Perdue partners in project to turn manure into energy

Perdue Farms and AgEnergy USA have proposed a $200 million plant on the Eastern Shore to extract energy from chicken manure, offering its plan as a viable remedy for the farm pollution fouling the Chesapeake Bay.
New Hampshire-based AgEnergyUSA met in Annapolis, Maryland, with lawmakers, state officials, environmentalists and farmers, seeking support and legislation worth tens of millions of dollars for their project, the Baltimore Sun reported.
"We think we have a very manageable solution, with our partner Perdue," said James Potter, AgEnergyUSA's president.
The push for the new manure-to-energy project came as the Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration and leading Democrats settled their differences over regulations to curb farmers' use of polluting poultry waste to fertilize their crops. Environmentalists had long pushed for strict limits to keep the manure from washing off fields into the bay. But farmers resisted, arguing that the costs of disposing of the manure and buying other fertilizer would drive them out of business.
"The timing is perfect," said Potter of his proposal to turn the manure into energy. "This allows the Eastern Shore to put together a plan for meeting [manure-limiting regulations] without disrupting the economy."
This isn't Potter's first try at a manure-to-energy plant on the shore. Also in partnership with Perdue, he made an unsuccessful bid for a contract to have the state buy electricity from a manure-burning power plant he would have built. The pair lost to a California company, whose project they are now trying to edge out.
This time, Potter's company wants to build an "anaerobic digestion" plant near Salisbury that could handle up to 200,000 tons of chicken litter a year — close to what officials estimate is the excess amount being spread on the shore each year.
The plant would use bacteria to extract methane-rich bio-gas for industrial use. The residue would be processed so that the bay-fouling nutrients in chicken waste could be separated and used in a more environmentally friendly manner. The nitrogen could be sold back to farmers as liquid fertilizer, which crops need every year, while the problematic phosphorus that's built up in Shore soils could be shipped elsewhere and sold as peat moss, Potter explained.
Perdue Farms acknowledged that it has signed a letter of intent to work with AgEnergyUSA. The poultry company pledged to furnish chicken litter as well as organic wastes from its processing plants for use in the digestion process. And the company retains the option to market the fertilizer byproducts.
"Environmentally, this project will provide an alternative to land application for a significant amount of poultry litter, eliminating the risk of any portion of the nitrogen or phosphorous in this litter from finding its way into the Chesapeake Bay watershed," said Steve Schwalb, Perdue's vice president for environmental sustainability.
Environmentalists briefed on the project say they like that it would take several times as much phosphorus off the shore as is needed to meet bay cleanup targets.

Perdue Farms seeks $2.5 million in attorney fees

Perdue Farms is seeking up to $2.5 million in attorney fees after its victory in a poultry pollution case that had been closely watched by environmentalist and agriculture interests for its potential impact on the industry, a company spokeswoman told the Associated Press.
Perdue Farms hopes to recoup attorney fees from the New York-based Waterkeeper Alliance, which sued the company and an Eastern Shore contract grower, Perdue spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said.
In its filing in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Perdue Farms said that the environmental group continued to litigate what it called a groundless case after learning that an uncovered pile of what was claimed to be chicken manure turned out to be harmless. The company also said the court had noted that while defendants are "not normally entitled to recover their legal fees, such an award would not be unprecedented."
A federal judge ruled in December 2012 that Alan Hudson, who raises chickens for Perdue, did not pollute a nearby river as the environmental group claimed. U.S. District Judge William Nickerson ruled the alliance failed to prove its case.
The alliance argued that Perdue, which owns the chickens and monitors their growth, should also be held responsible.
The poultry industry has more than 1,600 family farms on the Eastern Shore, and agriculture interests said a ruling against Perdue and the farm could have been catastrophic to farmers and the industry.

Clemson project may help poultry, pig farmers turn manure into energy

Clemson University and power producer Santee Cooper, with the help of Williamsburg County pig farm in South Carolina, are hoping to complete the loop from animal waste to electricity with the Burrows Hall Renewable Energy Facility.
The 180-kilowatt facility is expected to be in operation this summer, according to officials, and will produce enough energy to power 90 average-sized homes. The project has implications for poultry and dairy farms in addition to pig farms, and some upstate poultry farmers are already looking into the idea. “This is a demonstration project to show this is feasible within the state,” said Marc Tye, Santee Cooper’s vice president of conservation and renewable energy.

Making electricity from chicken manure

A Pennsylvania-based company wants to solve a disposal problem by using chicken manure to fuel electricity plants. A report in the Wall Street Journal said Fibrowatt LLC, a subsidiary of U.K.-based Homeland Renewable Energy, has plans to build these plants in poultry-rich Georgia, Arkansas and North Carolina.
In 2007, Fibrowatt erected the first litter-fueled energy plant in the U.S. in Minnesota, the country’s largest turkey-producing state. It burns 500,000 tons of turkey litter each year creating steam to turn turbines in a 55-megawatt power plant that provides electricity for some 40,000 homes. But critics worry that these will emit high levels of pollutants including nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and particulates, even with the use of pollution-control measures.

Farmer uses chicken manure to heat hatchery

A poultry farmer in West Virginia has adopted an innovative approach to heating his hatchery, managing poultry litter and possibly reducing greenhouse gases, according to USA Today. Josh Frye heats his facility with a special incinerator that operates on chicken manure.
Upon combustion, the chicken manure is transformed into biochar, a high-carbon substance that serves as a high-quality fertilizer. Unlike most organic fertilizers, which produce carbon dioxide gas as they break down, biochar is slow to decompose and stores carbon in the soil for up to 1,000 years, according to Johannes Lehmann, a soil scientist at Cornell University.
Frye’s machine, manufactured by Coaltec Energy, can produce up to 9,000 pounds of biochar a day, and the highest-quality biochar can command a price of $1 per pound. So far, Frye has sold just $1,000 worth of biochar on a trial basis, but plans to incorporate biochar sales into his business plan. Soon, he told the newspaper, “"the chicken poop could be worth more than the chickens themselves."
He also says the machine saves him $30,000 a year in propane heating costs.
As new technology, the incinerator came with a high price tag of $1M. Frye received grants and low-interest loans from federal and state agencies to cover the capital outlay.
Also known as a gasifier—equipment that converts carbon-containing materials into a fuel similar to natural gas—the machine produces no odor or smoke as it burns the chicken manure, USA Today reported.