Posted on 02/05/2010 9:11:55 AM PST by JoeProBono
Looks like Hell has decided to visit and settle down in Pennsylvania...
I read some time ago (sorry, don’t have a source) that this type of underground slow-burning fire is also active in some Chinese province on a grand scale...emitting enough CO2 each year to rival the world’s car traffic. Anyone else hear of this?
” 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.
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”
http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20030215coalenviro4p4.asp
Hope the IPCC idiots are all over that. (chuckle)
Coal Fires Worldwide - click pic for new window
They occur in many countries worldwide including China, India, Russia, the United States, Indonesia, Venezuela, Australia and South Africa, but also at a smaller scale for example in Germany, Romania or the Czech Republic.
Interesting read - thanks!
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