[Stoves] Fwd: Repeat of PEAT

ajheggie at gmail.com ajheggie at gmail.com
Wed May 6 15:48:26 CDT 2015


[Default] On Sat, 2 May 2015 09:44:15 -0700,Richard Stanley
<rstanley at legacyfound.org> wrote:

>Ireland's original forest cover has long been denuded. Peat has been the mainstay of home heat for many in the rural areas. We have seen peat in use here and the fire is ok but abit smokey and the odor slightly off-pleasent,  most probably due to the minerals and salts in the bulk of the material. 
>There is at the same time, a. big concern about the mining of peat in Ireland, ( its said that it takes 1000 years to regenerate, that only 7% of original peat is left in ireland and that little can grow on remaining acidic bog-muck base. Typical peat land . You can easily insert a walking stick 2 mtrs into it ---right where you are standing: To say that one gets 'bogged down' in something would be a serious understatement here!

The thing I worry about is that peat bogs hold a very large amount of
carbon in the form of pickled vegetation, an old peat bog may be in
equilibrium with the 1/12" annual deposition  being simultaneously
respired elsewhere in the depth. So whilst there has been a colossal
harvesting of the resource not only for domestic fuel but also for
power stations and plant potting, the remainder is at risk from the
moist acidic conditions being lost. How far south of 50 degrees do
peat bogs currently exist?

Despite living fairly close I have never visited Eire and only
recently visited the Antrim coast  in Ulster, well worth visiting
before development sets in.

AJH




More information about the Stoves mailing list