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The Gates of Hell
- joak 5y agoExcerpt: "The Gates of Hell crater was created in 1971 when a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. Having punctured a pocket of gas, poisonous fumes began leaking at an alarming rate. To head off a potential environmental catastrophe, the Soviets set the hole alight, figuring it would stop burning within a few weeks."
- roywiggins 5y agoMaybe they could try nuking it? https://interestingengineering.com/soviet-engineers-detonated-a-nuke-miles-underground-to-put-out-a-gas-well-fire https://interestingengineering.com/soviet-engineers-detonate...
- Victerius 5y agoNukes. The cause of, and solution to, all of the world's problems.
- csdvrx 5y agoWhen force is not the solution to a problem, it just means you didn't apply enough of it!
- jeffreygoesto 5y agoLike it worked well with that whale (now more than) 50 years ago? https://politicalbombshow.com/2020/12/12/funniest-thing-that-ever-happened-oregons-exploding-whale/ https://politicalbombshow.com/2020/12/12/funniest-thing-that...
- adolph 5y agoReminds me of the time a drilling rig emptied a lake into a salt mine: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-peigneur https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-peigneur
- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 5y agoRelevant update; Soon to be extinguished? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/08/turkmenistan-plans-to-extinguish-vast-gas-crater-fire-dubbed-gateway-to-hell https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/08/turkmenistan-p...
- Someone 5y agoFTA: “But the fate of the burning crater may be in limbo. In January 2022, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered the government of Turkmenistan to begin researching how to put the fire out.“ (may have been added after you wrote your comment)
- ricc 5y agoSorry for my ignorance but…can’t this be turned into an energy source?
- Retric 5y agoYes, but it hasn’t been considered economically viable to try. Another significant concern is if placing heavy equipment here would cause another collapse.
- speed_spread 5y agoIn theory, yes. Practically, it's in the middle of nowhere. It has a clearly non-optimal shape for a boiler. You'd need to setup lots of piping and a steam turbine on potentially unstable ground. Since it's in the desert, there's no large body of water around so you would use a closed cycle system, meaning you need to turn steam back to liquid after you're done, limiting net power output. All to end up collecting a minor fraction of the energy, to send it... where?
- sysOpOpPERAND 5y agoit would be interesting to use it as a way to pump water and desalinated it, then use that clean water to reforest the dessert by making swells in the soil that collect the water. but don't know the area, the ocean might be pretty far away
- EarlKing 5y ago> Turkmenistan > the ocean might be pretty far away That, sir, would be an understatement.
- nl 5y agoTo be fair Turkmenistan does border the Caspian Sea (the world's largest lake). The nearby Aral Sea has been pumped dry, and the Caspian sea is dropping at 7cm/year though: https://theconversation.com/the-caspian-sea-is-set-to-fall-by-9-metres-or-more-this-century-an-ecocide-is-imminent-152229 https://theconversation.com/the-caspian-sea-is-set-to-fall-b...
- WithinReason 5y agoA coal seam has been burning for 6000 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain A long list of similar fires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire In Colorado, coal fires have arisen as a consequence of fluctuations in the groundwater level, which can increase the temperature of the coal up to 300 °C, enough to cause it to spontaneously ignite.
- drocer88 5y agoOklo, Gabon had an underground nuclear reaction for hundreds of thousands years: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph241/zhao1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2016/ph241/zhao1/
- lostlogin 5y agoThis sentence is neat “In the hundreds of thousands of years operating as a nuclear reactor, Oklo never had a meltdown or explosion.”
- mizzao 5y agoAh, now it makes sense why that nuclear startup is called Oklo. Especially if they can market that hundred thousand year track record!
- quickthrower2 5y agoInteresting. Presumably that would have been a good source of genetic mutations for early life?
- novok 5y agoI wonder how much green house gasses come from these kind of fires in the world.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
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- nkmnz 5y agoPSA: 230 feet ≈ 70 meters
- iamleppert 5y agoConstruct a giant dome over top it to deprive it of oxygen?
- ars 5y agoYou can put the fire out, that's the "easy" part. The question is the gasses feeding it - you would not want to just let those leak out, you would need to harvest them, and somehow connect pipelines and sell the gas. In fact, if you can pump out the gas fast enough, the fire will go out on its own.
- TomK32 5y agoYou'd still have the gas and it would likely try to find a different way to the surface.
- theginger 5y agoThe odd thing is the origin story despite being in the last 50-60 years is in dispute. There is a claim the collapse happened earlier in the 60s and the fire wasn't started until the 80s. I can't imagine you could see something like that and forget, so seems really odd that they can't clear this mystery up fairly easily.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- watronfire 5y agoSee also this interview with George Kourounis, who was able to take soil samples from the crater: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/15/1073331370/for-50-years-the-gates-of-hell-crater-has-burned-now-officials-want-to-put-it-ou https://www.npr.org/2022/01/15/1073331370/for-50-years-the-g...
