The 20 year global warming potential of methane (natural gas) is 86. This means
ID: 1361340 • Letter: T
Question
The 20 year global warming potential of methane (natural gas) is 86. This means that one gram of methane will trap the equivalent amount of heat in the atmosphere as 86 grams of CO2 over a twenty year timeframe. We will explore the importance of this fact for switching from coal to natural gas in this problem.
(1) Given that the efficiency of a modern combined cycle natural gas plant is 67% (i.e. 67 percent of the energy that goes into the plant as natural gas comes out as useable electricity) while the efficiency of a conventional pulverized coal plant in 33%. Using this information as well as the energy content for coal and natural gas given to you as part of Problem Set One (i.e. one metric ton of coal contains 22,880,000 BTUs of energy and one cubic foot of natural gas contains 1,031 BTUs of energy), find the number of cubic feet of natural gas that would be necessary to generate the same amount of electricity as could be generated from one metric ton of coal. (Hint: Start by finding the total BTU’s of electricity that could be produced from one metric ton of coal.)
Explanation / Answer
efficiency of coal = 0.33
efficiency of natural gas = 0.67
Let number of cubic foot be N
E1 = E2
0.33 x 22880000 = N x 1031 x 0.67
N = 10930.41
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