#naturalgas

Turkmenistan Government Wants to Extinguish the Fire of "Gates of Hell"Deep in the middle of a remote Turkmenistan desert, hundreds of miles away from civilization, there’s an unusual tourist attraction that’s been dubbed the “Gates of Hell.” And for a good reason: it’s a large crater in the ground ringed with fire like it’s a nightmarish portal to an infernal underworld.The crater, about 190 feet in diameter and 70 feet deep, has been ablaze for more than fifty years. It’s difficult to reach, thanks to its remote location 160 miles from the country’s capital of Ashgabat. Yet, it’s popular with the small number of tourists who visit the country.Despite the supernatural name, the “Gates of Hell” is actually a collapsed crater that once swallowed a gas drilling rig in 1971. Back then, geologists concerned about escaping natural gas decided to set it on fire. They expected the fire to burn off within a few weeks - but the blaze has lasted since then.Now, Turkmenistan president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has had enough of the inferno and ordered the “Gates of Hell” to be closed. No witchcraft involved, though. Instead, he opted for science: Berdymukhamedov ordered the fire to be put out because of its ecological damage and hazard to the health of people living in nearby areas.Image:Tormod Sandtorv/Wikipedia#GatesofHell #crater #naturalgas #Turkmenistan #fire

Underground Sun Conversion Uses Sunlight to Produce Natural Gas Deep UndergroundSolar energy is great ... as long as you have the Sun shining in the skies.For many countries in the northern hemisphere, long and dark winters limit the practical amount of solar energy that can be generated each year. That's why it makes sense to "store" sunlight energy during the summer months so it can be used during the winter months.  But how can this be done?This is where Underground Sun Conversion comes in.  As the name implies, the system use sunlight to produce natural gas deep under the Earth's surface.Developed by energy company RAG Austria, surplus electricity generated by solar panels are used in an electrolysis process to split water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Then, hydrogen and carbon dioxide are injected into the porous sandstone deposit (such as those found in a depleted natural gas reservoir).The injected gases are then converted by archaea, naturally occurring microorganisms that live thousands of feet underground, in a carbon cycle into methane gas and water. The methane, in turn, is pumped back up during the winter months as natural gas that can be used to produce electricity.#electricity #solarenergy #methane #hydrogen #electrolysis #archaea #naturalgas #carboncycleImage: Karin Lohberger/RAG Austria

That Time When the Soviets Nuked a Gas Well That’s on Fire 🔥 for 3 YearsIn 1963, the Urta-Bulak gas well in Uzbekistan had a blowout deep underground that caused an estimated 12 millions of cubic meters of natural gas to vent uncontrollably every day and catch on fire. For the next three years, Soviet engineers tried everything they could think of to put out the fire, to no avail … so they decided to detonate a nuclear bomb to seal the well and stop the raging fire.Soviet physicists calculated that they’d need 30 kilotons of nuclear bombs - double of what was used in Hiroshima. In 1966, they drilled a borehole 1.4 km deep next to the estimated blowout region, lowered the bomb, sealed the top with concrete … and detonated it.Newspaper Pravda Vostoka of Tashkent described what happened next:“On that cold autumn day in 1966, an underground tremor of unprecedented force shook the ground with a sparse grass cover on white sand. A dusty haze rose over the desert. The orange colored torch of the blazing well diminished, first slowly, then more rapidly, until it flickered and finally died out. For the first time in 1,064 days, quiet descended on the area. The jet-like roar of the gas well had been silenced.”That was the first time a nuclear bomb was used to put out fires in a gas field, but it wasn’t the last: a few months later, Soviet engineers used a 47-kiloton nuclear bomb to seal a well and put out a fire at a nearby Pamuk gas field.#gas #naturalgas #nuclearbomb #USSR #fire #well #naturalgaswell #UrtaBulak #Uzbekistan