Revisiting a Poultry Litter Power Plant

Looking over some old posts, it's been nearly a year since I posted anything about the ongoing studies in Virginia regarding "what to do with all the chicken s***" -  so when a few friends and alert readers recently sent along the first work product coming out of the litter-to-energy working group (label LEWG at the end of this post will take you to the other material I have on this topic, and there's tons more under the label Fibrowatt), I knew it was time to refresh myself on the facts.  First, though, I want to begin this new series of posts by saying thanks to those alert readers who sent me the recently completed Virginia Tech report designed to estimate just how much chicken litter might be available in the Valley for various purposes, whether that is for use as a directly applied fertilizer or as a component fuel for firing an electric plant.

This Virginia Tech report is the first output of the scope laid down by the LEWG.  Since it has been over a year since we've heard anything out of this group, let's start out with a quick review of what they are up to: this is working group that is chartered by the Virginia governor to determine the feasibility of establishing a power plant in the state that would be fueled by poultry litter, a waste by-product of poultry farms in the area.

I've written up that sentence about the charter in a very cynical tone - but when you read much of the work, it's easy to come to the conclusion that the LEWG has been chartered as an industry-friendly working group, and the goal envisioned for it is the establishment of a power plant - whether the public here wants it or not.  I can determine no other justification for including Fibrowatt representatives in the initial working sessions for that group, and even the project title suggests a predisposition to that outcome.

Full disclosure:  the prospect of a Fibrowatt plant in the Valley, and specifically in Page County, is what got me started on the topic in the first place.

The LEWG scope is characterized by their project title:  "Evaluating Net Benefits/Impacts of a Shenandoah Valley Poutlry Litter to Energy Power Plant on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and Air Shed: -  a Google search for Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ) in 2011 should pull up the scope for those who are interested, but I will summarize the five-part task here:

1. Conduct baseline analyses and projections related to supply and usage of poultry litter in the Shenandoah Valley;
2. Determine the net nutrient load reduction levels to the Chesapeake Bay - taking into account reductions from litter-to-energy system as well as potential new load from replacing land application with commercial fertilizers;
3. Analyze various waste by-product handling options to determine impact on the Chesapeake Bay watershed;
4. Analyze effects from emission deposition on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed; and
5. Analyze and quantify potential air emissions from a large poultry litter combustion facility.

The new report from Virginia Tech is the result of task one, a strictly agro-economic assessment of supply and demand for chicken litter.  This post will be the first in a series of five or so I plan over the next two weeks to summarize the report and revisit some conclusions I've made in the past.

I welcome comments or discussion on this topic - it's one that will have a surprising big impact, not just on Page County and the Shenandoah Valley, but also on the state of Virginia - indeed, the entire Chesapeake Bay Watershed, which covers seven states!

Another One Down for Fibrowatt

Photo of the existing Fibrowatt plant in Minnesota.
Note the stack height - 300 feet!

One of the folks I worked with back in 2010, when Fibrowatt was considering a potential Page County site, is Jay Dedman.  Jay recently sent me a link to an article that reports that Fibrowatt has bailed on a second project out of the three they had planned in North Carolina – see the link at the end of this post for the full article.

Eventually, during a meeting with the County Supervisors that was also attended by nearly 200 Page County citizens, Fibrowatt was turned away here.  I’ve documented some of the process here on the blog under the Fibrowatt label, but there are other sources that are easy to find with a Google search as well, including some very good videos from the County Supervisors speaking on the topic.

The early research showed that there were three projects slated for North Carolina, in Surry, Sampson, and Montgomery Counties.  In one of them, Surry County, there was intense local opposition to the plant, and the plan to locate one there was soon cancelled.  

Our Page County group benefited from some of that previous work, which had documented the potential health and economic effects from the Fibrowatt process, which involves burning (actually, incineration) the litter from poultry operations in order to produce electricity.

This latest cancellation is for the Montgomery County plant.  Among the reasons, according to the article here, is how costly it is to produce power this way.  This expense has made it difficult for Fibrowatt to complete a contract to sell the power, as the power companies in North Carolina aren’t willing to pay the high prices.

The problem at the heart of all of this is what to do with all the waste from poultry operations, and using it to produce energy is as good a solution as we have for now.    However, based on what I’ve learned about the process Fibrowatt uses, I’ve come down firmly on the “oppose” side of the coin about whether their technology should even be used.  The research I reported here on the blog suggests, at least to my mind, that farm-level approaches are probably more sustainable, even though they represent significant capital investment requirements for family farms. 

