is peat a renewable or non renewable fuel?

Question

my daughter is stuck on her science homework and needs the answer to this along with an explanation why if possible thx

Answer 1

non renewable. You dig it up. It is, if you will, first stage coal. Vegitable matter laid down layer on layer. You may have seen campaigns to protect peat bogs from depletion.

Answer 2

Renewable - energy and fuel sources which are unaffected by our use. Examples include solar, wind, hydro and tidal. We use them to generate power but the sources are unaffected.

Non Renewable - energy and fuel sources which can't be replaced. In effect, once used up they're gone for good. Coal, oil and gas are examples.

Semi Renewable - energy and fuel sources that can be replaced as we use them. Trees are an example, if we cut down trees for firewood then as long as we plant new ones the source is sustainable and we're not going to run out of trees.

Peat falls into a grey area, it takes several thousand years for nature to produce peat (the actual time varies depending on ground and weather conditions). If we were to start using large quantities of it then we'd use it all before it could be replaced and as such it would be a non-renewable fuel source.

Humans have been burning peat for thousands of years and have had very little effect on the quantities available (a 7% reduction over 4000 years), we could keep burning peat at the same rate and it would be naturally replaced before it ran out. In this respect it's semi-renewable.

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There are other ways of determining whether a fuel source is renewable. If you used the 'is it carbon based' method then peat is non-renewable because it is carbon based. If you use the 'can levels be sustained' method then peat is renewable because levels can be sustained.

So there's your answer - yes, no and maybe depending how you define 'renewable'.

Answer 3

Definitely non renewable, as peat marshes are becoming conservation areas. A man made alternative to peat is much more environmentally viable. Peat takes a few million years to form.

It is a tricky question as someone else has said.

Technically it is renewable, but! It is only renewable if you wait for many many many years, by which time would you still want/need it???

So in reality, like coal or other minerals and fossil fuels such as oil or jet, all these are renewable in the sense that we ourselves will be fossilised in a few million years too, by which time another peat seam will have formed somewhere in the world and more oil and coal too.

In human life-span terms, it is not renewable at all to us.

Answer 4

The simple answer is yes it IS renewable but it is not practiacal.
as many have already said it is a long natural process and the time scale reduces its viability.
I'm lucky that i live in scotland where peat is still commonly used as fuel, i still burn it along with wood and coal etc.
for centuaries peat has bean burned to create heat light and for cooking.
yes many wetlands and peat bogs are becoming protected but there are many areas where you find peat where the actual bog has pretty much dried out.
no matter what fuels we use there will be arguments for and against!

Answer 5

Both,though in practice,non-renewable,as peat is formed from the decaying vegetable matter of the plants on the ground where it forms,so,although peat is formed constantly,this probably consists of less than a millimetre per year,so if you remove a spade's depth of peat,you are probably removing several centuries worth of peat formation,and there is only so much depth to the peat before you hit bedrock.
By the way,the peat you buy in garden centres has very little resemblance to peat in its natural state. Natural peat is more like a thick fibrous mud,which,when used as fuel,is cut as a block which,when it dries,hardens and shrinks to about a quarter of its original size.

Answer 6

It is a bit of both. Renewable with the fact that it is mostly made up of dead plant matter but non renewable if we used it like oil as we are starting to run out.
At the moment though, I would say that it was renewable and just for further knowledge on the subject, I would do a few internet searches as many of these answers are completely wrong.

Answer 7

I suppose you could argue both ways, renewable as we can make more, but unrenewable due to the time the process of making peat takes. Not much help perhaps, but a bit of a tricky question!http://www.ktm.fi/index.phtml?l=en&s=179
this might help - it seems the Minitsry of Trade and Industry argue it is, in theory at least, renewable.

Answer 8

To all intents and proposes, non-renewable. It is a natural product, the result of partial decomposition and compaction of organic material, and in a sense new peat is being formed in wetlands, but it is a process that takes thousands of years, so on a human scale, when it's gone it's gone!

Answer 9

Peat is possibly the first stage in the formation of Coal and as such must be treated the same as coal and is not a renewable fuel.~~

Answer 10

peat is a form of coal, once used, it takes millions of yrs to regenerate
hence, it is a non-renewable source