CARBON

Saving the Planet?

SWS state that,

“Wind Energy is a cheap and plentiful energy resource that doesn't emit greenhouse gases … it is ideally placed to help with two of the biggest challenges facing mankind - decreasing energy reserves and global warming.”

In fact, from the point of view of greenhouse gas emissions, Loughaun North is among the worst places on planet Earth to locate a wind farm.

Peat is a Major Carbon Store

An Irish peat bog 3 metres deep stores the equivalent of 600Kg of CO2 per square metre. Tropical rainforest stores 60Kg/m2 or only 1/10th of this amount per unit area. Globally, several times more CO2 is trapped in peat bog that in all the world tropical rainforest. A living bog is also a carbon sink which traps CO2 continously from the atmosphere. Carbon is stored in undecayed organic matter below the water table.

Peat Bog Destruction Emits CO2

Constructing a wind farm in unstable mountain bog requires extensive drainage to lower the water table to an acceptable level. When a bog is excavated or drained, the peat slowly decays (oxidises) and CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. Eventually, dried peat mineralises and disappears completely.

When a wind farm is constructed in deep peat bog, large and uncontrolled CO2 emissions arise from oxidisation of peat. When these emissions are taken into account the expected carbon benefit of the wind farm is reduced.

Windfarm Carbon Fraud

It is simple to calculate the emissions which arise from excavated and drained peat.

1 cubic metre of peat contains 55Kg of organic carbon. If burnt or oxidised that releases 200Kg CO2. So, for example, a square metre of 3m deep peat bog equates to 600Kg CO2.

Accurate accounting for greenhouse gas emissions and protection of carbon sinks is mandatory under the Kyoto Protocol. It is a peculiar fact that wind farm developers are not required to do any carbon accounting when they propose to destroy peatland. This violates the spirit and probably the letter of the Kyoto Protocol. It is a clear failure of government regulation.

We know CO2 emissions will occur, but a quantitative estimate requires many assumptions.

In the case of Loughaun North a simple estimate of CO2 emissions yields 250,000 tons (see figure opposite). Figures such as this are comparable to the carbon savings which this wind farm would achieve relative to conventional gas turbine power plant, assuming a capacity factor of 27% and a CO2 displacement rate of 0.31tCO2/MWh.

Irish Government policy encourages wind farm developers to destroy some of the Earth’s richest carbon stores under the false pretext of emissions reduction. Why? Who benefits?

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