Body & Soul1 min ago
Is using peat for domestic heating 'sustainable'?
14 Answers
Can it be claimed that cutting peat by hand, drying it and then using it to heat your home is 'sustainable'? At what rate does peat regenerate as opposed to the use by, say one family?
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//no less sustainable than using any fossil fuels//
Huh???!!?
Do you even understand the question that's been asked here Geezer?
Peat is deposited at a rate of about 0.5 - 1mm per year
http://www.springerli...ent/vn885577r145557u/
Burning peat gives about 20MJ/Kg which is about 2/3rds of coal so costing 1383 for a year for coal
http://www.coals2u.co.uk/fuel-price-comparison
That's about 10 tonnes coal so 15 tonnes of peat.
Dried Peat is 400Kg/cubic metre wet 800 so that's 37.5 cubic meters dry 75 cubic metres wet.
So for it to be sustainable a familly would need to cut from an area about 275 meters by 275 meters or about 18 acres by my calculation
Huh???!!?
Do you even understand the question that's been asked here Geezer?
Peat is deposited at a rate of about 0.5 - 1mm per year
http://www.springerli...ent/vn885577r145557u/
Burning peat gives about 20MJ/Kg which is about 2/3rds of coal so costing 1383 for a year for coal
http://www.coals2u.co.uk/fuel-price-comparison
That's about 10 tonnes coal so 15 tonnes of peat.
Dried Peat is 400Kg/cubic metre wet 800 so that's 37.5 cubic meters dry 75 cubic metres wet.
So for it to be sustainable a familly would need to cut from an area about 275 meters by 275 meters or about 18 acres by my calculation
well jake I was attempting to answer the question, Ireland is a good example where many families use peat for heating. Not sure what you are trying to prove here, coal takes millions of years to form, once it's gone it's gone peat renews as you rightly say. I'm not making a case for Peat BTW just attempting to anser the question. Peat is processed and sold retail in Ireland.
the basis of a lot of alternative fuels from waste of crops or algae etc is that the CO2 that is emitted is effectively 'borrowing' it from mother nature in the short term. What would a stalk do but fall over and rot and release its CO2.......... Peat is not coal and most of it has formed since the last ice age - (10k years ago).. Regeneration does vary owing to conditions but a general rule of thumb is 1mm/year so 1000 years for a metre....Typical removal is about 20cm worth...... So peat falls in between from a CO2 perspective.
Peat is an important resource as a carbon sink (about a third of the world's soil CO2)....in the UK peat covers about 1.6 mln hectares of which 95% is upland.......a lot of it is regenerated, i.e not pristine.
One of these days, my thinking is that we will wake up to the fact that there is good CO2 and bad (i.e that released from coal, oil or volcanoes - not much we can do about the latter). It is a bit like the cholestrol argument - remember that this used to be all classified as bad and now we have LDLs and HDLs........CO2 will go the same way.
Peat is an important resource as a carbon sink (about a third of the world's soil CO2)....in the UK peat covers about 1.6 mln hectares of which 95% is upland.......a lot of it is regenerated, i.e not pristine.
One of these days, my thinking is that we will wake up to the fact that there is good CO2 and bad (i.e that released from coal, oil or volcanoes - not much we can do about the latter). It is a bit like the cholestrol argument - remember that this used to be all classified as bad and now we have LDLs and HDLs........CO2 will go the same way.
Do you know how much CO2 comes from Volcanoes DTCrosswordfan?
About 1% of what humans do
http://www.skepticals...nd-global-warming.htm
There is no "good" and "bad" CO2 - it all does the same thing
As you say there is nothing we can do about natural sources - but we can do things about Human sources.
No good standing in a train wreck saying "well I wasn't driving"
About 1% of what humans do
http://www.skepticals...nd-global-warming.htm
There is no "good" and "bad" CO2 - it all does the same thing
As you say there is nothing we can do about natural sources - but we can do things about Human sources.
