Advances in Natural Gas Emerging Technologies

The global request of natural gas (NG) is continuously increasing, consequently also the regasification of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is becoming a process largely employed. Liquefied natural gas at a temperature of around 113 K at atmospheric pressure has to be regasified for its transportation by pipeline. The regasification process makes the LNG exergy available for various applications, particularly for the production of electrical energy. Different possibilities to exploit the thermal energy released during regasification are available. New plant configurations whose functioning does not constrain the processes of the regasification terminal are proposed. A possible solution is LNG exploitation as a cold source for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plants. Electric energy can be produced also by the exploitation of heat released from hot sources, for instance, the condensation heat of power plants by means of consecutive thermodynamic cycles. The rational use of the cold source (LNG) allows the increment of electrical production and growth of the thermodynamic efficiency, with corresponding environmental benefits.