Posted on 12/19/2006 3:08:26 PM PST by shrinkermd
Environment: If we scrap all the cars, SUVs, minivans and pickup trucks in America, greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by maybe 2%. What if we could realize a similar reduction without the economic impact?
So why not try to extinguish the fires that continue to burn unchecked at dozens of coal deposits around the world? This, it is estimated, could cut global emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuel by 2% to 3%.
...Coal fires can occur in natural settings or in or near abandoned and active mines. They can be ignited by lightning strikes, spontaneous combustion, even sunlight. But they’re mostly a man-made problem and have been around as long as man himself. Left alone, they “can burn for hundreds or even thousand of years,” according to Environmental Health Perspectives.
...They are particularly messy in China, where “about 120 million tons of coal are consumed in uncontrolled fires each year,” said Andries Rosema, director of Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing Co. In addition to emitting CO2 — which is not a pollutant — coal fires throw off noxious gases, sulfur and soot.
...If coal fires produced some economic benefit, there might be a reasonable trade-off to letting them burn. But they create neither jobs nor wealth, let alone energy.
(Excerpt) Read more at epaper.investors.com ...
the little bit going on right now at Mount St Helens is worse than all the cars and trucks in this country put together
This statement makes little sense by itself or in the context of the article. Coal has done and still does these things.
Because extinguishing the coal fires would not harm the US economy.
Environmentalism is not about the environment.
Believe it or not, even The New York Times had an article about how
gawd-awful the pollution is from the unextinguished coal fires in China.
The general factoid I recall from that article is it's a much worse
source of pollution that all the cars/trucks in North America.
Correctamundo.
In terms of smog forming and poisonous pollutants, it's no contest. Uncontrolled Chinese coal mine fires produce thousands of times more smog forming pollutants than all the cars in the United States.
But even in terms of CO2, which is an unavoidable product of gasoline production that is not eliminated by modern emissions controls, those Chinese coal mine fires emit at least as much as every US car east of the Mississippi River.
I've been posting this factoid on this board, at various times, for years.
I must have been REALLY bad this year . Santa left me three tons of coal behind the fence .
Sorry. completely false (If you're talking about CO2). Human activities produce 150 times the amount of CO2 per year on average as every volcano on earth combined.
Just because you want to believe something (that you don't bother to research) doesn't mean it's true.
;^)
..and your source for this claim is ??
You must be expecting a cold winter. Thats a sign!
Forest fire is 2nd behind volcanos.
If the fire happens at the boreal forest (which is at the tree line north) the fire burns not only the trees but the perma frost which is extremely high in Carbon. Then, after the fire is out, the sun thaws that portion of that peat yearly re-releasing carbon for years to come untill the forest grows back to shade those areas. Many times, an area about the size of WI burns unchecked up in Canada. Peat, burns not unlike coal and continues to burn till weather puts it out.
Oh this should be good.
I cant wait for the source.
Oh good - a leap of faith in the first sentance. The concept of "greenhouse gas" emissions is very, very debatable. I guess that the greenies are tired of beating up the auto industry and have decided to go after power companies instead.
There are coal outcrops in Gillette, WY that have burned hundreds of feet into the hillside ages ago. These are uncovered in the mining sequence. Ditto eastern coals in KY/W VA.
Coal fires are neat. They give off a nice blue light at night, and the grass grows green all year around them.
Besides, it's just old compacted dinosaurs and ferns that should have been cremated 70,000,000 years ago.
The Springfield tire fire is still going strong.
The point was the coal fires, inintended and uncontrolled fires, do no benefit. The point was not that coal usage is without merit.
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