Comment by Vaslo
12 hours ago
The author keeps taking jabs at “capitalism” - but let’s be honest that this could happen in any political/economic system. This cheapens the article.
12 hours ago
The author keeps taking jabs at “capitalism” - but let’s be honest that this could happen in any political/economic system. This cheapens the article.
It was done deliberately in the USSR, in a process known as Underground Coal Gasification. Oxygen and steam are injected to convert the coal to syngas (CO + H2) which is brought up to the surface. This allows exploitation of coal deposits that are not suitable for conventional mining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_coal_gasification
I mean there is this that happened in the USSRS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater so indeed it happens in socialist/communist countries too.
There's only one explicit reference to capitalism.
Also a comparison to Chernobyl (which no one would ever think they were anywhere near related.). Clearly the author wanted to communicate “something” more than the interesting takeover by nature.
I would agree that the root cause analysis of these two disasters is pretty different, and not super related to capitalism. But I don't think they were really trying to push that connection.