As I am learning more about natural gas, I started getting curious about where it all started. How did we even find natural gas? How did we know what it could be used for? Today, the use of natural gas is essential and is used every day in our lives for things such as heating, stove tops, water heaters, etc. I thought it would be important and fun to learn about how it all started and how far we have come. After all, the U.S. relies on about 67% of its total electricity on fossil fuels with natural gas making up for 27%. So I don’t know about you, but I would say natural gas is pretty useful…so why not learn some fun facts?!
The First Discovery
In 1000 B.C., a goat herdsman in ancient Greece, came across a flame that was burning from a crack in a rock on Mount Parnassus. When the Greeks saw this flame, it was something they had never seen before so they believed it was of divine origin and they built a temple over it. The Oracle of Delphi, a priestess that lived in this temple, gave out prophecies which she claimed to be inspired from the flame. If you look at the picture above on the right, you can see the priestess sitting over the flame and the picture in the middle is the temple the Greeks had built. As more flames were found seeping from the ground, it was continued to be viewed as divine or even supernatural by religions throughout the world such as India, Greece, and Persia and was unable to be explained where the flames were coming from.
The First Use and First Pipeline
For the first time, in 500 B.C., the Chinese had found that there was potential to actually use these flames for good. They would use the flames or gas to boil sea water so they could separate the salt to make water that you are able to drink. So when the Chinese found places where gas was seeping from the ground, they would transport the gas by building pipelines made out of bamboo shoots.
Now let’s fast forward a little bit…In 1626, natural gas in America was discovered! French explorers had found natives lighting gases on fire that were seeping into and around Lake Erie. Even though it was discovered in America during this time, it wasn’t until 1816 that it was commercially used. Baltimore, Maryland was the first city in America to light street lamps with this gas, now known as natural gas that was produced from coal. However the first time gas was commercialized was in Britain was in 1785 where they used natural gas that was produced from coal to light street lamps and houses.
In 1821, a man named William Hart in Fredonia, New York noticed gas bubbles in a creek and dug down 27 feet with shovels, creating a well allowing a larger flow of gas. Side note: Today, wells are about 30,000 feet deep. Wow…big difference! Pipelines that were used to transport this gas were made out of hollowed out logs and connected by tar and rags. Hart eventually was the root of forming the first American natural gas company known as the Fredonia Gas Light Company in 1858. Today, William Hart is known as the “father of natural gas.”
The First Well
In Pennsylvania, in 1859, the official first well was dug by a former railroad conductor named Colonel Edwin Drake hitting oil and natural gas at 69 feet down. Drake had invented a drive pipe to help drive through the rock to start the drill. Drake was the first person to hit oil in America, even though many before him had tried but methods hindered them from going deep enough. Many consider this well as the beginning career of the natural gas and oil industry. A pipeline was built 5 ½ miles long to reach from the well site to the village of Titusville, Pennsylvania. The making of this pipeline was able to show that natural gas could safely and easily be transferred from an underground well to a village to be used for useful purposes.
Natural gas was difficult to transfer at this time, due to lack of pipeline infrastructure, so it couldn’t be transferred too far. During the majority of the 1800s, natural gas was mostly used for generating light. However, in the late 1900s, electricity was invented and beginning to take flight so natural gas producers were forced to search for alternative uses for gas since it wasn’t in high demand anymore as a light source.
I find it incredibly interesting to learn about how natural gas came about. From seeing a random flame burning from the ground and thinking it was supernatural to all the uses we have for it today is so cool! Natural gas is so essential that many of us wouldn’t want to imagine a world without it. If natural gas producers weren’t forced to look for alternative uses after the invention of electricity, who knows where we would be today. We have definitely come a long way since that first mystery flame was found!
Today, the natural gas industry has so many more parts than just digging with your shovels and using gas in the next town over. There is exploration, extraction, production, processing, transport, etc. CROFT Production Systems is there to provide the best equipment needed for the processing sector to help bring the gas to the market. Check out our product line to find out more information.
http://www.apga.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3329
