Fields of Arle: Advent Calendar Expansion 2015

Contained in Brettspiel Adventskalender 2015 for Day 2.

2 Buildings and 1 Vehicle: Peat-Fired Brickworks Peat Power Plant Coach-and-Four

Story: East Frisia was best suited to run a brick factory:there was plenty of easy-to-mine clay, peat for fuel, and many waterways for transport to and from. In the 19th century, there were 26 brick factories in Rheiderland alone, a small part of East Frisia along the river Ems. Today there are only 2 brick factories left in all East Frisia, one of which is the peatfired brick factory in Nenndorf, a neighboring village of Arle. It is the only brick factory left in Europe using peat as fuel. Its 40 meter long kiln is burning up to 3 million bricks per year.

Story: East Frisia was always abundant in peat and water (you could even say overabundant). When industrial peat cutting was introduced in the early 20th century, the power plant in Wiesmoor was built in order to press ahead with the moor colonization. It went into operation in 1909 and was producing electricity until 1965, burning through up to 120,000 tons of peat per year. In 1925, a greenhouse plantation was built next to the power plant to make use of the waste heat. Back then, the greenhouse was mainly growing vegetables. Unlike the power plant, the greenhouse is still up and running today, producing 4 million pot plants per year!