The Natural Gas Revolution: At the Pivot of the World’s Energy Future

3. Liquid Natural Gas and the World Gas Revolution

The paradox of natural gas is its great value for human use coupled with its low economic value per unit of volume, especially compared to oil. A barrel of oil consists of 42 gallons or 5.6 cubic feet. But the energy in one barrel of oil has the same energy as 5,659 cubic feet of natural gas at room temperature. This implies that crude oil has about 1,000 times as much energy as the same volume of natural gas. Oil has high, and natural gas has low, energy density—the amount of energy per unit of volume. This fact has enormous implications for the uses of energy in these two forms and for the transportation feasibility of natural gas. The low-energy density of natural gas makes liquid natural ...