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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