Poultry Litter Supply and Demand in the Valley

From time to time I’ve heard mention of a report that was published by the Chesapeake Bay Program in January 2008. Informally, I understand that the report has been mentioned in the working group’s discussions; in fact, some of the stakeholders acknowledged in that report are participating in the current Virginia effort. I found a copy of the report online (link below), its lengthy title – merited because this is a comprehensive report, worth the read if you are interested in this energy topic – is Turning Chesapeake Bay Watershed Poultry Manure and Litter into Energy: An Analysis of the Impediments and the Feasibility of Implementing Energy Technologies in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in Order to Improve Water Quality.

Among the feedback I have heard about the second meeting was a discussion about the scale of a potential plant in the Shenandoah Valley. They are talking about a 55MW plant, which would be comparatively large, considering other plants that were discussed in the Chesapeake Bay Program report, summarized in the table below.

Location/ MW/ Annual Litter Requirements

• Eye, Suffolk, UK/12.7 /140K tons
• Glanford, UK/ 13.5/ Not reported
• Thetford, UK/ 38.5 /420K tons
• Westfield, Scotland/ 9.8/ 110K tons
• Fibrominn, Benson, MN/ 55/ 700K tons
• Fibroshore (Proposed, MD) /38.5/ 300K tons (plus 50K tons of biomass)
• Conectiv (Proposed retrofit, MD) /35 /400K tons

One point of interest is the litter requirements for this type of plant. According to the report, the Fibrominn plant requires 700,000 tons annually to generate 55MW of power; in the working group’s discussion, the requirement was identified as 400,000 tons. Beyond the apparent discrepancy in this litter requirement is the question of where would it come from.

The University of Minnesota report I referenced yesterday – dated 2000 and available at the ** link below – estimated that just over 450,000 tons of poultry litter are available in the Valley. The proposed plant, at this volume, would require the purchase of nearly all waste litter available in the Valley, unless the purchase radius were extended. The report estimated that another 110,000 tons are available if that radius is extended to 160 miles, for a total of 560,000 tons, which would be adequate for the level of demand discussed at the working group.

I'm out of time today.  However, there is one point of interest about the competition for litter - it is useful to some farmers as a fertilizer, after all, and with proper management of the impacts to the watershed this use would likely continue - in the case of the Fibroshore plant, a Perdue establishment also buys waste litter:

"Whether or not there is a sufficient amount of poultry litter available in the region for a power plant of this size is questionable. A large portion of the region’s litter is already being used by Perdue AgriRecycle, which is a large-scale litter pelletizing operation located in Sussex County, Delaware. Perdue Incorporated invested more than $13 million in Perdue AgriRecycle, which started operation in 2001 and can process the equivalent of 400 poultry houses worth of litter each year."

More to follow, stay tuned...

* http://www.chesapeakebay.net/content/publications/cbp_17018.pdf  


** http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/14825/1/rr000048.pdf