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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, December 1, 2014 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

John Hrastar

"Liquid Natural Gas in the United States: A History"

ABSTRACT -- When natural gas was first discovered in Appalachia in the 19th century, its development was slow at first because it couldn't be moved easily. Unlike oil and coal, gas could be moved only by pipeline and required large containers for storage. With the advent of pipelines it grew rapidly as a fuel in the latter half of that century because of its clean burning advantage compared to coal and oil. However, it was not possible to cope with peak loads without adding excessive pipeline capacity until just before World War II, when two sister gas companies developed a plant to liquefy and store natural gas as a liquid; the liquid was then regasified to deal with peak loads.

The liquid is 1/600th the volume of the gas, but it requires storage at extremely low temperatures, -260°F. This worked well until 1944, when a liquid natural gas (LNG) tank in Cleveland ruptured and caused a fire with 130 fatalities. The fire did not end the industry but caused it to pause. Over the next few years the problems in materials, design, standards, and siting were solved. The recognition that liquefaction made LNG transportable without a pipeline was the breakthrough. In 1959 a shipload of LNG went from Louisiana to Britain and restarted the LNG industry. It is now a major worldwide energy industry and the topic of this book.

SPEAKER -- John Hrastar is the author of Liquid Natural Gas in the United States: A History (McFarland & Co., 2014).

Mr. Hrastar has a BS and MS from Case Institute of Technology. After serving as an Air Force Officer, he joined Goddard in 1963.

At Goddard, he studied the effect of fluids on the stability of spinning spacecraft and did early work on attitude control by computer. The missions he worked on, some as systems engineer, some as manager, include the International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE), the Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO), the Tropical Rainfall Measurement (TRMM) Project, and the WIND spacecraft.

He was assigned to the Mission to Planet Earth Office as Deputy, then as the Deputy Director of Space Sciences before retiring as the Director of Systems, Technology, and Advanced Concepts (STAAC).

While at Goddard, he patented one invention and received awards including the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Snoopy award from the Astronaut Corps, the GSFC Award of Merit, and the Outstanding Leadership Medal.

He is now an independent consultant. His teaching includes a graduate level course at the University of Maryland. He volunteers for Habitat for Humanity and the Literacy Council.




Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov