Earlier this week, I saw an advert on cooking gas powering regular generators; I got curious and found my way to go check it out. I found that it was in fact true and possible to have a generator run on the same cooking gas we use in our kitchen.
So I had to do a bit of reading to understand how this works and also its pros and cons.
Cooking gas which is also natural gas is a mixture of hydrocarbons (mainly methane (CH4)) that is produced either from gas wells or in conjunction with crude oil production. Because of the gaseous nature of this fuel, it has to be stored in either a compressed gaseous state (as in our gas cylinders) or as liquefied state (LNG).
The debate on the use of natural gas for generators has been on for a while, but this was in comparison with diesel generators implying that some generators are originally built to run with natural gas. But what this new technology does is to remove the inbuilt carburetor that comes with the regular generators and use a hybrid carburetor that allows gas power the engine. Hmmn.
When using natural gas, there are less emissions, less noise and they are relatively cheaper to use, but the scary disadvantage is the possibility of a gas leak.
I am looking out to see how this technology gets along in the market and have also asked a natural gas expert on its viability.