My summer research is based on analyzing the global trend of fossil fuel production, consumption and prices and to a great extent it has widened my general awareness in the field. On a particular instance I was curious to know the environmental aspects of these fuels and came across something which I wasn't aware of so greatly. I guess everybody hear should be knowing of the "Derweze." It's an active pit of fire ignited by Russian geologists in 1971 in a small village in Turkmenistan in the hope of burning out the poisonous gases of the natural gas rich area. What they misinterpreted was that the fire will consume all the fuels in a matter of days and will eventually die out. And the reality is: it's still burning out there.

Now global warming wise there is an interesting observation behind it. Statistically these kind of flaring is relatively friendly for the environmental since they consume the methane into carbon dioxide which is has lower global warming potential (a measure of comparing heat capturing capacities of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) than methane.

Tracing back any similar incidents in my country I came across this particular town. Interestingly I spent my pre-playschool days in the city and I wasn't aware of the extent of the mine fires of Jharia, a town in Dhanbad district.

Jharia is India's major supplier of bituminous coal, the prime source of coke, which fuels the blast furnace. The area with 23 underground and 9 open cast mines has been exploited of the non renewable energy source since 1894. The mining activities intensified during the early 1900s. The first coal mine fire was detected in 1916 and the count has crossed 70 at present. Coal mine fire is an environmental problem existing in all the major producing regions of the world, but the reason behind Jharia's mine fires are attributed to the unscientific mining methods.

Hazards from coal mines can range from degradation of air quality rise in atmospheric temperature to landslides and skin diseases among the local community. Coal mine fires are essentially coal burning without productive purpose which can last even for centuries and coal burning produces some of the most harmful particulate pollutants and toxic oxides of sulphur. And yes of course they contribute to the global warming as well. It might be surprising but according to global calculated estimation carbon dioxide released from coal mine fires contributes as much as 1% of the total emissions from fossil fuels consuming as much as 200 million tons of coal annually. And sadly they don? even contribute anything to the economy of the nation.

These fires are difficult to burn out. Isolating the fuel source or cutting out the oxygen supply completely is not very convenient. Injection of large amount of water to cool down the energy might prove dangerous since there is a possibility of the coal absorbing the water and the resulting energy re-igniting the quenched fire. In China they have achieved a significant remedy for the coal mines which require an intensive routine of leveling the land, drilling holes in specific pattern, injecting water, covering it with a thick layer of loess and planting vegetation. One of the notorious coal fires at Urumqi in Xinjiang province, China, recorded to be burning since 1874 was extinguished in 2004 (Although there are subsequent allegations form the TIME researchers of the news being not completely true).

In India such remedy works are near to nil. Although they time to time make sure of bulldozing the affected lands and covering them with soil to cut the air supply but it is seen to be insignificant to contribute towards any betterment for the half a million local residents. They are still living with risks and indefinite hopes. Brinda Karat, a communist politician and member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian Parliament, quoted "Jharia township is on the brink of an ecological and human disaster" but we know how it works in the developing nations of the third world.

PS: I would like to share this page to showcase what exactly the situation looks like at Jharia's affected region.