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Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

earthmagazine.org

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Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#41

Post by nasmorn »

dang wrote: post #4
nasmorn wrote: post #3

Really crazy how untold billions are spent on climate change mitigation and they can’t raise the 60m to put out this fire.

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. They lead to the local equivalent of coal fires. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry I actually meant it is tragic that this cannot be funded given that it is such a high climate change priority according to the article. The mitigation would be fairly cheap and long lasting, it might burn another 50 years

Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#42

Post by TeMPOraL »

nostrademons wrote: post #33
Skunkleton wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok fine, I guess we have to do something about this.

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

"We got ourselves a pretty big fire. Gonna need a huge bang."

https://youtu.be/U8Vh3h9i2Uk?t=37

Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#43

Post by cf498 »

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fire-in-the-ho...

I heard about the phenomenon before, but was stumped how long they can burn.

>Many ancient fires like those still burn, from the Canadian Arctic to southeast Australia. Scientists estimate that Australia’s BurningMountain, the oldest known coal fire, has burned for 6,000 years. In the 19th century, explorers mistook the smoking summit for a volcano.

Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#44

Post by owenversteeg »

Skunkleton wrote: post #31
nostrademons wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sea level rise if all ice melts: 230 ft. Sea level rise to historical maximum: 660 ft. (100m years ago; the difference is largely because of thermal expansion of water and changing shape of ocean basins.) Elevation of Centralia, PA: 1467 ft.

Ok fine, I guess we have to do something about this.

World ocean area is 361 million km2. We need 1467 feet or 447 meters of sea level rise, right? So a total of 1.6e20 liters or 161 million km3. The volume of the Moon is 21 billion km3, so too big. Rhea is about 233 million km3 (I think) so that would be more reasonable.

Rhea is only 1.272 billion km from Earth, totally doable I think. Anyone else want to go grab a rocket and put out a coal fire? I feel like it'd be eminently doable with some kind of Project Orion-style tactical blasts behind Rhea.

I see absolutely no way this could go wrong.

Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#45

Post by callalex »

cpeterso wrote: post #39
sandworm101 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cannot be fixed with robots. Thousands of R2D2s running into mines with fire extinguishers wouldn't make a dent. These are fires spread throughout many square-miles, cubic-miles, of permeable rock. Quenching them must involve external containment. Massive concrete domes/walls surrounding the burning material. Then you must wait many many years for temperatures to cool. It is a multi-decade project imho.

The best time to start such a project would have been decades ago. The second best time is today. It could be a good jobs program and perhaps the concrete barriers could be built as functional structures for the local community?

We can't even get government funding for less CO2-heavy power plants, let alone putting out fires that don't directly harm anyone with an unknown success rate.

Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#47

Post by EGreg »

EamonnMR wrote: post #37
wheelerwj wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you knew all of the entrances and didn't have to worry about permeation, sure. But who really knows how many possible places air is entering that fire.

There are uncharted mine shafts, some where homes used to be because people would mine under their basements. There are also sinkholes which you can see in pictures of the highway.

Can’t you map those by seeing where air is still flowing in? Release some dust and map its flow. Or better yet just cover the surface with foam.

Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#48

Post by honestoHeminway »

sandworm101 wrote: post #35
krasin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can compare such permanent fires with a dragon that lives near a village and eats people from time to time. And every time, it takes a reward from a village chief to find a hero and kill the dragon. Why doesn't any of the states with coal fires offer a monetary prize to stop such fires? Put money on the table, and a hero (in a form of a robotic firefighting startup) will come.

It cannot be fixed with robots. Thousands of R2D2s running into mines with fire extinguishers wouldn't make a dent. These are fires spread throughout many square-miles, cubic-miles, of permeable rock. Quenching them must involve external containment. Massive concrete domes/walls surrounding the burning material. Then you must wait many many years for temperatures to cool. It is a multi-decade project imho.

Has anyone tried to do the cooling symstem approach? Aka, pump in water, frack, and cool the site down until the fire is non-substainable?

Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#49

Post by Lobsterosity »

ars wrote: post #14

This article is from 2010 - any update in the last 8 years? Here's his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/541222132634503/ The company website is down, but he's posting. I suspect he's still trying but his company no longer is.

Most recent I can find: https://www.history.com/news/mine-fire-burning-more-50-years...

Kind of a bum article but no progress as far as I can tell.

Recent court case re gov't attempt to kick last citizens out. They got a settlement and are allowed to stay until they die at which time gov't will take land via eminent domain. https://wnep.com/2013/10/30/agreement-reached-with-remaing-c...

Re: Firefighting foam heats up coal fire debate (2010)

#50

Post by honestoHeminway »

mirimir wrote: post #30
Skunkleton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, some other things also happened at Chernobyl.

True. But wasn't it the hydrogen explosion that popped the containment? Not that there was all that much containment, in any case.

Eisenschwammdampfdruckhydrolyse

Steam plus a red-hot glowing Oxidator produce Hydrogen. They used that to fire mortars in WW1 on the eastern front, just very fine milled scrap and coaled wood. You can not run out of ammo, if you only fire payloads and available materials.

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