Not up to Scratch

Natural gas is odorless. And gas leaks are very dangerous. Is the solution a scratch-and-sniff sticker? Decide for yourself on this episode of Now I Know. Natural gas is odorless. As gas leaks are very dangerous – even the smallest spark can turn a peaceful, gas-filled room into a flaming inferno – gas companies give us a way to detect a leak. They add a colorless, flammable gas called mercaptan to the mix, which smells like rotten eggs or rotten cabbage. (The fact that it’s flammable isn’t a big problem because the natural gas is, too; you’re not making the problem any worse.) The overwhelming odor from the mercaptan tells people that something’s amiss.

©2016 Dan Lewis (P)2016 Audible, Inc.