Burning Peat: A Renewable Fuel

By Francis Jeffers
Published on January 1, 1975
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These peat chunks are drying in Francis' basement . . . an essential step because of the newly gathered material's very high water content. The ruler is included to show the size of the pieces.
These peat chunks are drying in Francis' basement . . . an essential step because of the newly gathered material's very high water content. The ruler is included to show the size of the pieces.
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Peat can be found in moors all over the world.
Peat can be found in moors all over the world.
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The peat bog shown here has been partially drained and is actually several feet deeper than it looks. A bed of this thickness can contain 1,000 tons of fuel per acre . . . equal to 500 tons of coal!
The peat bog shown here has been partially drained and is actually several feet deeper than it looks. A bed of this thickness can contain 1,000 tons of fuel per acre . . . equal to 500 tons of coal!

Editor’s Note: In the years since the writing of this article, it has become known that peat is, in fact, not a renewable resource. For a modern understanding of peat moss, please read Kenny Coogan’s article Coconut Coir vs Peat Moss.

If you’ve got a wood or coal-burning stove these days you’ve got a problem. Coal just ain’t what it used to be (cheap!) and good wood sometimes can be hard to come by . . . even though it does grow on trees. So how can you keep the home fires burning? Go digging. For peat’s sake.

Peat is so common in the United States and Canada that most people can’t see the resource for looking at it. There are an estimated eighty million acres of deposit right here in the continental U.S. Most of this vast natural supply goes unused . . . although some people do throw a few bushels of the muck on their gardens for fertilizer and others use the more fibrous and mossy varieties as a dressing for flowerbeds. What most folks don’t know, however, is that peat can be a clean-burning, efficient and low-cost fuel!

Last summer I often passed a swamp where a man was digging muck for sale as topsoil. I wondered if the wet material could be the “peat” I had heard was used for fuel in other parts of the world . . . so I obtained a few hundred pounds and dried it. The idea worked! Once lit, the chunks glowed like charcoal and gave off gases that burned with a flickering blue flame!

Peat is nothing more than partially decayed and compacted vegetable matter which — over a period of time — has accumulated where soil is wet enough to retard oxidation. Its color and consistency can be black and mucky or brown and fibrous or anything in between. Individual moors, bogs, swamps and shallow ponds each produce their own “copyrighted” variety of the material. In fact, varying types of peat are often found in layers — each formed as a result of a change in climate or vegetation — within the same marsh. You might even discover that the “turf” differs from one area of a single bed to another . . . and the bed itself might be a few inches to several feet deep. In its natural state, peat is around 95% water by weight (most of which must be dried out before burning) and frequently contains some sand.

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