Recently the local rag had an article about some local road closures due to replacement gas pipes. Northern Gas Networks was quoted as saying they were futureproofing the network in order to continue supplying alternative fuels in the future. There was no mention of what possible fuels they may be but only hydrogen comes to mind, are there any alternatives?
Richard
They're planning to pump hot air direct from the Cabinet Room at number
10, cuts out the need for fuel.
Town Gas?
Seems unlikely they'd be investing in infrastructure. More likely replacing knackered pipes and putting a spin on it.
If I remember my O level Chemistry ( plus a chat with a chat with an extended family member about his time in industry) correctly, Town Gas was mainly ( over 50% ) hydrogen. As I recall, it contained some hydrocarbon gas(es) - including methane I think. The ‘ mix’ varied depending on the source coal etc and could vary.
As I recall, when we switched to ‘North Sea Gas’ as it was called when we switched to Natural Gas, they used existing pipe work ( which I assume was iron at the time) and, where possible, changed the jets / orfices in appliances. I believe meters were retained but the regulators may have been swapped. Certainly to change an appliance from NG to butane or propane (LPG) you change the ‘jet’ to match the burner BTU rating and regulator pressure. (GENERALLY LPG appliances are designed for 30 mBar and I believe the domestic UK pressure at the appliance is 20 mBar for NG, so you need to adjust for calorific value and pressure difference.) I assume a similar change was needed when we changed from Town Gas.
Town Gas was produced from Coal, the process produced the gas and Coke, which was also used as a fuel- both in industry and domestically.
There was plan to extract gas from coal still buried in the abandoned mines (pits) in the North East. Unfortunately, the man behind the idea died. As I understand the process, it involved pumping hot water into the old workings. To keep the try huggers happy, he even had a plan to pump CO2 into the voids.
Needless to say, the tree hugging melons ( green on the outside, red under the skin) ignore ideas like this.
Town gas, producer gas, water gas and coal gas are all words for gas made from coal, but they are not always the same thing.
Prior to natural gas what we had was a hydrogen/carbon monoxide mix.
The carbon monoxide being the part that killed people who stuck their head in an oven.
And thats why Cambridge was among the first places to be converted seemed too many students used the gas oven as a way out:(..
Cambridge is also not far from the Bacton gas terminal.
Well around 80 odd miles! I remember back in was it the late 1960's when the put the maim feeder pipe in from there around 4 foot dia IIRC the welders used a trolley to get inside it to weld it and they could go quite some way on those. We managed to get inside a section whilst it was being built seem fun and rather scary at the i time it went via this booster pumping station at Duxford this has a couple of jet engines to power the compressor system
It has a novel sound cancelling system anti phases the sound its really quiet to walk by!..
Not the best view trees screen it well visually!
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