The Commercial Uses of Peat

THE difficulty in obtaining coal for industrial purposes, and the high price that has had to be paid for it recently, especially where works are situated at long distances away from the mines, has led to more attention being paid to the use of peat for fuel. In the "Notes" of May 31, 1900 (vol. lxii. p. 108), a short description was given of the uses to which peat was being applied in Austria in the manufacture of textile fabrics. In a recent number of the Engineer (February 8, 1901) an account was also given of the peat fuel industry in Sweden. It is said that there is hardly any question of the day so prominent in that country as the use of peat fuel as a substitute for coal. The Government, recognising the importance of this matter, has appointed a Crown Peat Engineer, at a salary of 500l. a year, to survey the principal Crown peat bogs and to report upon the quality and suitability of the peat for use as fuel in locomotive engines. At several of the large works in Sweden peat is now used for generating steam. At the great Yungtell Metal Works and the Motala Shipbuilding Works, it is also used in generating furnace gases, the fuel being prepared by specially constructed works. At the former establishment, engines of 230 horse-power are supplied with steam generated by this fuel. In the province of Smaland a syndicate has recently purchased the peat bogs, from which it is estimated that a million tons of fuel will be produced in a year. At the Karpalund sugar refinery peat is now solely used for the nine boilers in use there of 100 horse-power each; the fuel being first converted into gas in generators in front of the boilers. This establishment has purchased an adjacent bog containing sufficient peat to supply the works for twenty years. The bog is connected with the factory by a Decauville railway. The furnaces were formerly fed by coal obtained from England, and a very great saving has been effected, the peat fuel costing less than half that of coal. On several of the railways peat is being tried as fuel for the locomotives with every promise of permanent success. There are several different kinds of machines for making this fuel. The process something resembles brick-making. The turf is cut from the bog either by manual labour or machinery, and stacked in summer to be air-dried, any remaining moisture being removed in heated drums or by centrifugals, and the peat is then compressed into briquettes. It is claimed that one ton of dried peat from the be