Why peat is a key ingredient in whisky and the climate crisis
Why peat is a key ingredient in whisky and the climate crisis
Whisky production involves the burning of peat, but damaging peatlands releases stored carbon back into the atmosphere where it adds to climate problems.
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One thing this piece glaringly left out is that while many people talk about peat as a renewable resource, it’s really not. This is one of the first things they tell you if you’ve ever gone on a tour of distilleries in Scotland. “Renewable” typically is defined as resource replacement keeping up with the speed of use.
Peat accumulates at an average rate of one millimetre per year, in waterlogged environments where the lack of oxygen slows down or entirely halts the process of decomposition. Burning one cubic meter of extracted peat is the equivalent to releasing one thousand years of accumulated carbon. Source.
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I agree that peat is not a renewable resource, but the calculation in the quotation is funny. If the cubic meter of peat is collected from 30 m by 30 m area it is only equivalent to one year of accumulation...
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... excepting that it's not collected like so.
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It's renewable in the same way that whale oil is renewable
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