No good standing in a train wreck saying "well I wasn't driving"
jake-the-peg, on my father's side, the family used peat for heating and cooking. All of it cut by hand from the local bog, stacked and dried there and brought back to the home with a pony and trap. I used to go there to help bring it back when I was on holidays in Ireland and believe me, the area they were cutting it from was not 18 acres.
I am a geologist, well sedimentologist and glaciologist by first degree training, jake.
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory show at Kilauea w that the eruption discharges between 8,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each day. Actively erupting volcanoes release much more CO2 than sleeping ones do. Work is proceeding to assess the impact of volcanic CO2 on accumulations - and there is also an issue of volcanic size - especially for super-volcanoes (none of which are due to go bang in the foreseeable future - e.g.Yellowstone or Indonesia). It is al;so true that they also bang out a lot of Sulphur Dioxides and Nitrous Oxides (NOx) - to me the latter is something that is worrisome and more worrisome than CO2 as in combo with particulates and light, O3 is generated. Despite having a lower percentage of the oil and gas economy based on diesel, the States leads the EU by an arm and a leg. Current emission levels for NOx off vehicles is such that even in 2013, we in the EU only get down to being twice above that of the States.....
I agree with you about cutting down human action and do not condone belching what we do into the atmosphere or destroying our carbon sinks. However I am somewhat skeptical as a geologist about climate warming as warming and chilling has been going on for millions of years....the very contribution of one major volcano can be the gamechanger in this - Krakatoa was only a medium sized 'bang' and that had significant impact in the late 1870/80s reversing a warming trend that had gone on in the mid 19thC......a volcano such as Mt St Helens was only a mere pimple in comparison.
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory show at Kilauea w that the eruption discharges between 8,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each day. Actively erupting volcanoes release much more CO2 than sleeping ones do. Work is proceeding to assess the impact of volcanic CO2 on accumulations - and there is also an issue of volcanic size - especially for super-volcanoes (none of which are due to go bang in the foreseeable future - e.g.Yellowstone or Indonesia). It is al;so true that they also bang out a lot of Sulphur Dioxides and Nitrous Oxides (NOx) - to me the latter is something that is worrisome and more worrisome than CO2 as in combo with particulates and light, O3 is generated. Despite having a lower percentage of the oil and gas economy based on diesel, the States leads the EU by an arm and a leg. Current emission levels for NOx off vehicles is such that even in 2013, we in the EU only get down to being twice above that of the States.....
I agree with you about cutting down human action and do not condone belching what we do into the atmosphere or destroying our carbon sinks. However I am somewhat skeptical as a geologist about climate warming as warming and chilling has been going on for millions of years....the very contribution of one major volcano can be the gamechanger in this - Krakatoa was only a medium sized 'bang' and that had significant impact in the late 1870/80s reversing a warming trend that had gone on in the mid 19thC......a volcano such as Mt St Helens was only a mere pimple in comparison.
There is and always will be a need for CO2 - yes it does the same thing in terms of photosynthesis etc and a build up is not a good thing - however, good CO2 is that which is recycled in a very short term geologically in mother nature whereas bad is releasing locked up CO2 from something like coal or other fossil fuels. That is the point.
Building up carbon sinks and arresting their destruction is a major part of what we should be doing - there are some interesting projects in this area now starting to emerge in the Amazonian forests - at last........I'm also surprised that we don't encourage more of what the Dutch do - they capture CO2 out of Shell Pernis and other refineries and a 16 inch pipeline runs around filling their greenhouses with CO2; they are then sealed and mother nature goes to work - and allows for intensive crop production too................society ought to encourage more of these type of projects. And the Dutch wouldnt do it if there were no Euro benefits involved.......
Building up carbon sinks and arresting their destruction is a major part of what we should be doing - there are some interesting projects in this area now starting to emerge in the Amazonian forests - at last........I'm also surprised that we don't encourage more of what the Dutch do - they capture CO2 out of Shell Pernis and other refineries and a 16 inch pipeline runs around filling their greenhouses with CO2; they are then sealed and mother nature goes to work - and allows for intensive crop production too................society ought to encourage more of these type of projects. And the Dutch wouldnt do it if there were no Euro benefits involved.......
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