A few months ago in July, I went to Japan and visited the Kansai region, or Osaka to be precise, under the youth exchange program that held by Japanese Government, JENESYS. During my visit in Osaka city, me and with other participant have visited many places. To name a few, Osaka Science Gas Museum is one of them.
Osaka Science Gas Museum built in Osaka city port, where the LNG or Liquefied Natural Gas that have been exported from across nations, including Indonesia (maybe all of the LNG reserve we have are being exported there), stored and processed before used as an energy across Japan for home, commercial, and Industry usages.
The museum complex is quite large since it’s also functioned as the depot for the gases itself. Since the museum is located at Osaka bay and there are harbours nearby, ships that carry the gases will directly sent them to gas depot for procession. It needs to be processed since the gases take different form when being transported overseas by ship and when they are being stored in gas depot.
Japan suffered an energy crisis state after Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant radiation leak out when tsunami stroked eastern of Japan. Few Japanese east nuclear power plants also have been shutdown to prevent the same incident occur in another perfecture. Thus, the government have forced to search for alternatives energy sources solution for their home, commercial, and industry massive needs of energy. Liquefied Natural Gas or abbreviated as LNG is popular to become alternative energy source since it is quite environmental friendly and produce as much as energy like oil did.
First, what is LNG? Why we exported them to Japan not use it for ourselves? For both of you and my convenience, I will copy and paste the info straight away from our beloved Wikipedia:
” Liquefied natural gas or LNG is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4) that has been converted temporarily to liquid form for ease of storage or transport.
Liquefied natural gas takes up about 1/600th the volume of natural gas in the gaseous state. It is odorless, colorless, non-toxic and non-corrosive. Hazards include flammability, freezing and asphyxia.
The liquefaction process involves removal of certain components, such as dust, acid gases, helium, water, and heavy hydrocarbons, which could cause difficulty downstream. The natural gas is then condensed into a liquid at close to atmospheric pressure (maximum transport pressure set at around 25 kPa/3.6 psi) by cooling it to approximately −162 °C (−260 °F).
LNG achieves a higher reduction in volume than compressed natural gas (CNG) so that the energy density of LNG is 2.4 times that of CNG or 60% of that of diesel fuel. This makes LNG cost efficient to transport over long distances where pipelines do not exist. Specially designed cryogenic sea vessels (LNG carriers) or cryogenic road tankers are used for its transport.
LNG is principally used for transporting natural gas to markets, where it is regasified and distributed as pipeline natural gas. It can be used in natural gas vehicles, although it is more common to design vehicles to use compressed natural gas. Its relatively high cost of production and the need to store it in expensive cryogenic tanks have prevented its widespread use in commercial applications.”
In last paragraph, we can gain information that LNG requires extensive advanced technology with no small feats to acquire. A something that us, Indonesian doesn’t have. So, since LNG proved to be worthless (currently) in our possession it will better if the gas were imported instead to Japan since they have the technology to process them
Now, we back to the museum itself. Although it’s named “gas science museum”, the museum was dedicated more than just science of gas, but also science of energies in general. There are many exhibit shows on how some energy normally works and how the energies used all the way from shipping to house family usage in all of Japan.
The Exhibit there is not like some usual museum exhibition that encases historical objects in glass display. But most of the exhibits were using some interactive way of displaying their objects. There are exhibit that show us how big air balloon work. Their most famous attraction is some kind of virtual and interactive theatre. The theatre would show us
Well, here is brief information that I copy pasted fro Osaka city’s official tourist website:
“The Gas Science Museum, featuring a wide range of scientific exhibits relating to gases and energy, is designed to communicate to current and future generations the importance of preserving the global environment and the effective use of energy. The facility has many attractions that people of different ages can enjoy. Various displays at the Museum are interesting not only for adults, but also for children, especially elementary school students, who are often fascinated and even astonished to learn about energy through various programs. The facility has a theatre, where a movie about a robot competition is shown, and Labo Air and Labo Fire, where various experimental programs are available. In addition, at Experiment Station visitors can participate in experiments using liquefied natural gas at extremely low temperatures. Children watching the experiment around the laboratory table are amazed. These experiments and attractions help visitors recognize the various characteristics and advantages of natural gas, which they use every day without paying special attention. Natural gas is more environmentally friendly than other fossil fuels, and has the potential of becoming a main energy resource in future. At Eco Studio, elementary students looked slightly anxious when told that natural gas would be depleted by the time they retired, if consumption continued at the current pace. The Gas Science Museum offers entertaining and informative programs to help visitors of all ages realize what they can and should do in their daily lives to strike the best balance between energy use and environmental conservation. The director and attendants of the Museum, who are always smiley and friendly, tell us that it is not too late to start taking action for environmental conservation. Reservation required.”
Read the bolded part? Yes, you need to make reservation beforehands to visit this museum. It was natural though for the government to take precaution, since the museum stored massive amount of gasses will cause big mess of incident of anything wrong happens because of terrorist or simple tourist wrong doings.
Now I will tell you my travel experience there. Do not expect very much detail in my story since the visit take place in four or five months ago, so my memories must be fuzzy.
We (yes, we since I am visited Japan in group) arrived in Osaka Natural Gas Science museum in the middle of the day after some tiring visits to some places before. I forgot what kind of places we visited before the museum but that did not matter and not very important. We were greeted by the museum director and museum attendants as we arrived there. Before we began our tour, the director and the attendants brought us first to meeting hall for some introduction to the museum. From the introduction presentation that brought by the director, I learn many thing about gases, the importance of clean energy, some future possible alternatives energy, and how LNG being used as an alternatives energy after the energy crisis occurred.
As the director of the museum finished with his informative presentation, the attendants guide us to the museum bus so we could take a look around the museum and the whole gas depot complex. One of the attendant, a beautiful with glasses accompanied us during the tour and for the rest of the day. During the tour, I could say that I am impressed by Japanese technology prowess and their effort to preserve ecological nature. There are gas depots as we look to the left and right. Pipelines are everywhere as far as we see them, connecting every depots and facilities in the complex. They have monitor station to watch over these pipes from any gas leakage. Beside metal structures and pipes the museum and gas depot also have their own green area that filled with natural lifeform such as birds. Plants are also scattered across the complex.
Finished with complex tour on bus, the attendants direct us to some exhibit that show us the mapping of energy transportation from overseas shipping to home usage in Japan and the importance of LNG. The director and the attendants patiently explain it to us all the information there. From them, I learned how the energy form the gas made through from transportation overseas to homes in Japan.
Done with that, the attendant has to skipped through many of the museum exhibit because time restriction and brought directly us to the main attraction of the museum, the Theatre of Energy History. The theatre is somekind of show with the attendant look like directly interacted with the show although they are merely projection. The show was about history of energy usage in human history with two men from primitive era explaining them and the attendant ”help” them with some things. The show is very attractive and entertaining since I never saw anything like it before.
After the show at Magic Theatre was finished, the beautiful attendant with glasses brought us to the last event at Osaka National Gas Science museum visit. The show is about how liquid nitrogen can make rubber ball frozen solid and make it break apart like glasses because the temperature. The ball was really made from rubber but it break apart like glass when fall after it dipped into liquid nitrogen.
Our visit at Osaka Gas Science museum was all finished, and we have to leave for we must attend to the next place. The director personally accompanied us to the bus and with the attendants, he said goodbye to all of us and hoped for our next visit.
That was my story. Thanks for reading if you read them at all.