For now, Fibrowatt still has projects planned in coastal North Carolina and on the Eastern Shore in Maryland.  In Maryland, they’ve allied with Perdue, the big player in poultry.  But they still need to find the power company to pay their high prices for electricity.  Until they do, there will be more delays and cancellations – a development that is good for all of us.

Here’s a link to the article about the NC project cancellation:

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/power_city/2012/02/chicken-litter-plant-scratched-for.html?s=print

Poultry Litter Advisory Group - Follow-ups Part 4

Today, for my fourth post number on the thread about comments provided to DEQ on the scope of work from the poultry litter working group, I have reviewed and will summarize the letter sent by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Shenandoah Valley Network. This letter was dated April 25 and signed by Cale Jaffe and Kate Wofford; the version I have is a PDF, so I cannot cut and paste the entire document, thus the summary below.


The letter begins by acknowledging that the DEQ’s and DCR's efforts are meant to restore the Chesapeake Bay and this study is part of that, contributing by analyzing options to reduce net nutrient load from the Shenandoah Valley. The letter also “acknowledges and incorporates by reference” comments that were provided by other significant stakeholders, specifically, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the National Park Service.

The letter outlines three general concerns about the scope:

1. The focus on a single solution – a proposed 55MW litter to energy “incineration and power generation facility” – the draft scope of work says “The purpose of this work plan is to guide research to determine the net environmental benefit of a major litter to energy project. The letter goes on to compare that to a neutral focus considering “the net environmental impacts of a major litter to energy project.”

2. The “short shrift” given to a review of alternatives – the only alternative mentioned in the scope they reviewed was a subsidy for bulk transport of litter out of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The alternatives that should be considered include on-farm technologies, smaller centralized incinerators, improved land application and management methods at the farm level, anaerobic digestion, gasification or thermal oxidation.

3. The draft scope ignores air quality and public health concerns. Here there is a reference to public and stakeholder comments at the 2/11/11 and 3/28/11 meetings which were focused on these potential impacts, yet the DEQ scope ignores them.

Additionally, the letter offers six further comments:

a. The scope of the study should consider air deposition of nutrient loads, since nitrogen compounds can be distributed this way and would likely make their way into the watershed;

b. The scope should include the use of an approved EPA modeling technique for the air deposition analysis by looking at three alternative potential sites and the impacts that result from local climate conditions at them;

c. The scope should provide an expanded description of how land application alternatives will be evaluated; there is a reference to the use of alternative commercial fertilizers “in correct agronomical rates” but appears to assume that there would be no net impact from them;

d. The scope needs to include an evaluation of the storage and transport stages is considered, those handling activities that occur prior to incineration, since there is the potential for watershed impacts here;

e. Since a litter-to-energy plant is not proposed as a replacement for any retired generator facilities, it is an additional source of pollution – there is no real benefit of reducing emissions from the impact of new technologies, only the impact of adding to them, given this situation; and

f. The scope should analyze the ability to meet other standards for poultry litter feedstock generating units.

The letter concludes with and encouragement to strive for the best possible study – as opposed to outright opposition to the plant.

For my fifth and final post on this short series, I hope to have a summary of the scope of work – this will be the draft version these recent posts were responding to – and I will try to have that up on the blog by Monday.

Poultry Litter Advisory Group - Follow-ups Part 3

By way of post number three in the continuing on the thread about comments provided to DEQ on the scope of work from the poultry litter working group, here are excerpts from another stakeholder’s comments.


“…I thoroughly agree with the feedback that you are receiving from the National Parks, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Shenandoah Valley Network and others regarding your focus exclusively on a 55-MW Fibrowatt incineration facility, and your decision that the study group should ignore air emissions. Your minutes from the comments made by both members of the Advisory Group and the public during the March 28th meeting indicate that "emissions" were mentioned 22 times either directly or indirectly (e.g. indirectly via the word "health"). If you continue to dismiss the thoughtful comments of the members of the Advisory Group and the public, you risk the appearance that a final decision has already been made, the Advisory Group's analysis will be ignored, and that the DEQ's decision will be in Fibrowatt's favor. I am sure that you want to avoid that impression, especially since a proposed scalable, NRCS best management practice (BMP) called animal waste gasification is a [low-emission], economically-viable alternative to incineration.

