome.
In fact, as early as 1760, the British had invented the gas cylinder, and later used it to power gas lamps. Therefore, the gas cylinder has been developed for more than a hundred years, and its safety performance has become very reliable. Therefore, the hardware conditions for using natural gas as residential fuel have matured.
At present, the main fuels for East African residents are firewood and coal. Firewood is the main fuel in rural areas, and there are also special fuels made of dried manure and coal like in northern ranches. Cities are mainly supplied with coal.
The promotion of natural gas will also greatly change the lifestyle of East African residents. After all, in the 21st century, natural gas is also the most energy-saving, environmentally friendly and economical fuel for life.
"Please don't stand around watching. This is a natural gas pipeline. Natural gas is flammable, explosive, and toxic. We are just beginning testing on this project, so it's best not to get too close." The patrol officers dispersed the residents who were watching the installation of the natural gas pipeline.
Naturally, everyone believes what government officials say. After all, this era is developing too fast, and new things are always emerging. Especially in East Africa over the past 30 years, earth-shaking changes have taken place, so everyone's ability to accept is much stronger.
"Isn't natural gas the gas used in gas lamps? That stuff is indeed somewhat dangerous, but ordinary people can't come into contact with it. With the development of electricity, I thought gas would be eliminated!" someone muttered.
The early use of gas was as fuel for lighting fixtures, but the advent of electric lights has greatly reduced the use of gas in this area.
Of course, countries like the United States have begun promoting the use of natural gas as a residential fuel, and East Africa is doing so almost at the same time.
The promotion of natural gas in the United States is mainly through private companies, while East Africa is best at using administrative power. However, in this way, as long as production capacity is guaranteed, East Africa can quickly promote it on a large scale across the country, rather than having to fight each other like private companies in the United States.
So although East Africa started late in this regard, it will be easy for it to surpass other countries later. After all, no government in the world attaches so much importance to natural gas energy as East Africa does.
"Luo Er, why should natural gas pipelines be built directly on the ground instead of buried underground like sewers? Isn't this too dangerous?" the patrolman asked the technician who was directing the pipeline welding.
Roll explained: "Many people in East Africa have never seen natural gas, so they don't know much about its properties. The reason why natural gas pipelines are laid out in open lines is that natural gas is lighter than air and will only ignite when the concentration is between 5% and 15%. The advantage of open lines is that once the pipeline leaks, it will float to higher places and diffuse away, and will not form a flammable mixture. If it is laid out in an underground line, it will accumulate in the pipeline ditch when it leaks, and it will explode once there is a spark, so we built this pipeline on the ground."
"Of course, this will also facilitate future maintenance and inspection. This pipeline will eventually lead to the power plant. Once the connection is completed, we can check along the pipeline to prevent leaks."
As people who have received compulsory education, patrol officers probably know a lot about it. After all, the quality of gases is different, and this is something that anyone should understand as long as they were a little bit serious in school.
It’s just that there is no specific description of natural gas in East African textbooks. After all, the large-scale use of natural gas has only a history of more than 100 years, and there was no such thing in East Africa before that.
However, concerns about the safety of pipelines are actually groundless. Although the world's first gas pipeline was built relatively late, the world's first oil pipeline was built relatively early.
So of course the technology is relatively mature, and as long as the manufacturing factories don't cut corners on materials, there won't be any major problems.
"Mr. Rawl, do you know how this gas generates electricity?"
Luo Er replied: "It's the same as using coal to generate electricity. It boils water and then uses steam to drive it."
In 1940, the world's first natural gas-powered power turbine appeared at a power station in Switzerland, marking the birth of natural gas power generation technology.
East Africa pushed the time back more than 40 years. In the 1920s, natural gas chemical research in the United States and Germany began to rise, and people began to use natural gas separation to produce formaldehyde, acetic acid, synthetic rubber and other chemical products.
East Africa's early layout in the field of natural gas will only benefit, not harm, the development of East African countries. In the past, the United States developed early in this field and formed long-term technological advantages, thus controlling the international natural gas market. It should be noted that natural gas, unlike oil, is extremely unevenly distributed, but the United States can monopolize the market, which shows that technological accumulation is very important.
Therefore, research in the field of natural gas is bound to become one of the focuses of East Africa's energy sector, on the same level as coal and oil.
(End of this chapter)
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