Natural Gas: Fuel for the 21st Century

True to form, Vaclav Smil, one of Bill Gates' favorite authors, presents a timely compendium on natural gas that is complete in all regards. From its history, to its location, production, and transport, this book also offers careful analysis of environmental advantages and impacts. Nobody who claims to be an earth scientist or environmentalist should pass up the opportunity to read this outstanding piece of work.As an aside, I think it would be less distracting if one system for units of measure were utilized throughout the book instead of showing equivalent units in parentheses at every turn. Smil uses real numbers and calculations constantly, and conversion nomographs for other units of measure could easily be appended to the front or back of the book. His readers are fully capable of understanding unit conversions on their own.In keeping with the theory that it is best not to learn your science from politicians or mainstream media, you must read this book to get the apolitical perspective on this "fuel for the 21st century."

A pleasure to read-- very well written. Of course this is dry and technical material but I feel it flowed well and had a correct amount of scientific basis. I wanted to learn more about the industry from an investors standpoint; I got what I wanted here.

I am an energy professional. I analyze natural gas and electricity markets for a living. This is one of the best books I've read about the energy industry in the last five years. Vaclav Smil is an impressive researcher, thinker, and writer.

Great!

Natural gas supplies about 20% of US energy needs. The US and Russia are large producers and exporters, though the former is relying very heavily on shale gas. There are many large-scale gas producers and exporters overseas. Gas burns cleans and the pipeline systems is very efficient. According to this book, compared to coal, gas is a much better fuel. Still, issues exist with gas:1. Water pollution from fracking. In Pennsylvania and other areas the groundwater and surface waters are being polluted. The Federal government has not funded municipal water systems with complete filtration and water towers that serve an entire town. Instead, many families continue to use private water wells. Families don't usually have the financial resources for high tech filtration of these water wells and their numerous locations are subject to water pollution, which bubbles up from fracking operations when there are cracks in well pipes and in the rock layers of the ground. Even states aren't doing enough to replace private water wells with municipal water systems, filtration plants, and water towers.2. Building nuclear power stations so that more gas can be saved for home heating, commercial heating, fertilizer production, and CNB buses. When a nuclear energy program is combined with US gas production the result for the economy and climate is vastly improved. The gas is not wasted; it remains in the ground until extraction, or a decision to maintain carbon sequestration. A large and increasing percent of US and Russian gas production goes towards power stations when the options for generating electricity are much broader, and provide superior results for the climate.

This is great book, if you're interested in natural gas developments, or just enjoys Smil's work then you'll enjoy this. It echoes many themes from his other books and is a comprehensive, logical and data driven analysis. The only downside is that fracking and NLG are markets that are evolving relatively fast (notwithstanding Smil's general point that energy markets as a whole move slowly) so it's a little frustrating not to have Smil's take on the most recent fracking data regarding safety and well prospects that's come out in the 2-3 years since publication. Great book regardless.

Tenia interes en conocer la opinion de Vaclav sobre el gas natural teniendo en cuenta la excelente presentacion que hace en otros de sus libros. En este caso a mi me ha parecido que que se halla muy por debajo de su nivel usual

Very informative Provides a good look at today and tomorrow

Vaclav deserve our useless money, to share us theConsciousness.