I am still trying to obtain a copy of the comments sent by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Shenandoah Valley Network, as well as a copy of the scope I can review and summarize.

What’s telling in this note is the DEQ’s decision to delete a review of air emissions from this scope. Emissions are obviously an important element of the discussion…that is where acid rain comes from, as noted by the NPS in the comments they sent, and as this writer says, emissions were discussed multiple times in the advisory group’s meetings.

Whether or not the emissions released by a proposed plant of this type are within a range that DEQ can acceptably permit, it is important for the public to be made aware of the risks – early and often. DEQ’s deferral of discussion on this point raises the questions the writer above proposes – and may even be a dereliction of responsibility.

Here’s a summary from a previous post about the emissions that have been authorized in the other Fibrowatt permits:

“…according to its air permits, the plant is a major source of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrogen sulfide.” In the permit itself, several other emissions are noted, including sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid.

As for the risks associated with these emissions, I consulted the Wikipedia articles on them, and the results are bulletized below. It turns out that many of these compounds are greenhouse gases, meaning they will impact visibility and have a long-term impact on the larger environment. But some of them are used as industrial corrosives and are also identified as health risks.

• “Sulfur dioxide is associated with increased respiratory symptoms and disease, difficulty in breathing, and premature death.”
• “Sulfuric acid is a component of acid rain, and is highly corrosive.”
• “Hydrochloric acid - Both the mist and the solution have a corrosive effect on human tissue, with the potential to damage respiratory organs, eyes, skin, and intestines.”
• “Carbon monoxide is a major atmospheric pollutant in some urban areas, chiefly from the exhaust of internal combustion engines (including vehicles, portable and back-up generators, lawn mowers, power washers, etc.), but also from improper burning of various other fuels (including wood, coal, charcoal, oil, paraffin, propane, natural gas, and trash).”
• Finally, nitrous oxide was also noted to be a greenhouse gas

Back to the comment from the writer at the beginning of this post.  Maybe the correct name for this advisory group - I've posted this before - is "Virginia DEQ's Fibrowatt Site Selection Communication Strategy Group" - especially if it's one where Virginia DEQ is talking at their advisory partners rather than listening to them.

Poultry Litter Advisory Group - Follow-ups Part 2

Continuing on the thread of the scope of work that was recently circulated by the poultry litter working group, I’ve come across the transmittal message that Rick Weeks of DEQ sent out, although I haven’t seen the scope of work itself. So that is the basis of this post #2 in the thread – here are excerpts from Mr. Weeks’ message.


“…In reviewing the draft please note that the elements of Task VI (formerly Task V) are being deferred in order to avoid duplicating costly work that would be re-done, if DEQ receives a permit application. The new language for this initial effort focuses on the proposed project’s impact on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The analysis of a project’s impact on Shenandoah National Park resources is a required element of the air permit review, should any proposed project reach that stage.

“In addition, the evaluation of human health is integral to the air permitting process. National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) are established for specific pollutants to protect human health. An air quality analysis would be performed on the projected emissions from a large plant to insure that the emissions are below those standards. In addition, a large plant would have to comply with Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards that are established to protect human health from hazardous air pollutants.”

Mr. Weeks asked that comments be returned by April 25 – so this is old news for some readers. I understand that in addition to the National Park Service response I posted yesterday, there are responses from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Shenandoah Valley Network – I will see if I can obtain a copy of their comments, and I will work on getting a copy of the scope itself that I can summarize here.

Poultry Litter Advisory Group - Follow-ups Part 1

The poultry litter advisory group’s work has continued over the last month, and apparently the scope of work for the study has been drafted and circulated. I have not seen it made available for public review, although I have seen some of the comments – starting today, I will publish summaries of three of them, in full text. Even without seeing the scope of work itself, from these comments it is easy to draw conclusions about the direction of the scope of that study.


This first one is from an NPS stakeholder. I found it insightful not only for the commentary on the scope of work - the DEQ has apparently ruled out the consideration of air pollution in the current draft scope - but from a more general perspective on the health of Shenandoah National Park.

"…Although we do not have time for a more formal response to your email and the indicated changes to the scope of work, I do want to express that the National Park Service is disappointed in your decision to defer elements of air quality impacts in this review. Although we fully understand that it is difficult to assess air impacts without specific details that are normally provided in the regulatory/permitting process, we believe that some elements of air quality impacts need to be retained to inform the process.

