In 1962, here in Centralia, PA they decided to reduce the amount of garbage
in their landfill by burning it. What they didn’t realize was that by lighting that pile
of trash, they would ignite a fire that would still burn to this day. One that would turn Centralia
into a ghost town. Now this used to be a neighborhood but it's not the fire that destroyed it.
That's because the fire is entirely underground. I’m Jake and this
is Extreme Science.
Centralia was born a coal town, the first mines were opened in the 1850s. By 1890 over 2500
people lived here - drawn by the vast amounts of coal underground. Then 1962 rolled around.
The garbage fire lit a coal mine seam, and that seam spread through the tunnels beneath
the town.
The fire itself can burn as hot as 1,350F and can heat the surface to an incredibly
dangerous 900F, hot enough to melt lead. It spreads 50 to 75 feet every year and with
it, the ground starts to give way. The Department of Transportation had to shut down 4,000 feet
of highway because the fire had started to weaken the pillars supporting it. But the
fire wasn’t the only problem, the toxic gas it was creating was much more threatening.
In 1981 a child was playing in the backyard when he fell into a 140ft deep sinkhole that
opened up beneath him. He was exposed to carbon monoxide levels 30 times the safe amount - what
made this scary is that it could have been anyones kid in any part of town. After that
the US Government gave $42 million to relocate the residents of Centralia and by 2002, it
gained ghost town status when it lost its zipcode. Now, the obvious question is “Why
hasn’t anyone tried to put it out?” Well, they have...numerous times in different ways.
They tried flushing it out with water but it always flared back up because underneath the ground is a very special
kind of coal, Anthracite coal.
Coal is made up primarily of carbon. You and I are 18% carbon, plants are 45%, then black
coal is 60%-80%. Anthracite coal is 97% carbon, more than any other kind of coal meaning it
can burn for longer. And we use the energy from that reaction to power a lot.
Over 40% of the world’s electricity is from coal. Everyday 6.5 pounds of it is burned
worldwide...per person. In the 2010 the US alone burned over 1 billion tons of coal,
about the weight of 2,877 Empire State buildings.
When coal burns a few things happen, it releases energy, yes, but there are also particulates,
tiny floating pieces of coal that the World Health Organization says causes 1 million
deaths annually. Then there are toxic chemicals like arsenic, lead, mercury, sulfur and nitrogen
and finally CO2.
Out of the 35 billion metric tons of CO2 created each year from fossil fuels, 50% of that is
from coal. The CO2 acts as an insulator, trapping the sun's reflected heat and raising global
temperatures.
There have been attempts to make coal cleaner, more friendly for the environment but nothing
has been implemented yet that is feasible. Now, trees absorb CO2; an individual tree
can take about 2kg a year. So we would only need 1.5 billion trees...per power plant.
The other option is moving towards an alternate source of energy.
Iceland: puffins, glaciers, black beaches and geothermal energy. 25% of their power
is geothermal. Or take Burlington, Vermont which runs entirely on renewable energy. 10%
of energy production in the US is renewable...things like hydropower, wind, solar, and geothermal.
And it is incredible but to get off coal, that rather small percentage needs to get
bigger quickly. Which brings us back to Centralia. The town stands as an example of what coal
can do not just to a community but, on a larger scale, to our planet. It wasn’t the fire
that destroyed Centralia, it was what the fire released - poisonous gases, toxic chemicals
- the potential for something worse. It is estimated that the coal burning underneath
us will continue for 100 to 250 years. Presumably by then, if not sooner, we will have moved
to a cleaner, more renewable energy sources than coal. So what that means is that when
this fire does die out, the anthracite coal beneath Centralia will be the last coal ever
to burn. I’m Jake and I’ll see you next time on Extreme Science.