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Wikipedia claims they account for 3% of CO2 emissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_seam_fire (at the end of the intro paragraphs)
Considering that they're a pure nuisance with no economic value and plenty of danger due to area denial, and 3% is nothing to sneeze at, that would suggest that they should be a priority to greenhouse gas reduction.
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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.
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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
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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.