"As you may know, Shenandoah National Park has been a research and monitoring site for air quality impacts for decades. There are few if any other sites in Virginia (or the mid-Atlantic) that are better studied.

"For example, the park and Western Virginia datasets provided by UVA are used by EPA as one of two study sites in the nation to evaluate Acid Deposition Recovery. The National Park Service, colleagues, and cooperators have developed hundreds of related publications on air quality trends and impacts. The impacts are chronic and, depending on the pollutant, few trends are improving.

"In a feasibility study as proposed, we believe that context is important. With the study focusing on a plant in the Shenandoah Valley - the information available from the decades of work noted in the above paragraph needs to be considered. The body of knowledge available is significant and important to use - even if a detailed air impacts modeling effort is not included in your study. The information available is wide ranging and covers many pollutants of concern - especially acid deposition.

"The focus of this group's work surrounds the impaired waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Shenandoah National Park has at least six watersheds that are listed by your agency as pH impaired due to acid deposition (air pollution). Other park data indicates that there are likely many more streams that should be included as impaired. A quick tally of the VA DEQ's 2010 report on statewide impaired waters indicate that roughly 150 or more watersheds in Virginia are currently listed as pH impaired. I wasn't able to tally the cause of impairment for all - but I suspect a significant portion [is] a result of acid deposition.

"Permitted poultry litter fired generating facilities in the U.S. and United Kingdom emit significant amounts of pollutants which are precursors to acid deposition. Annual permitted emissions from poultry incineration facilities compare to levels of some coal-fired generating facilities in VA. Again, without a basic review of these air pollutants in the study - in the context of cumulative effects to the airshed or how it may exacerbate already impaired systems - essentially avoids the widescale air pollution issues until the permitting process begins.

Fibrowatt: More Questions than Answers

Today we will close out the “month of Fibrowatt” on Hawksbill Cabin with a post that feeds back a few questions from the dialog over on Facebook, and then a look again at the 2008 Chesapeake Bay Foundation report I referenced in yesterday’s post and linked below.


Susan G. is a reader on Facebook who has been following the Fibrowatt developments in Page County and elsewhere for the last year or so. She wrote with a couple of insights about the current economic and financial situation, raising questions about the viability of a Fibrowatt plant venture in the Valley. She notes that there have been price increases on agricultural inputs to the poultry industry in the range of 30 percent since 2008, and connects this issue with questions about the public financial commitment to a proposed plant – capital intensive as it would be.

Susan admits, as I will, that the full scope of the working group isn’t well understood; for example, are these questions about public finance part of what the ultimate study will address? Costs of poultry waste to energy systems were an area of “recommended further research” in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation paper…minimal calculations of net present value, payback periods, return on investment, etc. all need to be put together to get an understanding of this part of the question.

In the Hawksbill Cabin Fibrowatt research, I have found two references to these questions – in the interest of a timely post I won’t source one of them today, although I have referenced it in the past. In a recent North Carolina newspaper article there was a notation about Fibrowatt’s failure to come to terms with a power company on pricing for the energy produced; this created a delay in project approval and development. Also, in the Foundation’s 2008 report, competition for raw materials and the inability to agree on the amount of public subsidy were noted as reasons for the delay in a Maryland plant.

As Susan writes, emphasizing the scale and duration of the public commitment that would be required – and the risks the public would likely take on for this plant:

“…it would be interesting to know what provisions exist for the possibility that the plant [ceasing to] operate due to an inability to obtain raw materials. Would the entire burden fall onto the public?”

These are examples of some questions that remain unanswered. Maybe in a few weeks I will return to the topic and see what research has been done in this direction. For now, let’s move on to the findings and recommendations in the Foundation’s 2008 report, where the result was summarized as follows:

“Both farm-scale and commercial-scale litter-to-energy systems may be a potential way to use the excess litter found in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The findings of this report suggest that litter-to-energy systems are, for the most part, technologically feasible; however, there are other challenges that must be overcome to make these systems a viable option in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including high system cost and the issue of litter availability. In addition, there are still a number of variables that need to be better understood in order to determine whether litter-to-energy systems are truly feasible in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and whether or not they should be promoted by organizations such as the Chesapeake Bay Program.”

