8/4/2019 Accidental Burning of Fossil Fuels (RAEng 2011)

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University ofEdinburgh

1. SMOULDERING EARTH

World energy use and climate change science have led to

concerns on sustainability, man-made burning of fossil fuels, and

carbon emissions. Most attention is paid to energy efficiency,

clean technologies and new resources. But unintentional and non-

anthropogenic sources contributing to the problem have beenignored. Smouldering megafires, the largest and the longest-

burning fires on Earth (>6,000 years), take place in all continents

except Antarctica, and burn fossil fuels accidentally.

4. GEOENGINEERING

Stopping these fires is an engineering task at the Earth-scale. RAEng states that geoengineering

provides options in which the Earths climate is deliberately manipulated to offset the effects of

global warming due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases. I am contributing to this through the

study of the ignition, spread, emissions, and suppression of smouldering phenomena. I aim to

develop both fundamental understanding and technological solutions to this problem.

2. MEGAFIRES

Very large smouldering fires of carbonaceous

natural media (coal seams and peatlands) have

burnt since past millennia for long periods of

time (months, years, decades). Peat fires burn

during the warm/dry season in Indonesia,Canada, Russia, and USA. Hundreds of coal

fires continuously burn in USA, China and

India. Globally, the problem has grown to a

current carbon release equivalent to 10-30% of

man-made emissions, and a coal consumption

rate five times faster than that of Germany.

Oct 1997: aerosol imaging by NASA TOMS shows the vast smoke

haze released by smouldering peat fires in Indonesia.

Smouldering of carbonaceous media

(flameless combustion) is the most persistentfire phenomenon on Earth

Positive feedback by smouldering fires in the climate system

(topics I study are represented by red arrows)

3. GREENHOUSE GASES and

CLIMATE

Smouldering phenomena involve the

burning of fossil fuels and are carbon-

positive. This creates a positive feedback

mechanism in the climate system: Moisturedeficit and self-heating of carbonaceous

media are enhanced under warmer climates

and lead to more frequent smouldering fires.

Warmer temperatures at high latitudes are

already resulting in large smouldering fires

in the Arctic (e.g., Alaska 2010).

Accidental Burning of Fossil Fuels

Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow

Dr Guillermo Rein, Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering

School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh