Friday, June 26, 2009

The History of Natural Gas (Part 1)

Sacred fires in Persia and elsewhere were natural gas seeps that may have been ignited by lightning.  The temple of Delphi was built around a "burning spring."  Around 400 BCE the Chinese discovered natural gas bubbling through brine, which they separated and burned to distill salt.  Around 200 CE the Chinese learned to tap natural gas deposits and route the gas through bamboo pipes to distill salt from seawater and cook food.  The earliest reference to natural gas in the United States was in the 1600s when explorers noted certain Indian tribes burning gaseous emissions from the earth.  

In 1821, a more organized approach to capturing escaping or seep gas started in Fredonia, New York, when a gunsmith piped seep gas to nearby buildings for lighting.  In 1827, another source of naturally occurring seep gas was harnessed to supply a lighthouse on Lake Erie.  In 1840, the first industrial use of natural gas occurred in Pennsylvania, where gas was burned to heat brine to distill salt, the same thing the Chinese had done two millennia earlier.

While natural gas provided the lift for Drake's well, for the most part, natural gas found along with oil was vented to the atmosphere.  Drilling for oil and discovering natural gas was equivalent to a dry hole.  Natural gas was normally out of reach of municipalities and was unable to compete with manufactured gas protected by municipal franchises.  In 1872 the Rochester Natural Gas Light Company was formed to provide natural gas to Rochester, New York, from a field 25 miles away.

Heartland Energy Colorado is one of the top hydrocarbon-based energy providers in the USA. They have many drilling locations throughout the country and remain one of the top producers of US oil & gas companies. For more information on Heartland Energy Colorado, see Heartland Energy Development Corporation online.

(Source: "Energy for the 21st Century," Nersesian)

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