I should note that the Hawksbill Cabin blog and Chesapeake Bay Foundation coverage had some similarities (although I didn’t have a grant to do the research…maybe I should look into it): we both looked at alternatives to the Fibrowatt approach using some case studies, and we both considered supply and demand impacts. And, we both close with a few more questions that remain unanswered – in the Foundation’s report, these are areas for future research, which I will summarize here for brevity.

• What level of nutrient load reduction can be achieved through the use of a litter-to-energy system? A more in-depth analysis is needed to quantify the reduction resulting from the use of litter-to-energy systems versus the status quo (e.g. land application).
• What sort of air emissions do these systems release (type and amount)? Although there is already some information on this, additional information would be useful.
• What impact do the air emissions from these systems have on water quality?
• Are there potential toxic air pollution concerns that need to be better addressed (such as those resulting from the release of airborne arsenic)?
• Are state and federal air permitting programs set up to allow for these types of operations?
• How much excess litter is available in different regions of the Chesapeake Bay watershed? What other factors affect litter supply (e.g. price of energy and other market forces)? Is there enough excess litter to support a large commercial-scale litter-to-energy plant?
• How much does an on-farm litter-to-energy system cost? On-farm systems are still relatively new and many of the current systems have been constructed as part of demonstration or research projects, making it difficult to determine the cost of future systems.
• How much money would a farmer need to put up to get a system installed and operating on his farm?
• What is the potential payback timeframe for a litter-to-energy system? Several ongoing studies are expected to quantify this. Understanding this component is critical in determining the marketability of these systems.
• Are farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed willing to participate in litter-to-energy projects? If it is determined that litter-to-energy systems are viable and should be promoted in the watershed, then education and outreach efforts will be needed to encourage farmer adoption of these systems.
• How much time must a farmer devote to operating and maintaining an on-farm litter-to-energy system?

If readers have studies or other citations you'd like me to take a look at and post on in the future, your comments are welcomed here, or you can send them to me by email.  In the meantimes, the Foundation’s 2008 report can be found here for reference:

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

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

Working Group Reports - and the Optimal Location of a Fibrowatt Plant

While we await additional information, there is a report up on WHSV this morning about the working group meeting held yesterday in Harrisonburg at the DEQ offices.  The article, linked below*, says the working group is still in the scoping stage of the study.  Seventy people attended, including several of our Page County folks, including J.D. Cave and Lee McWhorter, who are quoted in the article.

Meanwhile, here on Hawksbill Cabin, I have been looking for a map of the major concentrations of poulty farms around the state.  Here is some 2009 data I found about the industry in the Shenandoah Valley on http://www.vapoultry.com/:

• Approximately 550 chicken farms
• Approximately 280 turkey farms
• Approximately $80,000,000 in grower pay
• 6 poultry processing companies (Cargill, George’s Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, Perdue Farms, Tyson Foods and Virginia Poultry Growers Cooperative, Inc) employ more than 6,000 people.
• Indirectly supports approximately 43,200 related jobs outside of the poultry industry, many within the Shenandoah Valley
• 5 poultry company feed mills produce more than 1,500,000 tons of poultry feed annually

While I haven't yet found a map of the industry as it stands today, I did find some 2000 research from the University of Minnesota (surprisingly, there are a couple of papers at that school about the industry in the Shenandoah Valley...of course, Minnesota is one of the country's largest poultry producers, it is also the location of Fibrowatt's first US plant) about operating a feed-to-litter exchange as a way to improve the economics of hauling both of these poultry inputs**.  The data likely need some updating, however, there is a map of the optimal location for the exchange on page 29 of the report. 

It proposed Harrisonburg as the optimal location, based on haul distances ranging from 64 to 185 miles - from locations scattered around the state in all directions.  So there is a precedent for this location and there is a longer term context for the feasibility study. 

We'll keep you posted.

* http://www.whsv.com/news/headlines/Study_To_Look_Into_Feasibility_of_Poultry_Litter_Power_Plant_118806854.html
** http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/14825/1/rr000048.pdf

A Better Name for the Waste-to-Energy Working Group

Thanks for the many of you that have engaged this topic so far, on Facebook and here on the blog.  It continues to be important for the Valley...

One commenter has mentioned that the working group that I've posted on a couple of times in this series has narrowed their focus to strictly consider the impacts of a Fibrowatt plant that would prospectively be placed somewhere in the Valley. 

Perhaps that group should be renamed the "Fibrowatt Site Selection Working Group."

Your elected officials need to hear from you if you do not think your voice has been heard.

