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Fascinating; aren't fires like these typically extinguished by starving them of oxygen, for instance with an explosive charge? Wikipedia doesn't even say if it
by mik3y 12y ago
Fascinating; aren't fires like these typically extinguished by starving them of oxygen, for instance with an explosive charge? Wikipedia doesn't even say if it's been attempted, and the panaorma makes the site look like it would be small enough to be feasible.. (IANA natural gas fire fighter.)
- jader201 12y ago> Derweze's large crater with a diameter of 70 metres (230 ft).
- pavement 12y agoSo, cap it with concrete. It's not quite the scale of the Hoover Dam. Recover expenses later, by selling the natural gas that would've otherwise burnt off. How many cubic meters of gas have been wasted since 1971?
- simcop2387 12y agoI don't think this would work. you'd have to cap it long enough for the concrete to set. otherwise it'll bubble through and likely end up with a channel in the middle of the concrete that'll let the gas out anyway.
- jonmrodriguez 12y agoConcrete sounds too expensive anyways, just cap it with a big flame-proof tarp. Wouldn't cost more than $10k or $20k I'd imagine.
- phkahler 12y agoWhy would you want to extinguish it?
- mikeash 12y agoCame here to post this but you beat me to it! I'll settle for expanding on the point some. The flow of gas doesn't stop just because you put the fire out. So now instead of combustion products being released into the atmosphere, you have natural gas. This is not an improvement. In fact, that's why they set the fire in the first place, because having unburned gas floating around is a big problem. In theory you could put out the fire and capture the gas, but that's a fairly tall order. You'd have to install the capture equipment without either being burned by the fires, poisoned by the gas, or setting off an explosion when the gas concentration hits the right amount. Then you have the pleasure of trying to sell the captured gas at low wholesale prices on the international market.