Natural gas is another member of the commodities family.  Just like coal, which is the solid form of fossil fuels, and crude oil, which is the liquid form of fossil fuels, natural gas can be considered as the gaseous form of fossil fuel. One can usually find it in places where one can also find crude oil and coal.

Natural gas is among the cleanest sources of energy in the world. It is also used extensively across the globe. At present, natural gas is the second largest provider of energy in the United States, just after crude oil.

About one fourth of the US energy needs are met by the usage of natural gas. In this article, we will explore more about the diverse applications of natural gas in various fields.

Industrial Uses

One can burn natural gas at a consistent temperature. There are very few mishaps when one uses natural gas as an energy source. This is why natural gas is considered to be among the cleanest sources of energy.

In addition, there is an increasing demand for cleaner fossil fuel across the industrial world. Natural is used to power the blast furnaces that are utilized to melt metals and recast them into different shapes. Additionally, heavy industries use huge industrial boilers.

Natural gas is very effective in powering such boilers as well. One can easily imagine that the use of natural gas in the industry is quite endless. It can be used in the fertilizer industry, waste incineration, and food processing.

Residential Uses

About 70 percent of all the kitchens in the United States use natural gas. Meanwhile, around 30 percent of all the kitchens in the world use this as a source of power. It’s also used to power a plethora of household appliances, which are mostly those that are used to keep the house warm during winter.

This is why natural gas prices usually experience a jump in value when the winter is in the northern hemisphere. Many investors use this cyclical trend to their advantage in that they liquidate their natural gas holdings in winter when the world is buying.

Commercial Uses

Natural gas can also be utilized as a substitute to diesel to power up generators in the event of power outages. Given that gas is cheaper than diesel, many commercial establishments such as malls, theaters, hospitals, and others use gas to power up their facilities during power cuts. As natural gas based generator tech becomes increasingly mainstream, the consumption of natural gas in this field is seen to be soaring in the future.

Power Generation

The third world experiences power crises from time to time. As the same time, other such inputs that can be used to generate power are very expensive. Natural gas is extremely cheap, on the other hand. Therefore, countries have now started to build power plants that can use natural gas as fuel and provide electricity as output.

At present, even the developed nations such as the United States can attribute about 10 percent of their power generation to natural gas. Given the impetus on developing cleaner sources of energy, this number in expected to rise much higher in the near future.