Repost: Fibrowatt's Squeeze on Local Farmers

Today I am reposting some early, simple economic analysis of the potential negative impact a Fibrowatt plant would have on Shenandoah Valley agriculture.  This is a long post, combining several days worth of research and analysis.

To summarize, these things don't come without costs, without negative economic impacts.  As a privately held company, only Fibrowatt's owners stand to gain from the plant.  There are substantial hidden costs that the farmers and communities would find as a Fibrowatt plant came on line...from reduced farm revenues due to fixed price contracts for the litter, to higher input costs due to their competition for raw materials.  Here's the earlier post:

---
I found an article (linked below) in the Winston-Salem, NC paper about Fibrowatt’s failure to negotiate a sales agreement for their power with Progress Energy and Duke Power, the two major utilities in the Carolinas. (Full disclosure: my family used to own Progress Energy stock). Here’s an excerpt from the article:


“…the utility companies didn't mention Fibrowatt by name, but indicated that the "single poultry waste" generator proposed prices that would consume a significant amount of the companies' money that they need to buy other types of renewable energy such as solar and wind power.”

Readers will recall that [last year] I posted an excerpt from a Page County farmer’s analysis of the negative economic impact Fibrowatt could have on poultry operations – basically, because they would seek long-term agreements with poultry farms to buy up used litter, they would seek discounts over current market prices, which would reduce this source of revenue for our farmers.

This development in the negotiations with the NC power companies means that Fibrowatt will put a lot of pressure on local farmers in order to have better control on its own costs, disregarding the interest of those very farmers - who they also refer to as "partners!"

In fact, the farmer’s letter I posted went on to discuss that the Fibrowatt offer was lower than current market competitive rates, a market that is supported by state and federal level agriculture agencies, which will pay a benefit to farmers outside of Page County for buying and spreading the local litter. The farmer closed his letter with this note:

“As far as poultry growers getting more in terms of total sales dollars for their litter [from Fibrowatt], I don't really see that happening because of the current price of litter. I see a profit margin decrease happening for poultry growers instead of an increase.”

So that is part one of Fibrowatt’s squeeze on poultry farmers – hitting the revenue side of farmers’ litter operations, reducing their total sales dollars. There is also a squeeze on the cost side, which Terry Walmsley discussed in the Page County BOS presentation last [March].

Terry mentioned a couple of things that needed to be done with the litter to ensure that it was a high-quality fuel for the burn process – and that one of the things that is done in the fuel storage room is to mix it with other “biomass” sources, including various raw materials that litter is produced from. In Minnesota, this can include sunflower seed hulls – so you have Fibrowatt actively competing with Minnesota farmers to buy these raw materials from the plant.

It is basic economics that when competition increases on the demand side, prices increase in the short term. Over the longer term, they may level out, but if production is increased to meet the new demand there will be pressure to keep market equilibrium at the higher price, or supplier/producers will switch to other commodities.

Here in Virginia, a large portion of litter comes from wood shavings, which are apparently already in short supply within the Shenandoah Valley region. This product was specifically mentioned as an example of what would be in the mix at the proposed Valley plant.

So once again, Fibrowatt will compete with local poultry farmers for resources, in this case, driving up raw materials costs.

For a company that claims to partner with the poultry industry, this “squeeze” – raising the costs of inputs and reducing total sales revenues – is an ironic concept. I’ve heard one of the leaders of the local poultry association tout Fibrowatt as a long-term savior of the industry in Page County. It is more likely that these costs will put the smaller operations out of business by making them economically unsustainable!

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2009/aug/31/302350/fibrowatt-price-high-utilities-say/news-regional-surry/
...I also wanted to put up a summary of what I’ve learned about using chicken litter for fertilizer. I say summary because I am going to focus on three elements that are a component of chicken litter fertilizer – Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium, or N, P and K as they are listed in the periodic table.

In Page County and elsewhere in Virginia (and most other poultry producing states, as a matter of fact), chicken litter is used as an early-stage starter fertilizer in fields, especially those that produce animal feeds like corn and soybeans. Each of the three nutrients have their own value, and from the “Latest Scoop” article linked below, we see that on nutrient value alone, litter is worth from $40 to $45 a ton, yet costs in the $30 per ton range, including transportation an spreading. Meanwhile, buying fertilizer to provide these nutrients costs about $110-$130 per acre – per the “Input Costs” article linked below.

