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History of Liquified Natural Gas
The concept of liquefying gases began with British chemist Michael Faraday in the 1800s. In 1873, Karl van Linde, a German engineer, built a working compression refrigerator for natural gas. A first-generation liquified natural gas plant was built in West Virginia in 1912. In 1941, liquified natural gas was first stored in insulated tanks at normal atmospheric pressure at a plant in Cleveland, Ohio.
Because the liquified form of natural gas is only 1/614th the volume of natural gas, it is commercially and economically feasible to transport by ship or store in large volume only as a liquid. Natural gas in its original form is transported via pipeline. Before commercial shipping of liquified natural gas, only countries and regions with pipeline access to the gas could utilize the resource.
Natural gas began to be used widely in the U.S. during World War II as an industrial fuel and expanded into residential distribution to replace oil and coal. As gas usage for residential space heating grew, local distribution companies began to store gas during off-peak days to use on the coldest peak days. The use of gas storage expanded greatly in the 1960's and 70's.
The first liquified natural gas tanker, the Methane Pioneer, sailed with its cargo from Louisiana to England in 1959. In 1964, the United Kingdom and France bought the first exports of liquified natural gas from Algeria. In 1969, the first natural gas exports were sent from Alaska to Japan. Between 1971 and 1980, the United States built natural gas import terminals in Maryland, Louisiana, Georgia and Massachusetts.
Shipments of liquified natural gas peaked in the United States in 1979 and then fell off, due mostly to price deregulation. However, import volumes continued to increase elsewhere - particularly in Asia and Europe. In the late 1990s, as natural gas demand for electricity generation grew in the United States, a new liquefaction plant was constructed in Trinidad and Tobago to serve the American market, including Puerto Rico. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan imported about 70% of the available liquified natural gas in 2002. China and India are two of the fastest growing markets for imported liquified natural gas.
In recent years, due to growing demand, many new gas storage projects have been proposed and constructed across the country. The Floridian Natural Gas Storage Project will bring these same beneficial characteristics to Florida users to meet peak summertime loads as well as to manage price volatility.
Today, there are more than 150 tankers, 40 import terminals, 17 export terminals and over 200 storage facilities for liquified natural gas throughout the world. As the cleanest and most efficient fossil fuel available, demand for natural gas is increasing rapidly throughout the world.
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