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Comment by codewritinfool | Hacker News Reader

How much is a fire like this contributing to CO2 emissions? Seems like 60 million is a small price to pay if it stops ongoing burning and combustion products.

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Large smoldering fires contribute roughly 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions according to Dr. Guillermo Rein.

http://guillermo-rein.blogspot.com/2016/06/erc-haze-reducing...

Note that he is not referring to coal seam fires. He's referring to Southeast Asian peat fires, a substantial portion of which are started to clear way for palm oil plantations and other agricultural purposes.

I had no idea that there were so many underground coal fires. So this is comparable to the methane leakage issue, I think.

I've tried running the numbers, but actually finding numbers is hard here.

If I'm understanding the sources correctly, the coal seam on fire in Centralia is about 3700 acres in total size, and coal seams seem to be only a few feet thick generally. Plugging in 8 feet for a thickness (which I think includes a large amount of non-coal rock, but I don't know the recoverable fraction so I'll estimate 100% of it to be coal), I get that the total CO2 production of burning all of it would be about 7 million metric tonnes of CO2. That would be for the entire lifetime of the fire.

So one coal seam fire would produce about 0.2% of the US's yearly CO2 emissions. Keeping in mind that these fires last for decades, that would suggest that coal seem fires account for less than 1% and probably less than 0.1% of CO2 emissions.

I don't think that's how it works. Coal is fungible, and is not in short supply. Putting out the fire would not increase the amount of coal being used industrially, nor would it decrease the cost of coal. It would just eliminate one of many sources of CO2. So a net win in global warming terms.

Parent comment is saying as much. $60mm to put out this fire is worth it in order to eliminate a CO2 source.

Either I'm not reading what you wrote correctly, or you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.

I'm saying put it out. Less CO2 released.

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