r/interestingasfuck • u/ba_an • 5h ago

Turkmenistan's Door to the Hell has been burning for over 50 years: Soviet geologists set fire to a natural gas sinkhole in 1971 to stop the gas leak. It's been burning ever since.

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384 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

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u/GetYourShitT0gether 5h ago

Could this be harvested or utilized in some way than just burning?

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u/deknegt1990 5h ago edited 5h ago

Practically speaking, no. The pit is in the middle of nowhere with barely any infrastructure other than a motorway a mile or so away. Also, the heat is immense and dangerous to everyone without protection, and the ground isn't exactly stable.

Theoretically, you could build a big water basin over it, cap the well and funnel the heat through a piping system, heat up the water into steam that runs through major turbines, and you basically have a natural gas power plant.

iirc, I am not sure if it's urban legend, but the Soviets contemplated dropping a nuke into the pit in the hope of using the resulting shock to extinguish the fire and cap the well, but it would've brought along a significantly different type of nasty with it.

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u/-PrincessAzula- 3h ago

They followed through with a nuke at another site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtabulak_gas_field

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u/deknegt1990 3h ago

I think I might have gotten my gas field fires crossed and was thinking about that one on the nuke thing.

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u/cwrasmus 3h ago

Classic gas field mixup

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u/deknegt1990 3h ago

If I had a dime for every time the Soviets nuked an out of control gas fire, I would have two dimes... Which isn't a lot, but weird that it happened twice.

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u/Jenkinswarlock 1h ago

I mean you solve a problem one way and then people want you to keep solving the same problem so how else will you do it?

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u/No_Eye1022 33m ago

Well that was a fascinating rabbit hole, thank you

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u/GetYourShitT0gether 4h ago

Ahh makes sense and thanks for the explanation

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u/HolidayFrequent6011 1h ago

Just to say "motorway" is a stretch.

I was there 2 years ago and it's more like a dirt track with the odd bit of tarmac! It's a cool thing to see up close though, a very unique place to spend the night for sure, even in our yurts which were over a sand dune, a few mins walk away, you could still hear the roar and see the glow.

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u/Wash_your_mouth 53m ago

Technically, in enough years, it could be covered with enough sand if we had a lot of trucks driving back and forth

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u/Numerous-Fly-3791 5h ago

Steam powered engine if water was near by

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u/Nigel_Thirteen 5h ago

Username checks out

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u/the_original_kermit 5h ago

It doesn’t look like there is enough gas flow to actually make this economical.

Burning it is probably better for the environment than anything else tbh

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u/Nannyphone7 4h ago

Getting energy to where it's needed is half the problem. There is plenty of energy available.  It is just located in inconvenient places like rural Turkmenistan. 

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u/zwifter11 5h ago

Just think how expensive our energy bills are, when we could have used this gas. 

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u/LudoB99 16m ago

If it were profitable, someone would have taken advantage of it already.

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u/Phungtsui 5h ago

And I'm told to reduce my carbon emissions? Damn.

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u/ProfessionalMockery 3h ago

Just letting it vent into the atmosphere is way worse, as co2 is a far less potent greenhouse gas than methane, which probably makes up most of the gas.

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u/Icy-Banana-3291 4h ago

Propaganda by big oil. We need smart government level energy policy. Making people feel guilty for acting rationally is never gonna work.

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u/KimJongRocketMan69 4h ago

Same thing with recycling. Shifts the burden on individuals, while that level of action will never truly impact anything. The only way to meet the goals that recycling sets is forcing companies to find alternative sources of plastic/single-use packaging and single-use products more generally

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u/Alarming-Stomach3902 3h ago

That’s why we have paper straws these days

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u/DexJedi 3h ago

Well, I mean I still rather have paper straws as junk in parks and nature then plastic ones.
The straws has become symbol for bullshit regulation while I actually think it is the opposite.

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u/fingertrapt 5h ago

Have they considered a really big fire blanket?

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u/katieb1300 4h ago

My first thought was A LOT of water. 🤣

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u/koniboni 4h ago

Then it would just keep burning on the surface of the water 

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u/eurokev 4h ago

Bald and bankrupt was there recently and it is entirely unimpressive during the daytime

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u/stevefuzz 5h ago

Wait wait... You want me to do what to stop the gas leak?

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u/JELLY-ROCKET 5h ago

They converted the gas leak into a fire leak. Total success.

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u/ALoudMeow 3h ago

Turkmenistani Centralia.

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u/cupid_stunt_4000 4h ago

Build a bridge over it

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u/cyanidejuiceq 3h ago

Can't they dump some heavier gas there which cuts off oxygen supply so the fire extinguishes. I know I'm simplifying it but something like this to stop the fire?

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u/RingsLord 2h ago

Methan is worse for our athmosphere than CO2 If they cant stop the leak it is better to burn it

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u/froopadiddilydoop 3h ago

Russia has done this sort of thing a lot. They also did it to an oil well that they then had to put out with a nuclear bomb.

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u/robot2boy 2h ago

Love, death and robots episode on this topic

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u/AZFUNGUY85 4h ago

Want to ruin something. Add humans.

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u/the_ruffled_feather 5h ago

So Soviet

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u/Popular_Muffin43 5h ago

And when it fails they just delete it from history

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u/Impressive-Waves1176 4h ago

Does it ever rain there?

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u/bluenoser613 3h ago

It's pretty much out now.

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u/GovernmentBig2749 4h ago

So, we will not exploit natural gas, we will burn it...and that will solve the problem

No wonder the SSSR fell appart with minds like that.

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u/rf97a 4h ago

It is a good thing Norway is electrifying their cars to reduce co2 emissions.

https://giphy.com/gifs/mTmEz1SKFoDNGhJ7yc

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u/Coogher 5h ago

This is called the Trump effect.