COMBUSTIBLE STUFF: Latvia has vast peat resources that, according to experts, could keep the country warm and alighted for hundreds of years and ensure its energy independence.
RIGA - A former prime minister and an influential backer of a ruling coalition party has called for intensifying utilization of Latvia's peat reserves as an alternative to building a new coal-fired plant.
Andris Skele, speaking in an interview to Latvijas Avize, the country's bestselling daily, stressed that Latvia had an abundance of peat available and much of it was easily accessible.
As he explained, Latvia has 1.5 billion tons of peat, putting it in eighth place throughout the world in terms of reserves. Over 200 million tons of peat could be tapped with minimal investment, said Skele, who helped create the People's Party.
"Latvia's… peat reserves could suffice for 400 years," he said. "Would not a couple of peat-fueled electric power plants ensure our energy independence for a long time?"
Skele's comments came just two weeks after the government approved a plan to build two new power generation plants: one that will run on coal and the other on natural gas.
The plants 's each of which will have an output capacity of 400 megawatts 's are essentially being fast-tracked as Latvia is set to face an enormous kilowatt deficit once Lithuania's nuclear power plant is shut down at the end of 2009.
An agreement to build a new atomic power plant in Lithuania has run into numerous delays, and it is unlikely a new reactor could be up and running before 2020. That boils down to a decade without Ignalina 's a scary prospect indeed.
The two power plants will cost an estimated 1 billion dollars, and critics say they will only increase Latvia's dependence on Russia, the sole distributor of natural gas in the region. Coal can be purchased from Ukraine or Poland, but building a new coal-fired plant is odd given that worldwide use of the pollution-intensive fossil fuel is on the wane.
"I honestly believe that the coal plant would be a real disaster," Skele said. "It would need billions of euros investment, and the final price of the product would make all Latvia's consumers clench their teeth. All the costs would be included in the tariffs paid by the owner of each lamp."
It would be more logical, the former prime minister argued, to use the country's own resources, or "the ones not requiring grand capital investments and being independent of oil, coal or gas price changes."
Peat is relatively young decayed plant and animal matter that has accumulated in wetlands across the northern hemisphere, particularly in Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. After dried and pressed into briquettes, peat is ideal for producing power and heat.
Ireland and Finland are the two biggest users of peat in the European Union. Peat accounts for over 6 percent of Finland's energy output, and the northern town of Oulu there is an exclusively peat-fired power plant.
Curiously, Finland considers peat to be a slowly renewable biomass fuel, while the European Union has classified it as a fossil fuel.
As a fossil fuel, CO2 emissions released while burning peat are calculated in accordance to the regulation of the International Panel for Climate Change, a U.N. body that tracks harmful changes in the environment. Thus any major switch to peat would entail a downside for Latvia.
Environmentalists also argue that mass exploitation of the wetlands would lead to the destruction of unique wildlife.
It is doubtful whether Skele's plea will have any affect on policymakers. At this point, plans for the gas and coal plants are pretty far down the road, and suddenly putting them on hold seems unlikely.
Ministers from the People's Party are reportedly pressing for a natural gas plant since Latvia has excellent infrastructure for storing gas that will cushion the country from any price or supply instability.
The For Fatherland and Freedom party, by contrast, wants to see a coal-fired plant built in Kurzeme, which is Latvia's least developed region in terms of energy. The party is also keen to avoid dependence on Russia, which a gas-fired plant will only increase.
At present Latvenergo, the state-owned utility, generates power at its two thermal power plants in Riga and three hydropower plants on the Daugava River. Part of the necessary electricity is imported from Estonia, Russia and Lithuania.
According to the Latvian Peat Producers Association, Latvia has 1.5 billion tons of reserves, or 0.5 percent of the world's peat.
