UK tweaks gas pipeline network with turbines for renewable electricity

UK will soon boast of a turbine generated power but one that is generated underground. Excuse me if I have confused you but the fact is that by British engineers’ intend to place turbines in the thousands of gas pipes that zigzag their way beneath the country. The turbines will help to generate clean and renewable electricity from the natural gas, which is otherwise being wasted as it is created in the piping network. Developed by the geo-pressure clean energy company 2OC, the new geo-pressure technology will work by capturing the natural gas and decompressing it at hundreds of sites installed throughout the network known as letdown stations. Further, the decompression of the gas will propel a turbine to produce power that can be piped out to stations and homes. 2OC is collaborating with the National Grid, which owns most of the gas pipes in the UK, to install mini power stations at various locations.

Though the project will jumpstart in the latter part of 2009 in east London, it is expected to generate 20 megawatts of electricity by 2010. And once this geo-pressure technology will spread through out UK generating about 1 gigawatt of electricity, the country will be boasting of sizeable reductions in CO2 emissions.
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