The Lure of Manure: Energy from Farm Waste

It is well known that animals, and farm animals in particular, produce greenhouse gases. However, unless everyone becomes a strict vegetarian, livestock is not likely to go away any time soon. Knowing that, some enterprising people have turned a liability into a biofriendly asset by using farm waste as an energy source.

For example, a large Chinese chicken farm about 50 miles north of Beijing has converted a coal-powered electrical power plant into a plant powered by chicken manure. The farm has 3 million chickens that produce 220 tons of manure every day. That is a lot of manure and the anaerobic digester system plant is expected to generate as much as 14.6 million kilowatt-hours of electrical energy per year. In addition, this method of generating power is estimated to reduce CO2 emissions annually by 95,000 tons.

The monetary savings will be significant as well. "This biogas project will quickly pay for itself by meeting the customer's demand for cost-effective electricity and heat," said Jack Wen, President and CEO of GE Energy China. "We estimate that the customer will save more than US $1.2 million a year in electricity costs alone."

Meanwhile, back in Texas, an enterprising company, Microgy Inc., is putting microbes to work. The company builds anaerobic digesters, large tanks in which microbes break down organic material in an environment devoid of oxygen. The organic waste products decompose over time into numerous products, including so-called biogas, which contains a large amount of natural gas (methane) that can be burned to produce heat or electricity. There are other useful by-products as well, such as fertilizer and mulch.

At a composting center near Stephenville, Texas, Microgy is building eight 916,000-gallon digesters at a cost of $11.5 million, which will be able to process the manure of 10,000 cows. The plant is expected to start shipping methane in the third quarter of 2008. The plant will be capable of producing about a billion cubic feet of biogas per year and earn an estimated $4.6 million in revenue.

Biogas produced from farm manure is not only a renewable energy source, it solves the problem of waste disposal and can also be quite profitable, unlike many other methods of generating alternative energy that are heavily dependent on subsidies.

In a different, but related field, Biofriendly Corporation is doing its part in making an important contribution towards a greener planet. Their Green Plus® liquid fuel catalyst provides a cleaner, more linear fuel burn in internal combustion engines, resulting in fewer harmful emissions, increased torque and better fuel economy.

For more information about Green Plus visit the Biofriendly website at www.biofriendly.com.

Author:
Author, Peter Verhoeff, contributes articles on environmental issues for Biofriendly Corporation. More information on these and other topics can be found on the Biofriendly site.

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Source: www.articledepot.co.uk