You may remember Paul Feldman as the Bagel Man we wrote about in Freakonomics. You may also remember that he was an economist before he got into bagels, with an interest in agricultural, medical, and military issues.
He recently wrote to us about an environmental issue he’s been looking into: the abundance of underground coal fires in abandoned mines and other places that not only waste coal but contribute mightily to worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. According to Paul’s research — take a look at Web sites like this one, this one, and this one — underground fires in China alone contribute as much CO2 to the atmosphere each year as all the cars and light trucks in the U.S. (We touched on the issue of coal mining fatalities in the U.S. and China in a recent column about nuclear energy, but didn’t include this other important byproduct of widespread coal use.)
We asked Paul to write up a guest blog on the subject, which you’ll find below. Once you’ve read it, you’ll probably understand a bit better why this was the guy who could figure out how to make a handsome living by selling bagels on an honor system. It is a call to arms that understands the political and economic realities of the climate change debate. Here’s hoping that someone answers Paul’s call.
GUEST BLOG: COAL FIRES
By Paul Feldman
There is growing acceptance that the earth’s climate is changing, and that action is needed to control the production of greenhouse gases. There is no consensus, however, on what should be done. Some proposals focus on using carbon taxes or carbon cap-and-trade arrangements to regulate industrial emitters. Other proposals are directed at re-designing individual emitters such as cars and trucks.
Such proposals are not likely to be accepted unless they are adopted worldwide. No nation wants to pay for emissions reductions while others continue to increase their emissions. Gaining international acceptance of broad policy actions, however, is a time-consuming and contentious process. For example, the Law of the Sea Treaty that is now being considered by the Bush Administration has been in the works since 1982, and it still fails to satisfy many parties to the negotiations. And the international treaty on climate change produced by the United Nations in 1992 and followed by the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 still lacks worldwide acceptance, because it excludes several of the most important emitters of greenhouse gases.
But while a worldwide policy to limit greenhouse gases will be difficult to achieve, not all interim steps to reduce emissions have to be contentious. One example concerns an issue that has escaped front-page attention: extinguishing underground coal fires that have been burning freely and putting massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the air for decades. Underground coal fires in China alone produce as much carbon dioxide annually as all the cars and light trucks in the United States. Fires in other countries, including the United States, are smaller but still add significantly to the total burden.
Although extinguishing these fires would be costly, it would reduce carbon emissions without the major disruptions to individual national economies mentioned above. And it would further benefit nations by eliminating the loss of their coal fields. As such, it might be possible to work out some international cost-sharing arrangement to attack those fires now, without waiting for all nations to agree on a wide-ranging treaty to limit carbon dioxide emissions.
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I grew up not far from Centralia Pa. and can say there has been alot of money put into mine reclaimation (sic?) but not put into the putting out the fire. Just across route 61 from the fire the goverment is rebuilding a mountain that was leveled due to strip mining. So I don’t see if they can put out the fire with new techniques money is the only reason?
I grew up not far from Centralia Pa. and can say there has been alot of money put into mine reclaimation (sic?) but not put into the putting out the fire. Just across route 61 from the fire the goverment is rebuilding a mountain that was leveled due to strip mining. So I don’t see if they can put out the fire with new techniques money is the only reason?
So Richard Branson has a bounty out from people who can scrub greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Somebody should get a hold of him and ask him if he wants to pay to put some fires out.
Sounds to me like this is a no brainer.
So Richard Branson has a bounty out from people who can scrub greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Somebody should get a hold of him and ask him if he wants to pay to put some fires out.
Sounds to me like this is a no brainer.
I did not see your column on nuclear power (The Jane Fonda Effect) so forgive me if I take this chance to ask some questions.
1. One of the technical difficulties with storing high-level nuclear waste is that it generates a great deal of heat; improperly stored it would melt the rocks around it. Has there been any recent work on reactor designs to take advantage of this residual heat to generate electricity? Nuclear power plants generate electricity by generating steam power, which any sufficiently hot source could do.
2. Related to the preceding, what percentage of economically available energy remains in nuclear fuel when it is regarded as “waste”?
3. I have heard that when the Three-Mile Island disaster occured, STATISTICALLY most of the casualties caused by the accident are or will be people injured by the NORMAL operation of the non-nuclear power plants which took over for the damaged nuclear generator. I.E., non-nuclear plants in normal operation are more dangerous than nuclear plants suffering a TMI-type “disaster”. Is this true?
sean s.
I did not see your column on nuclear power (The Jane Fonda Effect) so forgive me if I take this chance to ask some questions.
1. One of the technical difficulties with storing high-level nuclear waste is that it generates a great deal of heat; improperly stored it would melt the rocks around it. Has there been any recent work on reactor designs to take advantage of this residual heat to generate electricity? Nuclear power plants generate electricity by generating steam power, which any sufficiently hot source could do.
2. Related to the preceding, what percentage of economically available energy remains in nuclear fuel when it is regarded as “waste”?
3. I have heard that when the Three-Mile Island disaster occured, STATISTICALLY most of the casualties caused by the accident are or will be people injured by the NORMAL operation of the non-nuclear power plants which took over for the damaged nuclear generator. I.E., non-nuclear plants in normal operation are more dangerous than nuclear plants suffering a TMI-type “disaster”. Is this true?
sean s.
Response to Sean Samis: Someone should do a calculation of fatalities per Watt delivered.
Note how many times there are fatal accidents at oil refineries, along oil or gas pipelines, or even homes exploding from natural gas or at filing stations. Fairly high nominal totals, but fossil also delivers the vast majority of Watts if you include autos.
My understanding is that the whole nuclear cycle from mining to generation to (short term) storage is very low-accident, but since nuclear energy is delivered as electricity, some electric distribution fatalities (guys on aluminum ladders cleaning out their gutters)would have to be allocated back to nuclear.
Response to Sean Samis: Someone should do a calculation of fatalities per Watt delivered.
Note how many times there are fatal accidents at oil refineries, along oil or gas pipelines, or even homes exploding from natural gas or at filing stations. Fairly high nominal totals, but fossil also delivers the vast majority of Watts if you include autos.
My understanding is that the whole nuclear cycle from mining to generation to (short term) storage is very low-accident, but since nuclear energy is delivered as electricity, some electric distribution fatalities (guys on aluminum ladders cleaning out their gutters)would have to be allocated back to nuclear.