Fibrowatt plans to buy the “excess” litter and burn it to produce power. They say that the ash makes a good fertilizer, and a firm was started in close proximity to the Benson, MN plant to process and package the ash for resale to farmers. However, something happens to the ash when it is incinerated – the Nitrogen disappears, and the concentrations of P and K are increased.

From basic biology we learn that Nitrogen is essential to plant life. Chicken litter provides it, but Fibrowatt ash does not. So, if a farmer is forced to move to the ash as a fertilizer source, there will still be a requirement for a second application of N. It’s not efficient due to the double application, and fertilizer costs increase. The end result is more pressure on the farmers both in production costs and very likely in the margins they make from selling their products.

Phosphorus is a nutrient of extreme interest and the subject of much environmental regulation in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Soils such as those in much of Virginia do not absorb the nutrient well, and there is a lot of wash off into the streams and rivers. This can be managed to an extent with riparian buffers, and proper timing of fertilizer. However, with a more concentrated application in the ash, it seems like the risks from this nutrient are only made worse, rather than improved.

I will leave aside the discussion about Potassium, except to say that it is present in all living cells, per Wikipedia, and essential to plant life. I am not aware of risks or cost impacts from its use – and welcome comments on the matter if readers are aware of any.

However, as with the input costs and revenue “squeeze” I discussed last week, here is another case where inserting Fibrowatt into the equation won’t create any benefits to farmers. It’s a great irony that the company markets itself to the agricultural sector as a “partner” – in Page County, Fibrowatt is even seen as a potential savior of the poultry industry – yet the economics of their impacts are increased costs and lower products. Their presence threatens the very existence of farming in the communities they are trying to go to!

http://southeastfarmpress.com/mag/farming_latest_scoop_chicken/

http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/topfarmer/newsletter/TFCW9_2009.pdf

Farm and Municipal Scale Anaerobic Digesters

Today a short post – multi-media style – with some videos of anaerobic digesters that are built for farm-scale and municipal-scale operation. This continues the look at anaerobic digestion as a process to handle agricultural and other waste as an alternative to incinerator burning in a more traditional plant such as the ones Fibrowatt proposes to operate in the Shenandoah Valley and has installed in Benson, MN.


While both processes have their pros and cons, the conclusion I am drawing from these case studies is the amount of air pollution produced during the process is much lower with anaerobic digestion, while the outputs – electricity and byproducts – are essentially similar.

That said, here you go…two videos at US farms, one of a UK based municipal plant that uses food waste, and a fourth that uses plant waste – all of which are in operation and well established, so data for comparison should be readily available.

Waste-to-energy Anaerobic Digestion - Continued

After finding the little video that shows the basics of how this process - an alternative to a Fibrowatt plant - works, I also found a second article that offers a pretty thorough look at digesters.  This one, entitled, Anaerobic Digestion of Animal Wastes: Factors to Consider, and written by John Balsam and Dave Ryan, can be found at http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/anaerobic.html.  The article emphasizes farm-scale installations of the digester technology, types of systems, and practical considerations; there are also some additional references to other case studies.

The photo here is from a Wikipedia article, which you can find on the seach "poultry farming in the United States."

For highlights, it lists some of the benefits of using the digester process for electricity...

• A well-insulated, three-bedroom home that requires 900,000 Btu/day for heating in cold weather could be served by 50 dairy cattle, 600 hogs, or 7,870 layers (assuming that around 35 percent of the biogas produced will be used to maintain the digester’s temperature).
• A dairy using the national average of 550 kWh/cow/year could generate 70 percent of its electrical needs with biogas (assuming 20 percent generator efficiency and that around 35 percent of the biogas produced will be used to maintain the digester’s temperature).
• A swine operation that uses about 55 kWh of electricity and 5.75 gallons of LP gas per hog per year (including feed mill and incinerator) could supply 40 percent of its energy needs with biogas (assuming 20 percent generator efficiency and that around 35 percent of the biogas produced will be used to maintain the digester’s temperature).

