Peat

Kory Shipcott
​Introduction
  Peat is a soil material consisting of partially decomposed organic matter from the slow decay of successive layers of aquatic and semiaquatic plants (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2020). Peat forms in bogs, swamps and fens in many parts of the world including large temperate peatlands like in Canada and many parts of Europe and China, and tropical peatlands in Indonesia, Congo and the Amazon. Due to anaerobic conditions the plant material becomes only partially decomposed, resulting in a large amount of sequestered carbon. Peatlands occupy about 3% of land, but contains 30% of the world's soil carbon (Joosten, Tapio-Biström, & Tol, 2012), making it an important carbon sink. It is used commercially in potting soil, insulating material and energy production in areas where other sources of energy are less available (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia).
Due to the massive impact peat has on controlling carbon in the atmosphere the frequency and type of peat use needs to be considered as a component of fighting climate change. In the first part of this paper I will discuss the environmental impacts of peat use in agriculture and energy production and consider the environmental ethics of peat use. Then I will consider how peat is viewed in terms of political economy, including the ramifications of labeling peat a sustainable resource.
Short History of Peat
  Peat has long been used as an energy source where other sources of energy (wood, coal) were not abundant (Schilstra, 2001). It has more recently become a major component of agricultural fertilizers due having properties friendly to seedling growth (Higgens, 2017). The harvesting of peat requires draining the wet land environment and letting the peat dry, often removing one layer then letting the next dry. This process has energy costs associated with the draining, extraction and transportation that have become a greater concern as climate conditions worsen.
Environmental Ethics of Peat Use
  The extraction of peat or conversion of peatland to agriculturally viable land requires draining the land and letting the peat dry. When dried the peat emits carbon dioxide as decomposers, previously inhibited by the anaerobic conditions, break down the vegetative matter. Much of the living vegetation is killed by their environment changing, slowing down or stopping carbon sequestration. Drained peatland, which accounts for roughly 0.3% of land, is responsible for almost 6% of global CO2 emissions (Joosten, Tapio-Biström, & Tol, 2012). The loss of carbon sequestration places a large environmental cost on the use of peat. Drained peatlands are vulnerable to fire and release large amounts of carbon that had been locked away for centuries (Joosten, Tapio-Biström, & Tol; Schilstra, 2001). Peat fires can release more than ten times the amount of carbon than a comparable forest fire (Khun, 2017). Draining of peatlands also has a large ecological and biodiversity loss. Sphagnum bogs are known for being refuges for a large number of rare or threatened bog species (Muster et. al., 2015). The typically infertile soil and waterlogged conditions means that peatlands are sparsely populated, acting as a refuge for otherwise threatened megafauna such as seen in the discovery of the peat bogs in Congo (Seigel, 2014). These environmental and ecological costs need to be kept in mind when considering the use of peat.
  In the United States peat is must widely used as a component of potting material where it is valued for retaining water and lowering PH and fungal resistance (Higgens, 2017). Most of the peat is harvested in Canada, which due to the extensive untouched sphagnum bogs is not a large concern for many conservation groups (Higgens). However, the draining harvest and transport of peat to commercial soil manufacturers and to agricultural centers throughout the world has large energy costs. In response to diminishing peat bogs in western Europe, Britain has been phasing out agricultural peat use (Higgens). Even though there is no sign of diminishing peat bogs in Canada we need to consider the same environmental costs that have pushed Britain to action. The carbon cost of peat should be considered into agricultural costs so that there is a greater focus on finding an alternative that does not directly reduce carbon sequestration. Some alternatives include compost, coconut fiber (coir) and pine bark (Carlile, 2019; Higgens). Compost has varying effect but is often regard as a substitute to more environmentally costly fertilizers (EPA). Coir has large transportation costs and pine bark has nitrogen availability issues (Carlile). These factors need to be considered when trying to phase out peat use in agriculture, otherwise we are exchanging one costly object for another.
