Darvaza Hole: "The Door to Hell"

Originally posted by havok
Maybe the burning of fossil fuel is adding to the global CO2 emissions.

This hole should get a carbon tax.

Great find!

absolutely HILARIOUS!!!!!! Good one!

Originally posted by GTORick
Too bad they couldn't harness the lost heat energy and produce electricity with some turbines. If the heat is that intense then it would seem academic to set up steam run turbines to produce electricity. That way they could turn a tragedy into an advantage.

Exactly what I was thinking. Yes. They should build a big boiler on top of it and send water one way, heat it up and then send it on its way to a turbine station. Think of all the electricity that it would produce.

reply to post by Monts


whoa! couldn't they use this as an energy source?

Centralia is cool as hell. thats the basis for the town of Silent Hill!

Originally posted by Man1fesT
Throw a large amount of dynamite into the fires, cuts the oxygen long enough to possibly put out them out. Same way they put out burning oil fountains in the Gulf war. It would be hard though, that hole is pretty big...

[edit on 12-1-2010 by Man1fesT]

Not that I'm an expert but I don't think that will work. Oil is basically surface fire and heat, only that part is on fire. This thing......just think how hot the rocks/coal is under it and how deep that heat goes. Smothering it from oxygen for a short time won't cool it. As soon as air hits it again it will stoke itself back on.

yea.. silent hill the movie, not the video game the movie is based on - oh well.

my mom grew up in centralia, i still vaguely remember when the government made my uncle, aunt, and grandmother move... there still are a few people who live there though; they refuse to move and basically insist the government compensate them for the damages.

on another note..

for whatever reason, centralia had "neon" green fire trucks back in the early 1980's.. and somebody completely vandalized the cemetary located there just a few days ago; read it in the newspaper the other day.

[edit on 12-1-2010 by sum1one]

that.. looks.. AWESOME..

too bad its a result of thoughtless action.

Google Centralia PA, an underground coal vein has been burning since 1962.

The town is decimated and still burning.

reply to post by Totalstranger


Sorry I didn't see you have mentioned Centralia.

Very strange. The Turkmenistan hell hole is an interesting thing as well. If only it was larger or started growing.

Originally posted by havok
Maybe the burning of fossil fuel is adding to the global CO2 emissions.

This hole should get a carbon tax.

Great find!

Let's kill two birds with one stone. Drop Al Gore into it.

Originally posted by nightmarehalo
Great find! It reminds me of something I read in Revelations from the New Testament about people being thrown into a lake of fire. I always pictured it being a hole just like in your picture for some reason.

the battle at Mogeedo(sp?)

the losers of the battle get thrown into a lake of fire if I'm recalling it correctly

looks like it could become a popular suicide spot if nothing else.

reply to post by Monts
Amen to that! It's not just a monument to unintended consequences, it's also wasting a product that could have been exploited and sold, raising the standard of living of a bunch of folks, including (hopefully) the Turkmen whose land it's on.

So basically what the Russians have is their own tiny sun buried under ground? Sounds like limitless energy to me.

Speaking of mans environmental impact, you should consider looking into the Aral Sea on the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which has been slowly receding since the '70s after the rivers feeding it were diverted for irrigation of land.

As for this fire causing excessive pollution, i doubt it will be of any significance compared to fires from oil or coal, since methane has a very simple molecular structure that contains much less carbon.

Originally posted by GTORick
Too bad they couldn't harness the lost heat energy and produce electricity with some turbines. If the heat is that intense then it would seem academic to set up steam run turbines to produce electricity. That way they could turn a tragedy into an advantage.

I just wanted to repost this idea from the first page so that those who only skip to the end can see it too. Star for you.

Cool phenomenon from the "is this really physically possible?" realm, but really a sad story if we can't find some way to benefit from it.

Wouldn't a giant dome placed over the top of it extinguish the flames when the oxygen is used up?

just a thought.

Originally posted by Nematode
For many people this would almost seem exactly like the hole to hell. I am reminded of a website I saw a long time ago that had audio files that were scary to listen to. Apparently there were recordings from a microphone that was lowered into a hole that lead to hell, where you could hear the screams and noises from the suffering souls in Lucifer's dungeons.

"Needless to say we were shocked to make such a discovery. But we know what we saw and we know what we heard. And we are absolutely convinced that we drilled through the gates of Hell!"

Source

I remember seeing that a few years ago too!

It would be interesting to see how this shows up on Goggle Earth! I dont have it here at work, anyone help?

Originally posted by Man1fesT
Throw a large amount of dynamite into the fires, cuts the oxygen long enough to possibly put out them out. Same way they put out burning oil fountains in the Gulf war. It would be hard though, that hole is pretty big...

[edit on 12-1-2010 by Man1fesT]

I am sure that if it were an issue a few of our conventional weapons could try to blow it out, but you have to think that the area is probably not surveyed very well. So you could just hit another pocked. Also, if this is a third world country the loss of gas is most likely made up in tourism gains.