It is common knowledge that natural gas, along with crude oil, is a key fossil fuel. It is a key fuel for the industry of the overwhelming number of developed industrial states, where, in addition to the energy aspect, it serves as the most important raw material in chemical production. industry.
There are a number of little-known, but no less interesting and useful facts about gas that should be conveyed to the general public:
1. Fossil natural gas is tasteless and colorless and practically odorless. In fact, of course, there is a smell, only specially trained rescue dogs can smell it. Everyone's familiar "rotten egg flavor" is the result of adding an additional reagent, an odorant, to the gas. It allows our nose to fix the leak of an explosive substance.
2. An unusual and rather complex device - a gas chromatograph, which is a device for analyzing complex gaseous substances by differentiating them into monocomponents. Following this, these components are analyzed for qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Gas columns of a chromatograph are considered the most important component of the device. During the studies, the tubes are filled with a stationary phase. The separation of a substance into components occurs precisely in chromatographic columns.
3. In the early 70s, Soviet drillers, while working on a promising field in the territory of modern Turkmenistan, fell into a hidden underground cavity. As a result of this, an artificial dip was formed, completely filled with gas. It was decided to install an oil rig in it. According to the technology of that time, the gas “accompanying” the main production was to gradually burn out at the end of a special safe outlet. After the arson, geologists hoped that all the "accompanying" gas in the natural reservoir would burn out in a couple of days. But the well is burning to this day. The field has become a local landmark and bears the name "Gateway to the underworld."
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4. Canaries are by nature very sensitive to the percentage of methanol gas in the air. This feature, in the past, was widely used by miners of all countries. Before the invention of ultra-precise sensors, they simply carried a cage with a vocal bird with them when descending. If its constant chirping has not been heard for a long time, then it is necessary to urgently abandon all the workings and rise to the surface, otherwise everyone was threatened with death from an explosion, seeping through the rocks, of combustible methane.
5. In the battles of the First World War, where for the first time nerve-paralytic and asphyxiating toxic gases began to be actively used on both opposing sides, cats were specially kept in the trenches. In the event of a gas attack, the animal, with its heart-rending meows and panic behavior, warned the soldiers about the need to put on protective equipment. And during World War II, felines were used as filters for air purity. If the animal began to stagger and fall while walking, then it was necessary to emerge urgently, otherwise the entire crew risked suffocation.
6. In the southern states of the United States, a reagent that simulates the stink of cadaveric meat is mixed into gas pipelines. Enterprising American gas workers easily find leaks by the vulture scavengers circling above them.
7. In the 19th century. on the territory of Europe and in the Russian Empire, street lights were filled with special flammable gas. It was produced by heating fossil coal in hermetically sealed copper containers - retorts. Then it was concentrated in storage tanks and transported through a pipe system directly to the lamp posts. In our country, the first plant for the production of such gas was opened in St. Petersburg in the fall of 1835.
8. Even in the days of antiquity, gray-haired gas already served human household needs. For example, as early as the 1st century AD. on the territory of Persia (modern Iran), the local ruler ordered the installation of the royal kitchen exactly in the place where a small jet of gas made its way to the surface. It was truly an ingenious life hack, since in the kitchen stove the flame now burned around the clock and evenly heated the entire stove, without needing either wood or coal for its constant support;
9. Today. The total length of the largest gas transport tanker is 345 m. This is more than 3 times longer than the length of a professional sports field at the stadium.
10. Currently, the longest subsea gas pipeline in the world is considered to be the pipe connecting Norway and Britain. It is over 1200 km long. And bears the name "Langeled"
11. If we compare the entire total length of the internal Russian gas pipeline network, then we get a distance twice as long as the direct path from the Earth to the Moon, and twenty times longer than the equator.