  Peat is used as an energy source either by itself or as a constituent of other energy producing processes. Phiu et. al. claim that using using roughly 30% peat moss in oil shale combustion reduces the environmental impact of oil shale energy production. The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted was similar to emissions from regular oil shale combustion. Ash content has comparable chemical composition as with regular oil shale combustion, but with less CO2 due to less oil shale being used. This means that the CO2 load from the combusted materials is lower. Additionally, the amount of carbon monoxide (CO) emitted is variable but larger (50-100 mg/Nm3) than in just oil shale (20 mg/Nm3). NOx (nitrous oxide and nitrous dioxide) concentrations increase but relatively low compared to the nitrogen content of peat moss. They claim a positive change in particulate matter composition, with finer particulate matter and no particles above 10 μm. It is strange they make this claim since fine particulate matter also have climate effects and represent a greater health concern (UNECE). The flue gas volume increased by 5-10%, but has more moisture content reducing the amount of dust particulate matter that escapes.
  The claimed improvement to oil shale combustion's environmental impact appears, to me, to be a biased analysis. The consistent CO2 emissions and lower concentration in ash indicates the process is not more environmentally harmful in terms of CO2. However, the carbon load is presented in the much higher CO emissions, 2.5 times the amount in regular oil shale combustion at the lowest samples. CO has no direct impact on climate but eventually reacts with oxygen, forming CO2 (UCAR, 2017). While some of the CO will persist in the atmosphere or perform other atmospheric functions, much of it will contribute to CO2 pollution. Phiu et. al. mention that NOx concentrations only rise from 120 to 170 mg/Nm3 and highlight that this is relatively low due too a process they implemented. While it is good that less of the nitrogen from the peat is emitted as NO, the additional pollution should still needs to be considered. As mentioned above the finer particulate matter is not necessarily a point in their favor. While smaller particulate matter does not have widespread climate impact some material like black carbon have local warming effects, especially on ice and snow (UNECE). While the < 2.5 μm particles with the largest health effect are the same compared to non-peat combustion, the increased 2.5-10 μm particles can still enter the lungs.
 Phiu et. al. also do not consider the additional costs that comes with peat extraction. There are costs attributed to extraction and transportation of peat in addition to environmental damage. The drying of peatlands caused harm to the environment and destroys a previous sink for carbon dioxide and pollutants. Estonia and the European Union's interest in conserving peatland for both ecological and industrial reasons helps reduce this impact somewhat (Orru & Orru, 2008), but is not the case for all places with a reliance on oil shale. Overall, the additional costs from using peat in oil shale energy production do not appear to be compensated, with a focus on oil preservation than environmental concerns.
Peat in the Political Economy
 In Indonesia peatlands are have been destroyed in order to acquire more land for agriculture and development. Burning of peat swamps in Indonesia illegal but is the fastest and cheapest way to clear land, meaning it occurs often. Legal uncertainty about the ownership of land drives incoming industries to “push for rapid and often unsustainable use of natural resources and land” (Khun, 2017). This includes the use of fire to clear peat to quickly get access to the land and steak claims. A key aspect to this problem is that in lowland, coastal peat swamps like in Indonesia the land becomes open to seawater making it unproductive for agriculture within a few decades. With this in mind the industries' actions become a clear example of the prisoner's fallacy, where the incoming groups wish to take more property to take more of the resource (land) and get the most out of it before it becomes unavailable or unproductive. The second point is clear with the palm oil company that seeks to use the land before it becomes unproductive for agriculture, caused by the practices they used to clear the land. The drive to utilize the resource push out the people who are living there and leave behind devastated land that can no longer support the people who learned to rely on it.
While the government of Indonesia has measures to protect peat swamps, they are often unenforced due to a drive to develop land on rural islands to support and relieve the overcrowded economic centers. Companies whose interest in profit over the sustainability of the land are key players in the ongoing destruction of the peat swamps. As mentioned fire is a fast and cheap way to clear the land, leading many to utilize in spite of the restrictions. The legal ambiguity of land ownership helps large companies, especially plantations, encroach on communal lands and use threats to take land from small landowners and tribes (Khun). Because of this the destruction of peat swamps is still occurring with the massive 2015 fires (BBC, 2015), nearly annual peat fires in the Ogan Ilir province, and October 2019 fires in Ogan Komering Ilir (Ismi, 2019). All of these fires were in part started by oil palm and paper plantations, even though the fire regulations were put into place after the 2015 fires (Khun, 2017). The lack of enforcement is largely due to profit to be gained, enhanced by the economic power of these companies. Local industries have to use similar tactics to compete with international interests who will simply abandon the devastated land once it is no longer profitable. In these peat fires we see the interest of personal profit, irrespective of the damage caused to the local people and environment is a key aspect of our western corporate culture.
