EXPERIMENT IN FUEL
By R. J. M. GOOLD-ADAMS
IHAVE just come back from Eire. On the road in County Kerry I was given a lift by a Dublin business-man on holiday. When he opened the door of his car several lumps of peat fell out from a pile under his feet. As I picked them up and stuffed them back into the car for him, he exclaimed, "Real Kerry turf, that! Feel the weight of it. I'm going to have at least one good fire when I get back to Dublin." Turf—for no Irishman calls it peat—consists, according to the dictionary, of ." vegetable matter decomposed by water an partly carbonised." It is sometimes dark and heavy like coal, sometimes so light that it resembles, and burns like, sods of grass. The complaint of the people in Dublin is that the latter is the only kind that reaches them under the government distribution scheme. The heating power of good turf is about half that of its equivalent weight in average-quality coal. A pound of turf with 30 per cent, moisture gives out 6,300 British Thermal Units, while the corresponding figure • for coal is 13,000, and that for paraffin 20,000. Dry wood is a little better than such turf, and wood not dried is less good. The effect of moisture is considerable. Turf with no water at all will give 9,000 units, but the difficulty, of cowrse, since its origin is a bog, is to dry turf to that complete extent. In turf dried normally after cutting, zo per cent. moisture is good.
With the act of neutrality in the war, the Irish government sacri- ficed any claim that it might have to preferential allotment of some of the coal which Britain herself so urgently needed. And, as an emergency measure, more turf has in consequence had to be cut from the great bogs than ever before in history. That was nearly all done by hand. Now, under the new programme, turf will be cut largely by machinery.. It is national policy to seek more than a Permanent 75 per cent. self-sufficiency in fuel, And in the Turf Development Bill of 1946 one more step is being taken to render Eire politically and economically independent of the United King- dom. The plan is to undertake a ten-year programme of bog- development which will cost the country £3,870,000. This is to be Spent in unequal annual instalments, beginning with the present year and ending in 1955. The outlay is aimed primarily at draining a
sufficient area of bog up and down the country, to make turf-cutting by machinery worth while, one of the main points established in the turf-development programme being that hand-cut turf cannot be produced on a scale large enough to be commercially economic. With the permanent employment of 3,400 men and the seasonal engage- ment of as many more, it is hoped that the annual output of machine- won turf will eventually exceed a million tons.
At present something like a revolution has taken place in the economic status of the West of Ireland as a result of the war-time programme of hand-cut turf. For a time even the railways were running on it—an experience, however, which no Irishman wishes to repeat. The outcome has been that, for once, money has flowed into the pockets of those who needed it most. Already in the turf- producing districts the little cottages look neater and brighter, and the people in them, particularly the young ones, better dressed than they did five years ago. In Kerry there is hardly ten miles of road that you can travel without passing an area of bog where the rectangular, brick-like lumps of turf have been laid out to dry after the cutting. This is done with the traditional hand instrument, like a sharp, narrow spade that has a projecting knife at right angles to its main face. Some of the bogs are managed by public authorities, but in many others whole families work on their own land and get about 22S. a ton for their produce, delivered either to the railway station or stacked at the bog for collection by road-haulage contractors. The lorries engaged in this way are themselves an entirely new aspect of Irish life. Piled high with up to six tons of turf, they lurch about the roads, subsidised by the government and a danger to motorists.
The original Turf Development Board, Ltd., which was set up in 1934, is to be replaced, under the new Bill, by a "board to be called Bord na Mona." This latter will carry on from where the old leaves off, but with increased powers. The scheme f.,r mechanical turf-cutting is its main but not its only charge. So far preliminary work has been started on only three out of the twenty- four bogs which it is proposed to develop, and fewer than half-a-dozen cutting machines are as yet in operation. In its latest report, how- ever, the Turf Development Board gave the figure of 89,000 tons as the production of machine-cut turf last year, against 130,000 tons produced under its direction by hand-cutting. The average cost at the bog of the hand-cut turf was 32s. 2d., while the cost at each of the three bogs using machinery was 20s. 8d., 25s. 4d. and 34s. lid. respectively. This machine-cut turf was sold at a fixed price of £2 a ton in Dublin and Cork, but the cost of transport more than out- weighed the difference, so that the goverruhent was in fact sub- sidising its new venture. Briquettes were also made from turf-dust at Lullymore, and these went to the railways at £3 a ton. The aim here is an annual production of 2.o,000 tons.
The ten-year development programme envisages the generation of electricity from turf. To this end plans have been laid for a gen- erating station to be built at the Clonsast bog in County Offaly—the biggest of the three bogs where a start has already been made with mechanical cutting. It is estimated that, by the use of the whole of the eventual annual production of 120,000 tons of turf from this bog, 9o,000,000 units of electricity can be generated. A second turf power- station is proposed in the area of Ferbane on the Brosna river, to produce annually 120,000,000 units from 16o,000 tons of turf by 1952. This is an ambitious programme on which Eire is embarking. By its nature turf is an uneconomic fuel. It is bulky to transport, and its movements on a large scale will tax the country's resources severely. And yet who in these days would deny that self-sufficiency is not a policy which pays dividends? If cut at the rate envisaged, Ireland's bogs will yield turf for at least 200 years. As each bog is emptied, it can either be developed as rough grazing land, or, if at least three inches of turf is left uncut, be allowed to " grow " again for future generations. The natural increase in depth is at the rate of approximately half an inch a year. In many of the twenty-six counties turf never used to be burnt even as a domestic fuel, but with the new era the soft smell of peat smoke will now spread to them all. This characteristic fragrance might well be taken as the especial symbol of Eire's determination to consolidate the whole political position that she has won. And Britain, content that her coal may eventually be exported elsewhere, can afford to wish the Irish success in their bold experiment.
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