- a2tech 5y agoTurkmenistan has essentially endless natural gas. They'd love to sell it but the Russian government is very focused on making sure that they stay as the only real buyer of their gas.
- walrus01 5y agoThe Russian government seems very focused on ensuring that the central asian former soviet states remain as client states/economic dependants of Russia. As seen with recent events in Kazakhstan. And the efforts they put forth against anything like having real free/fair elections in places like Uzbekistan.
- galangalalgol 5y agoSurely the oligarchs can see the writing on the wall for the fossil fuels industry? I know it will take longer than most imagine for us to migrate, but these are not unintelligent people, are they diversifying yet?
- walrus01 5y agofrom the point of view of a 55-65 year oligarch, they might be doing blunt math on their own expected remaining lifespan and the comfortable lifestyle they can live for the next 30-40 years, vs. projected future dates of absolute collapse of fossil fuel economy. could be a "not my problem..." approach to it.
- moneywoes 5y agoWouldn't they want their kids to live the same life?
- DemocracyFTW 5y agoThe answer is we do plunder the planet like there's no tomorrow, notwithstanding what one ought think.
- thom 5y agoGoogle Maps link, for those interested: https://goo.gl/maps/w6Fg65CxYBi199Qp6 https://goo.gl/maps/w6Fg65CxYBi199Qp6
- UIUC_06 5y agoSounds like a job for Red Adair! [1] Too bad he's dead. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair
- ambar123 5y ago
- divbzero 5y agoWould extinguishing this or other “eternal” fires qualify to be sold as carbon credits? Or would it actually be worse for global warming since carbon could escape as methane instead?
- pugworthy 5y agoThere really needs to be a disco there. Electric 6 opening night. Also, this is one of those things that's constantly reposted on Redit - surprised it showed up here.
- aemreunal 5y agoSomething similar exists in Turkey, called Mount Chimaera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Chimaera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Chimaera "Mount Chimaera was the name of a place in ancient Lycia, notable for constantly burning fires. It is thought to be the area called Yanartaş in Turkey, where methane and other gases emerge from the rock and burn." I've seen it in person some number of years ago. It's really an amazing thing to see.
- Daub 5y agoAn opportunity to share one of my favorite websites from the old web… https://www.entrances2hell.co.uk/ https://www.entrances2hell.co.uk/
- onionisafruit 5y agoI remember having a laugh from that site. I probably found it on fark or somethingawful. I’m glad to see it still has hosting.
- cylinder714 5y agoI'm a bit disappointed that this wasn't about Auguste Rodin's sculpture, The Gates of Hell: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gates_of_Hell https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gates_of_Hell There's a copy outside the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, no admission charge.
- iLoveOncall 5y agoOn a side note, Atlas Obscura is a great website.
- kalev 5y agoAtlasObscura is a great resource to take family or friends to unique places. One of the remarkable places we’ve found was Landschaftspark in Duisburg, Germany. It’s a disused industrial site that allows visitors to go high up the tall structures and ovens for a great overview of the area. Visit it when the sun sets and the structures are lit with different colored lights. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/landschaftspark-duisburg-nord https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/landschaftspark-duisburg...
- kweks 5y agoI visited this in 2012 while motorbiking to the Pamir Highway. At the time, it was less known, and certainly hadn't attracted the "tourist destination" classification that it now has. I had a vague GPS point, and we spent a good 4-5 hours riding around getting the bikes stuck in the 5km of deep, soft sand that lies between the North/South road of Turkmenistan and the 'Gates of Hell'. To our frustration, night fell without locating the spot, and we started the arduous task of heading back to the road. As defeat settled in, I turned to see a patch of clouds in the sky cloaked in a deep umber glow, projected from the fire below. We followed the glow in the sky, and came upon the pit. It was completely mesmerising, two hours passed before we spoke a word. Pictures for the interested: https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx-st-49.jpg https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx... https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx-st-48.jpg https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx... https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx-st-50.jpg https://travel.ninjito.com/images/2012-06-01-StanTour/SLR/qx... Also, the infamous 'camel spiders' live here, and are particularly scary: I got chased a solid 200m by one. When I thought I'd shaken it, it appeared 10 seconds later on the nape of my neck.
- kylehotchkiss 5y agoHow hard was the visa to get back then? Turkmenistan has a rep for being hard to visit!
- kweks 5y agoThe 'trick' back then, which I understand is still up to date is to request a transit visa, as opposed to a tourist visa, which requires/required a paid government guide at all times. When you visited the embassy, if you were nice enough, had a chat with the consular staff, showed enthusiasm and had a cup of tea, they would issue a 7 day transit visa which you could pick up at the border of your choice. If not, you'd get a 3 day, pre-dated visa stuck in your passport, which meant organizing a X-month trip around a three day window - tricky to say the least!
- dreamcompiler 5y agoCamel spiders: Big. Scary. Harmless.