Let Them Burn Peat
Alaska's fuel peat resource, like everything else Alaskan, is impressive. In fact, Alaska has slightly over half of the estimated peat resource in the United States. Canada has an even larger peat resource, but then Canada is bigger than Alaska.
According to a recent report available from the Division of Energy and Power Development, 338 Denali Street, Anchorage, 99541, Alaska has an estimated 27 million acres of peat resources. Assuming, as the report does, that the peat in those resource areas averages seven feet thick, that each cubic foot of dry peat weighs 15 pounds and that each cubic foot can provide 6,000 BTU, the total reserve amounts to 741 quadrillion BTU.
A big number like that needs to be converted to something one can understand. Knowing that a barrel of oil produces about 5-1/2 million BTU, it is easy to calculate that the Alaskan peat resource is about equal to an oi1 reserve of 100 billion barrels, 5 to 10 times larger than the known North Slope oil reserve.
Ignoring the environmental consequences and technicalities of how to do it, suppose all that peat could be vacuumed up and fed down a pipeline at the same rate oil energy flows through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Our imaginary peat-line would flow for about 370 years before the resource finally petered out.
