Comments on: The World’s Most Beautiful Ecological Disaster

By: Ann Onnimus

Ann Onnimus — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:36:27 +0000

Methane is far more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, so setting the cavern afire actually was not such a terrible idea, comparatively speaking. It also has historical precedent…. miners often used to clear gas by burning it, and that’s fine as long as the methane isn’t being constantly replenished by other sources deeper underground, as is the case here. Unfortunately, they clearly didn’t know that.

This gas is being wasted, and that’s probably the real tragedy here. Maybe they could use the heat being produced for steam power…

By: Nixon

Nixon — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 19:12:13 +0000

Twitter: blowitoutyurass
I wonder what the aliens flying around this location think about it.

By: eric

eric — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:02:37 +0000

fill it up with water?

By: staz

staz — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:48:10 +0000

oftopic: russia aint biggest on neither oil or gas.. their high on oil even tho they aint exporting it like norway.
ontopic: stupid people burning TONS of precious resources instead of doing something to try collect it..
bet its those assholes thats making clima change too bcus of this…
if u can’t run a country/busines then let go so others CAN!!

By: cellogirl33

cellogirl33 — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:08:42 +0000

My Social Studies showed us a powerpoint about this and I’m bored so I decided to look it up and do it for my Social Studies Project on ‘Things That Might End The World’ and try to get some extra credit.

By: jessiev

jessiev — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:18:56 +0000

Twitter: WanderingEds
that is so beautiful – and so crazy! wow – you never know, do you? not sure i’d go there, though…

By: Kads

Kads — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:50:51 +0000

I did read somewhere that the reason for them lighting the gas was that the gas was poisonous and so to prevent it from escaping and affecting other areas they decided to light it!

By: Spot Cool Travel Stuff

Spot Cool Travel Stuff — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:34:24 +0000

Hi Aadil, I am not an oil and gas engineer like you are but I've been around enough to know that every profession has its less-than-intelligent members. Further, every day on this planet engineers set gas on fire purposely, through the process of flaring, for example. Now, is it possible that the engineers had a reasonable justification for doing what they did in Darwaza in 1971? Absolutely! Might it have even seemed like a brilliant idea at the time? Hard for me to imagine personally but, yeah, I suppose it might have. In hindsight, did it turn out to be a powerfully bad idea? You can go to Darwaza and judge for yourself.