| Submit your comments on this article | |
| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- | |
| Chinese Coal Minre Fires Pushing Global Warming? | |
| 2007-08-26 | |
| A shorter article in the Sunday Parade magazine sent me searching for this: Underground coal fires are relentlessly incinerating millions of tons of coal around the world. The blazes spew out huge amounts of air pollutants, force residents to flee their homes, send toxic runoff flowing into waterways, and leave the land above as scarred as a battlefield. "A global environmental catastrophe" is how geologist Glenn B. Stracher described the situation. Stracher, of East Georgia College in Swainsboro, organized an international symposium on the topic at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "This symposium is dedicated to disclosing the severity of the coal fires problem," Stracher said, noting that some of the fires have been burning for centuries with few people aware of the problem. Concern and action is needed, he said, because of the environmental impact -- especially of mega-fires burning in India, China and elsewhere in Asia. One coal fire in northern China, for instance, is burning over an area more than 3,000 miles wide and almost 450 miles long. "The direct and indirect economic losses from coal fires are huge," said Paul M. van Dijk, a Dutch scientist who is tracking the Chinese blazes via satellite. He estimated that the Chinese fires alone consume 120 million tons of coal annually. That's almost as much as the annual coal production in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois combined. And no scrubbers! The horror! The Chinese fires also make a big, hidden contribution to global warming through the greenhouse effect, scientists said. Each year they release 360 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as much as all the cars and light trucks in the United States.
All linked to global warming! Mine fires are frustratingly difficult and costly to extinguish, panelists said. Weapons range from backfilling mine shafts to cutting off the oxygen supply with a new foam-like grout that's squirted into mine shafts like shaving cream and then expands to sniff out the fire. Most are simply left alone to burn until they eventually exhaust their fuel supply. The Parade article talked about a new nitrogen-based foam to suffocate the fire. | |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #7 Guam K57 Caller > asked host the question "Do the people of Guam wish to die for the United States", ala proposed US military buildup. *MVARIETY > JAPAN TO CONTROL MOST OF BUILDUP MONEY. Other - PROPOSED AIRFIELD [light? planes] MAY BE BUILT NEAR RACE WAY [Guam's Route 15]. Since CHINA has formally but quietly asked the USA to divide the Pacific into two differentiated "Sphere of Influence-Control", WESTPAC controlled by CHINA, EASTPAC by USA, to my parent, relatives, and friends for many years now I've said a similar question must be asked "Do the people of Guam, ec. [WESTPAC]wish to live under Communist China?"m espec under the risk of being forcibly removed back to mainland China to be worked to death in the camps and industrial factories??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-08-26 21:00 |
| #6 Luckily, China is exempt from the limitations of the Kyoto treaty, so it doesn't matter how much CO2 or other pollution they produce. |
| Posted by: Rambler 2007-08-26 18:47 |
| #5 Actually, coal fires result in global cooling. PBS showed a documentary on this pointing out that the human activites causing global warming and those causing global cooling are in near balance. Any attempt to cut out one set of activities is as likely to trigger an ice age as anything else. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2007-08-26 13:53 |
| #4 Too bad there isn't some way to sequester carbon dioxide in these burning mines. It might even put out the fires. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-26 13:52 |
| #3 The Chinese fires also make a big, hidden contribution to global warming through the greenhouse effect, scientists said. Each year they release 360 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as much as all the cars and light trucks in the United States. As always, China leads the way. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-26 13:51 |
| #2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_fire Centralia, Pennsylvania fire, which has been burning since 1962. Of the hundreds of mine fires in the United States burning today, most are found in the state of Pennsylvania. thousands of inextinguishable mine fires are burning, especially in China and India Australia's Burning Mountain, the oldest known coal fire, has burned for 6,000 years |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-08-26 13:37 |
| #1 Sorry, no "r" in the word "mine". |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-08-26 13:28 |