Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - VII. Manufacturing Industries. Introd. by [G. Sundbärg] K. Åmark - 8. Manufactures of Stone, Clay, Coal, Charcoal, and Peat - Peat Manufacture. By Alf. Larson
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426
vii. manufacturing industries.
million tons of peat for fuel, which, on the presumption that peat possesses
half the heating power of coal, is equivalent to 4 thousand million tons of
coal, or enough fuel to last for centuries. With the exception of Russia,
there is no country in Europe having such a plentiful supply of peat as
Sweden, and scarcely any country has peat of such good quality.
Although peat can be used successfully as fuel for domestic purposes, various
industries such as ironworks, cellulose factories, glass and tile works, etc., its
use is very insignificant as compared with that of coal and wood, and is not
at all proportionate to the natural resources. This is owing to the fact that
the preparation of peat depends upon the weather and also to the fact that it
has not yet been possible to arrange for the production of peat fuel on a large
scale, and therefore there is a state of uncertainty regarding the quantity and
quality of the peat and also as to the cost of manufacture. The continuous rise
in wages enhances the cost of manufacture, so that, for example, the cost of
manufactured peat in the last 12 years has risen from 5—6 to 8—9 kr. per
ton, at the same time as the price of coal in port has meanwhile increased from
14 to 20 kr. and upwards per ton; all of which circumstances have caused a
state of uncertainty in the peat industry, which can only be removed by an
invention by ’which peat can be manufactured on a large scale, irrespective of
weather and seasons. There are, however, good prospects for such an invention
(the wet carbonizing process). ,
Every form of fuel is judged according to its calorific power, which is
discovered by experimental burning or by calorimetric analysis. Such methods has
been employed by professor P. Klason and others, with the result that 1 ton of
ordinary coal is found to be equivalent to l’s tons of average machine peat,
2 tons of cut peat or 2’5 tons of wood. The cost of freight is, naturally, a
matter of greater importance when the fuel is of low value than when it is of
high value, this being another disadvantage for peat.
Many attempts have been made to refine peat to a more valuable fuel in the
form of peat-coal, powdered peat, and peat briquettes. Peat-coal, which seemed
at first to promise well, has not become an article of great production,
principally owing to the meagre production of the raw material for its
manufacture. Powdered peat has attracted a little attention but has not as yet been
produced on a large scale. Endeavours have been made to manufacture such
powder, by air-drying the raw peat, taken out by hand or by excavator, till it
contains about 50 % of water, after which the product is dried artificially, until
the water is reduced to about 15 %, and can then be either ground to a fine
powder which can be used directly as fuel or burnt in a so-called powder-burning
apparatus, or it can be compressed, at a temperature of 90"—100° C. under a
pressure of as much as 2 000 atmospheres, into peat briquettes in the same
manner as in the manufacture of lignite. But up to the present time these
attempts have failed through want of raw material in sufficient quantities and
low enough in price. Thus the peat problem has not yet been solved. It has
been suggested that, power stations should be located on the bogs, by which
means the quality of the peat would not be of such great consideration, and this
proposal has been adopted on a small scale, but the state of uncertainty in the
preparation of the peat has made itself felt even here.
In addition to peat fuel there is an enormous supply in Sweden of white
moss, from which moss litter is prepared, both for home consumption and
export; during the last few years this material has become of increasing
economic importance in farming as a manure absorbant and also as an addition to
the manure. The enormous sums which have been lost in ammonia from dung-
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