Natural Gas storage?

   / Natural Gas storage? #1  

MDM

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Here is the situation. My dad has a natural gas well on his farm and heats his house with it. We are trying to devise a way of bottling the gas in say a 100lb propane cylinder. The plan is for me to install a vent free natural gas heater in my basement - one of those 30,000 BTU wall mount units and heat my basement out of a few of those 100lb propane tanks with the natural gas. Anyone know if this is possible?

Dad says one of his buddies can T into the gas line in the house and use some sort of compressor to fill the tanks. One 100lb tank may only last a week or two, but it would save me alot in heating bills. I figured I would get 2-3 tanks, that way when one runs out, I could just go get it filled and have one in reserve. Probably not the most legal thing, but he is allowed 200,000 cubic feet per year and will never ever come close to using that amount. He wants to use as much of it as he can and I'm not going to complain. I'm not asking if this is ethical, just want to know if is physically possible.
 
   / Natural Gas storage? #3  
Very interesting... I did some poking around and found this:

index

A 'home cng filling station' says it cannot be used with well gas though. Might be able to call them and find out who might make one compatibles with well gas. Also might be able to figure out what to do to the well gas to make it compatible with their system. I was watching something on TV one time that said NG well gas has a very high water content.

Charles
 
   / Natural Gas storage? #4  
I think you would hve a cng compressor to compress at a high pressure for storage or compress at such a high pressure it turns to a liquid state. very expensive
 
   / Natural Gas storage? #6  
Are you talking about non processed gas straight from the wellhead? :D
 
   / Natural Gas storage?
  • Thread Starter
#7  
Yep, it comes straight from the well to the house.
 
   / Natural Gas storage? #8  
kenmac said:
I think you would hve a cng compressor to compress at a high pressure for storage or compress at such a high pressure it turns to a liquid state. very expensive

Well CNG is compressed and LNG is when it goes to the liquid state. Two similar but different processes I would imagine.
 
   / Natural Gas storage? #9  
I was thinking about this last night and re-read the original post.. you are talking about using propane cylinders. I believe CNG is somewhere around 3500 psi so I don't think propane cylinders are safe for that... more like welding cylinders.

Trick is how far away are you and how often would you want to go to get more gas.

Do you live in a neighborhood? Neighbors might not take too kindly to having a potential bomb in the neighborhood ;)

I would say most consumer NG appliances are not designed for well gas, particularly 'vent free' so:

1)find a way to clean it up similar to 'line gas'
2)find a way to compress it
3)find some cylinders that can contain it
4)find a way to transport the cylinders (small pickup with them mounted in the bed?)

Going to need to figure out what state laws might apply to transporting it. I am think unless you want to go back every couple days you are going to need a couple of cylinders.

Just found this:

http://www.harscogasserv.com/lng_pdf_files/CNG & Hydrogen Cylinders.pdf

Their largest tank at 21 inches by 7 feet holds 3494 SCF (cubic feet?) of gas at 3600 psi.... hmm someone on that other thread said they used 227 cu ft in one month (January) to heat their whole house... so maybe it wouldn't be too bad with the right size cylinder.

I am thinking this would take a lot of up front cash to get going.... would have to do your math to see how long it would take for the investment to pay off.

Sorry for the long post!

Charles
 
   / Natural Gas storage? #10  
I'd buy a small cumbustion turbine and make electricty. Sell it to the neighbors and buy my gasoline.
 
 
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