It's hard to imagine modern life without natural gas. Whether it's fueling vehicles, heating our homes and water or helping cook our food, natural gas has become essential in our everyday life. In fact, Natural Gas now provides comfort and convenience to at least 177 million Americans. It is America's most abundant fuel source, supplying almost a quarter of all the energy used nationwide.

What is Natural Gas? What are the Benefits of Using Natural Gas?

Natural gas is gaseous fossil fuel composed mainly of methane and a small percentage of other hydrocarbons, such as ethane. Natural gas has become more and more popular for uses with commercial, industrial, electric power generation and also residential applications. It is also the safest and cleanest fossil fuel available to us.

Natural gas is found deep under the ground and is drilled for in much of the same way as you would drill for crude oil. It is also more cost-effective and cleaner to utilize than gasoline and produces less greenhouse emissions than other fossil fuels. It burns completely without leaving any residue and can be safely stored. Because of this it tops the list of most used energy sources. It can be used both as compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquified petroleum gas (LPG).

Benefits of Using Natural Gas

• Availability: Natural gas is an abundant resource and is widely available all over the world. Experts estimate that in the United States alone, we have enough natural gas to meet our energy needs for the next 100 years.
• Versatility: Natural gas is a highly versatile, multi-use fuel. It can be used in the home for a variety of tasks. As stated above, it can also be used for generating electric power, power vehicles, and is even used in the production of plastics, paints, and fertilizers.
• Easily transported: Natural gas can be easily transported over both sea and land. At sea it's transported by large tankers. On land, it transported both by small storage tanks as well as a vast network of over 2.5 million miles of pipeline.
• Affordability: In addition to being a cleaner burning fossil fuel, natural gas is also more cost-effective compared to other fuel sources and even cheaper than electricity when used for powering home appliances.
• Environmental: Since natural gas is in a gaseous form, it doesn't pollute groundwater, unlike other fossil fuels. It also burns much cleaner than other fossil fuels, emitting 45% less carbon dioxide than coal and 30% less than oil. It's important to note that when natural gas burns, it does so without releasing any soot or sulfur dioxide.
  

Common Uses of Natural Gas

• Residential use: Natural gas has many uses in the home, both inside the house and in the backyard. Due to its ability to instantly heat, you can enjoy warm water thanks to a tankless water heater powered by natural gas. It can power your fire pit, pool heater, grill, landscape lights or patio heater and it can even power the house during an outage if you have a natural gas generator. It's no wonder than 21% of the Natural Gas used in the United States is used to power home appliances.
• Industrial use: About 27% of the natural gas consumed in the United States is for industrial purposes. Natural gas has a multitude of uses in industry where it is used to produce products such as plastics, paints and ammonia for fertilizers.
  
• Electrical Power: Natural gas can be used to produce electricity with far fewer emissions than coal powered plants. In the United States about 30% of Natural Gas consumption is used to produce electricity.
  
• Commercial use: 14% of natural gas consumption in the United States goes toward the heating, water heating and air conditioning of commercial buildings
• Transportation use: Natural Gas is used to fuel vehicles such as cars, trucks and buses due to the fact it is both cleaner and cheaper to use than gasoline or diesel.
  

A Cleaner, More Efficient Fossil Fuel

Unlike other fossil fuel sources, the entire cycle of producing, processing, transporting and using natural gas provides a total energy efficiency of 92%, making it the most energy efficient and cleanest fossil fuel energy source.

If you are interested in having your business run on natural gas, our team of dedicated, industry experts are here to help. They are always conscious of your bottom line and will ensure that the switch is as easy as possible. Contact Fireside Natural Gas today for more information.