As discussed in the previous blog, natural gas is far from a new source of heat. But there are a lot of very interesting facts about it and how we currently utilize it.
Over half of the homes in the United States use natural gas as their primary heating source.
- Natural gas is odorless. Utility companies add the smell of rotten eggs – a chemical called mercaptan – so that if there are leaks, it is much easier to detect.
- There are approximately four million Americans employed in the natural gas industry.
- When natural gas is burned to heat homes or is used for industrial purposes, it releases 25-30% less CO2 than oil and 40-50% less CO2 than coal per unit of energy produced. With those numbers in mind, it is a relatively clean form of energy.
- There are over 11 million road vehicles worldwide that run on compressed or liquefied natural gas. Shipley Energy recently opened a compressed natural gas (CNG) filling station in York, PA, that’s able to fill two CGN vehicles at a time. Click here to read more about it!