Pollution issues and Liquefaction of natural gas

In the middle of October 1970, the northern U.

S. was beautifully colored with trees full of red and yellow leaves. The first two destinations of my visit, Eau Claire and La Crosse, had similar economic scales as that of Tottori city’s, which included the population, industrial productions, and government finances. Due to these similarities, they were the perfect places to visit and indulge in on-the-site study of the liquefaction, storage and transportation of natural gas.

These two cities are not very well known cities. They are about 1-hour flight distance from the northwest of Chicago.They are located between upstream and tributary of Mississippi River and are very quiet places. Since visitors from Japan were not very common there, many press people welcomed us at the airport. At the completely automated plant, which was located at the junction of Mississippi river and Black river, all the features of the LNG storage facility were present. The white factory and tanks, the slow smoke from the chimney of the red brick heat power plant, the gentle flow of the two rivers and the landscapes looked almost like Levin’s painting.

The trailer transportation of LNG from Au Claire to La Crosse, which covered a distance of 160 kilometres south of Au Claire, resembled the LNG transportation of Tokyo Gas from Negishi city to its branch, Hitachi city situated 170 kilometres away. United States, famously known as the country of natural gas, had started its development of natural gas quiet early. However, the option of transportation based on liquefaction was considered in 1950’s, which were quiet, recent at that time. The advantage of liquefaction is that the gas gets decreased to 6 hundredth of its original volume.

The disadvantage of this process is that the liquid temperature becomes minus 162 degrees C due to which the transportation and storage of LNG is not possible without the metallic thermos structure. High pollution rates were the reason behind the demand of this new energy. Currently, constructions of power plant are inhibited by the objections of the residents. They protest that the pollution due to the sulphur obtained by heavy oil burning is dangerous for them. Hence conventional fuel mixed with non-sulphur contained natural gas is required.The price of non-sulphur contained natural gas is 20 to 30 percent higher than the sulphur-contained gas.

The differences in prices are an important issue, which emphasizes the need of extensive research in the area of reasonable gas source for such fuel requirements. Tokyo Gas, which took particular note of natural gas at the early stage, successfully imported 960,000 tons of LNG from Alaska in November 1969. Tokyo Electric accepted the 75 percent of such jointly purchased LNG as a solution for the pollution problems.This was a path-breaking incident for the oil dependant country - Japan.

Now, there is no doubt about it that LNG is the popular energy source that works as a bridge between the current oil dependent energy age and the future atomic power age. The focus of my study tour to United States was to get an insight into the new age that is not very far away. The disappointing fact was that Osaka Gas had shown a tardy action in the adoption of LNG. It had just started constructing the LNG satellite in Sakai city.Such LNG satellites were expected to start their operations after 1972, and what was worse, was the fact that they would have not allowed any lot of LNG from such satellites.

We had a long way to go before the dream of the trailer transportation of LNG from Sakai city to Tottori was realized. Apart from the tardy action in development and practice in the western part of Japan, there existed other difficulties regarding the LNG import. After the inspection at La Crosse, we headed to Au Claire by car. The 160 kilometres drive to Au Claire was breathtaking due to its beautiful and idyllic scenery.I wonder how Nordic people had settled in that area, as there was about 9 feet of snow in the winters in that area at that time.

The name “Au Claire” means, “clear water” in English. True to its name, the city had clean and clear water. As soon as we arrived in Au Claire, we met Marcus, the president of NSP. Marcus was a man of high moral character and was so calm that I could hardly believe that he was of the same age as that of mine.

He started off the meeting with the issue of the state of pollution and the problems faced by that in Japan.He handed us four large pictures of landscapes and his company’s brochure. On the first page of the brochure, there was a handwritten letter written by an 11 years old boy named Marc Simons. The letter was addressed to the headquarters of NSP, which was the gas and electricity supplier of Eau Claire and La Crosse.

In the letter the boy strongly protested pollution. The last page of the brochure had the response of Marcus on the issue raised by the boy. In his response, Marcus emphasized that there were appropriate facilities like air filter and cooling tower equipped at the power plant.He further informed that, of late, many other measures had been adopted and so there was no need to worry. It seemed that it was difficult for Marcus to hold the weight of the words of an innocent boy, and so he pensively told me: “This is the biggest problem which dominates my mind now.

” Though Marcus ran his business in a remote region of U. S, he gave us an impression that how every concerned American businessman is struggling against the odds thrown by pollution. His words still remain vivid in our minds.