Could the fire in the Darvaza crater be used to heat water to spin turbines to generate electricity?

Question

Da[Darvaza Crater ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater)

In: 4

Answer 1

Not really.

A big part of the energy produced by a natural gas powerplant is created by burning the fuel under compression. The burning heats that compressed air up more and we can use it to push things like turbine blades and extract that energy. For the Darvaz crater, the gas is burning at atmospheric pressure, so the only energy available is the heat it creates. That’s a terribly inefficient method since only a small amount of the heat can be converted to a more useful form of energy.

So even if the crater is burning up natural gas at the same rate as a 500MW plant, you’d be lucky to get a tenth of that by trying to harness the heat it gives off.