Natural Gas storage?

[LBrown59]

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, possible.

Why not talk to this guy and find out all about it?

 

[LBrown59]

I just check my air compressor and it goes up to 200psi, but I have the relief set at 160psi. If this guy has devised a method to use an air compressor motor, we might be able to go up to 150 or so, depending on what the compressor is rated for. I usually go up to the farm every couple of weeks, so I would think 2 100 lb. tanks would be plenty.

How far is it from the farm to your place?
Are you going to be paying more for gasoline than you're saving with the Nat Gas?

 

[MDM]

15 miles one way. I go up atleast once every two weeks, or dad starts going through grandaughter withdraw.

 

[Richard]

I don't know any of the answers to above questions BUT... here's what I did on my propane tanks.

First off, I bought larger tanks than the 'gas grill' size. I don't know their specific size but I'd say they're about 50% larger than the standard gas grill size. Larger, hold more, yet MUCh easier to handle than the 100 pounder tanks I also have.

In addition to that, I've got a dual tank manifold. I've got NO memory as to where I found it but I can connect two tanks to it and it has a flip switch.

If one tank runs out, I simply switch over to tank "B" and keep going. I never remove tank "A" while running tank "B". What I have done is, I've got two 100 pound tanks and one of them is connected to one input. I then have three of the larger grill tanks and I set them on a log so they're equal height to the 100 pounder.

When one of the small tanks runs out, I swap out for another small tank, leaving the large tank intact in case I have some snow issues and can't get out for a couple days (has happened before).

Anyways, the thing that tickles me most is the dual tank manifold. It allows me to effectively double my reserve available before having to swap tanks.

 

[MDM]

We have to find an air compressor with a threaded inlet and outlet. That is what the guy uses. He stopped by and dropped off 2 100lb propane tanks for dad that he had filled up at his farm. He said he filled them to 100psi. The guy is going to set us up, we just have to find a compressor with the threaded inlet/outlet and preferable one that can go up to 150 psi or so.

Anyone know what psi the 100lb propane cylinders are rated for?

 

[shaley]

Surplus Center
1/2" NPT outlet and it has a inlet flange that can be tapped to 1/2" NPT

 

[Egon]

Perhaps you should consider some professional advice from a center that deals in CNG.

CNG tanks are usually filled to three or four thousand psi. The pumps used are properly designed and do come in different pumping rates. Chances are that one for your type of service would take more than a few hours to fill a proper tank.

 

[orezok]

A cubic foot of natural gas (manifold pressure) has about 1000 BTU +/-. Your heater is at least 50,000 BTU/Hr. The amount of gas you could get into a propane cylinder at 150 psi would only last minutes. CNG at 2400 psi has about 150,000 BTU/cf. Thats why only high pressure CNG is viable and even then you're probably looking at daily refills with small tanks.

 

[MDM]

The heater is rated at 30,000 BTUs. My dad is trying out the 100lb tanks filled to 100psi at his cabin as we speak. He is going to be dissapointed if one tank only lasts a few minutes. I have a feeling you may be right though.

 

[MDM]

You are right. One tank only lasted about an hour. So much for that idea. Looks like I need to get a chimney laid up. I have a 150,000 BTU Bunco woodburner that is just sitting up at dad's and I have about 10 acres of woods.

 

[SPIKER]

When I saw this thread I wasn't going to post but I liked the idea from a save some $ stand point but wanted to say that from my experience propane gases off at ~62~64 PSI (as measured on my gauge once about 10 yrs back) and using one of the GAS GRILL tanks would not be wise to COMPRESS them to the relieve valves MAY be set to 150 ~ 200 psi but those normally only activate in the event of a fire or error when filling! there are many warnings about people using these to make "remote Air Tanks" or "Portable Air Tanks" and then having them rupture when filling... SO it is not wise to try & do there types of things.

you said you used 100 lb tanks and it only lasted a few min?? sounds about right to me as LP is
1. a liquid, which changes state to gas and
2 propane has a lot more available BTUs per CF than nat gas.

it was an interesting IDEA though there are booster pumps that use the compressed gas to over compress it but you need to refrigerate the gas to assist it in changing states from gas to liquid if I'm remembering stuff correctly. while simply compressing it it is possible but uses a lot more energy than dropping the temps on top of compressing it.

mark

 

[BobRip]

it was an interesting IDEA though there are booster pumps that use the compressed gas to over compress it but you need to refrigerate the gas to assist it in changing states from gas to liquid if I'm remembering stuff correctly. while simply compressing it it is possible but uses a lot more energy than dropping the temps on top of compressing it.

mark

Hey, he has a lot of energy, free natural gas. Just got to find the right compressor and tanks without too much cost.

 

[charlz]

I think tanks would be a lot easier to find cheap then the compressor... people are selling both up on ebay. I found an popular science article that said the Phill station is about $4,000, maybe less if you get tax credits in your area.

 

[HappyCPE]

Well, what about Shaley's idea [post #10] ???
Convert the non-transportable energy into something that is more marketable. Net metering, anyone?

About 10 years ago someone in my office brought a project in that would use nighttime electricity [cheap] to compress air, then bleed off the stored hi pressure air by spinning a turbine that made electricity to sell during the day [expensive]. It sounded hare-brained then, and it didn't work financially, but now, who knows?

Energy storage is sometimes overlooked these days. This is a very interesting thread, especially since a few miles away from me in PA they are talking about drilling new NG wells.

 

[charlz]

Well, what about Shaley's idea [post #10] ???
Convert the non-transportable energy into something that is more marketable. Net metering, anyone?

Big hurdle here might be the wording of the contract... if it says 'for personal use' or something like that. Generating power and selling it is probably not 'personal use'. Plus you then have a generator running 24x7 with all its noise and maintenance, lots of free heat though

Some years ago I saw an article where (I think it was) GE Power Systems was working on a NG fuel cell system that would sit next to your house. It was about the size of a frig and produced electricity and heat.

More recently I saw something about an 'appliance' that would sit under the counter like a dishwasher trash compactor and produce electricity and heat. Can't remember who the company was.

Both of these were to be 'grid tie' type systems. I can't find links to either of these now. Maybe with the price of NG going up a few 100% in the last decade put them out of reach.

 

[HappyCPE]

Yes, the fine print in the contract would make all the difference. On the other hand, I could personally use a lot of energy... for free electricity, I'd be getting a Prius and a plug-in conversion kit, for one.

 

[shaley]

I thought the contract said 200,000 CF per year. Let me do some cyphering out loud. 1 cuft = 302 Watt Hours. 200,000 per year = 60,400 Kw Hours.
The grid will buy power at about 7 cents per Kwhr. So $4,200 per yr. Of course the generation equipment will cost some money.

 

[RobJ]

If we don't hear from MDM in a while I'm gonna get worried. As in Ka-Boom! Right out of the well NG is colorless and odorless. As far as running it on an engine, you would need to scrub it first, I guess you would also need to scrub it first to run through a compressor. NG out of the ground isn't that clean all the time.

Interesting project though.

Rob