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posted by mattie_p on Monday February 17 2014, @05:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-in-my-backyard dept.

Submitted on behalf of user "crutchy" #179, who writes:

"I don't seem to be able to use the 'Submit Story' feature at the moment... I just thought I'd flag a little saga currently unfolding near where I live. An open cut coal mine that supplies coal to a nearby 1600MW power station in Victoria, Australia, has been on fire for over a week. This could threaten electricity generation in the area and might have been deliberately set.

What might be more interesting is the lack of news media attention to it."

[Ed. Note] we're working on fixing article submission, thanks for getting this to us via alternate means.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by kwerle on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:02PM

    by kwerle (746) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:02PM (#1909) Homepage

    how is that newsworthy? usually it merely consists of a handshake and a non-disclosure agreement

    It probably isn't. And by extension, the announcement that a suit is *starting* certainly is not.

    also, if you're seriously comparing the coal mine in TFA to a car fire, i encourage you to look into it more

    From a technology standpoint, they're about identical. Nothing [interesting] to do with tech. The fact that the coal fire is big doesn't make it more technologically interesting. If they use some interesting tech to put it out, then I'd love to hear about it. Until then, it's a coal mine fire. And if it was arson, then it was a crime. Neither of those give it a reason to be on this site (I hope).

  • (Score: 1) by crutchy on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:14PM

    by crutchy (179) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:14PM (#1921) Homepage Journal

    Nothing [interesting] to do with tech

    the fact that it is threatening a power station might be... a lot of tech doesn't work well without them :-P

    If they use some interesting tech to put it out, then I'd love to hear about it.

    there is some interesting tech being used from what i hear. it's unfortunate that the media hasn't reported on it, but there aren't hundreds of firefighters lined up with conventional hoses trying to put this thing out. from what i hear there are some fairly specialized high volume firefighting appliances being used. i haven't seen any pics, so unfortunately this is just third-hand info. you don't put a coal fire out by hammering it with a water jet because it kinda acts like oil in some ways (it just spreads). i would think that's whatever the equipment actually is looks like, the water being pumped onto the fire is probably low pressure but high volume; so very large pipes with water flowing over the batters from the top maybe.

    the aspect that i originally thought might be interesting to soylent readers was the apparent media/corporate cover up (the mine and power station is owned by GDF Suez). it's something that is talked about a lot around here (in my engineering circle) anyway.