  In the paper by Phiu et. al. they discussed the improved efficiency and environmental impact of using peat moss in oil shale firing to produce energy. However as mentioned they overlooked the effect of increased carbon monoxide emissions, pollutants and the health effects of smaller particles. Despite this the improved efficiency for energy production while using less oil shale is is a useful outcome. Oil shale is considered to be a dirtier source of energy than liquid oil but is used by in places where other sources of energy are less available. Because of this there is merit in trying to reduce oil shale usage, where it is still needed until cleaner energy sources are more available. Estonia itself received 76% of its energy from oil shale, meaning some immediate improvement to the environmental effects of energy production in the researchers' country (Phiu et. al., 2017). Phiu et. al. do not consider the environmental impacts of peat moss extraction in their paper, placing greater emphasis on some reduced emissions compared to regular oil shale firing. Considering that the positive environmental impacts are less than claimed, the greater implied significance seems to lie in the reduced oil shale input. Making whatever use of oil shale more efficient is one way of reducing environmental impact.
 Phiu et. al. consider their method “… a promising option for reducing the environmental impact of OS (oil shale) power production and more OS can be used for oil production.” Their goal seems more connected to saving oil shale for oil production, another energy intensive process. There is danger in papers like this that appear to offer a solution but are actually more interested in gaining the greatest amount of profit from one resource. This is a type of greenwashing with the intention of trusting their word this new process is environmentally friendly without dwelling further into the actual costs and intentions. Tactics like this are intended to justify using more resources like peat moss to prolong other extractive process by making them more “clean”.
 The companies contributing to research are more interested in the profit from more efficient processes than the environmental impact behind them. In the case of the oil shale paper this is the primarily oil shale driven power company Enefit Energiatootmine AS. The lack of environmental concern is shown by the underselling of environmental impacts while focusing on the relatively lower carbon dioxide and ash output. In this case the preservation of oil shale is focused on maximizing profit. The environmental and ecological damages tied to peat moss extraction are not concerns, it is just another material to be extracted.
 Rationalizations about the renewability of peat moss are more justifications for its continued use. Systems like the Estonian Sustainable Development Act ensure that less peat is harvested than produced (Orro & Orro, 2008), however this is looking at the problem for a single cost perspective. The actual cost need to consider the energy input to maintaining peatlands, rather than just the amount of peat being used. An analysis of Finland's peat industry showed that the carbon cost of producing and using peat as an energy source was greater than the fixation of carbon by peatlands, even though more peat was grown than used (Schilstra, 2001). This means that peat can not be considered a sustainable resource even though it is technically renewable. Part of this is because peat formation is a slow process, growing about 0.5-1.5 mm a year (Orro & Orro). This makes a long term rotation cycle seen in other forms of agriculture impractical. Governments and industries using peatland fixation to offset other forms of environmental damage is also not justified. Wet peatlands are able to sequester carbon but release methane while dried peatlands effectively stop carbon storage and begin to release carbon dioxide as the peat decomposes. Proper management of wet peatlands can reduce their methane output, making managed wet peatlands better environmentally than dried peatland (Joosten, Tapio-Biström, & Tol, 2012). Additionally, the carbon stored in current peat represents captured carbon from the past. New peat formation would at best offset the carbon being lost from decaying and combusted peat and so could not be used to justify costs of extraction, let alone as a sink for other inputs.
Conclusion 
 Peatland is a vital to efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and the continued disregard of peat use is resulting in greater environmental damage. The drying and harvesting of peat is energetically costly and removes a significant carbon sequester. Intentional and accidental peat fires adds large amounts of carbon stored for centuries that cannot be matched by the development of new peatland. Combined with a slow rate of growth peat cannot be considered a sustainable resource with current models of harvesting. Through an ethic environmental lens we see that these costs are too great for the potential gains of peat use and clearing. Conservation of surviving peatland and re-wetting dried bogs will help maintain and increase the amount of carbon we can remove from the atmosphere. Looking at peat use through a political economy lens we see the justifications for continued extractive processes, where peat is just another potential source of profit. The contribution of peat to the analysis of environmental impacts is complicated and show how much worse the peat use is compared to new peat growth since dried peat becomes a new carbon source. The net negative nature of peat use should encourage us to reduce peat input to agricultural and energy production.


Works Cited
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