The article outlines the risks of this process, including the components of the biogas, which are worth taking a look at, then goes into some practical information about how to size the installation, along with factors to consider:

• The specific benefits to be derived
• The number and kind of animals to be served
• Where the system might be placed
• How the manure and other inputs will be collected and delivered to the system
• How the required temperatures will be maintained
• How all the risks associated with the process, some of which are substantial, will be mitigated
• How the outputs will be handled
• The amount of monitoring and management time required

The article closes with a nice cost-benefit calculation of two farm-scale installations:

• Barham Farm: Covered Lagoon, costs $289,474, revenue $46,000 per/year
• Martin Family Farm:  Covered Lagoon, costs $95,200, revenue $16,000 per/year

So perhaps I should append this information to my discussion of the economic impacts to farmers - here is a process that actually would return revenue to the family farm, rather than ratcheting up costs. For reference, here is a post on the Fibrowatt squeeze on local farmers:  http://hburgnews.com/2010/04/29/fibrowatt-the-farmer-squeeze/

How a digester works

I found this YouTube posting about how the digesters work...thought I'd post it promptly...



Looks pretty simple.  Looks like not a whole lot of byproducts - and releases CO2 instead of all those more harmful oxides...

The Poultry Waste Anaerobic Digester: Yet Another Alternative to Fibrowatt

Last week we took a look at the gasification process as one alternative way to produce energy from poultry waste; this week we will take a look at a second way, called anaerobic digestion. Before I get into a review of this technology, I want to remind readers about the purpose of these posts: since we first encountered Fibrowatt in the Shenandoah Valley, the company has gone about attempting to convince us that they offer the only technology process that can deal with the quantities of poultry waste produced here – you can read about them by clicking the label Fibrowatt at the end of this post.

What we are learning is that there are alternatives, and that is another thing you will learn by clicking on the Fibrowatt label on this blog. Selection of that company based on their assertion that they have the only process, as some in Richmond would have us believe, will leave the Valley paying dearly with our quality of life, our health, and with longer term negative impacts* on the very farms that produce the litter.

A Google search on “Poultry Waster Digester” will deliver quite a few results, including academic research and plenty of case studies dating back to the 1980’s. I’ve picked an LA Times article from 2010 for this review, but before I do that, here is the Wikipedia definition of “anaerobic digestion:”

Anaerobic digestion is a series of processes in which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen, used for industrial or domestic purposes to manage waste and/or to release energy. …widely used as a renewable energy source because the process produces a methane and carbon dioxide rich biogas suitable for energy production, helping to replace fossil fuels. The nutrient-rich digestate which is also produced can be used as fertilizer. (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digester, and the photo of the industrial plant in Germany, above, is also from there - this article will likely be the subject of a future post)

Further review of the Google results led me to a September 2010 LA Times article called “Poultry Waste to Power California Egg Farm,” where reporter Reed Fujii takes a look at a Stockton, CA farm that produces a million pounds of poultry waste a week. They have been using manure lagoons to manage all this before putting together plans for a digester – a process the neighbors have objected too, and one that doesn’t work within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The article is here: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/01/business/la-fi-poultry-power-20100901

Chris Brewer, a representative of California’s G3 Power Systems, said that the digester will create methane gas as a byproduct. The methane will be used by a fuel cell to generate electricity, with minimal emissions of nitrogen oxide or sulfur oxide. Similar to the gasification process, the cell’s own byproducts are sufficient to power itself once it begins operation. The exhaust gas is pretty much water vapor, according to Brewer. This digester was scheduled for start-up in early 2011.

Tomorrow I will take a look for some additional case studies and articles on this process. I’ve also sent an email to see if I can get an update on the installation at this egg farm.

* See http://hburgnews.com/2010/04/29/fibrowatt-the-farmer-squeeze  for a summary of posts on Fibrowatt’s economic impacts to poultry farmers

Surveying Alternatives to Fibrowatt with the SC Biomass Council

My research into energy from biomass alternatives – especially with regard to alternatives to the Fibrowatt approach – continues. One source of information is the work of the South Carolina Biomass Council, an organization that holds quarterly meetings where industry research, trends and other information is shared. From their website, here is what the organization is all about:


The SC Biomass Council serves as a resource for the general public and decision-makers about the environmental and economic benefits of biomass energy. Through solid policy development, South Carolina can be energy independent and generate a reliable, affordable, and green source of power cleanly and efficiently. You can find them for yourself at http://www.scbiomass.org/  …

I had a look at the planned agenda for the April 2011 meeting, which includes the following presentations:

• Swine Waste-to-Energy with Anaerobic Digester: Burrows Hall Farm, Williamsburg Co.
• Poultry Litter-to-Energy with Gasification: Marsh Farms, Darlington Co.
• Tree Waste-to-Energy with 50kW Gasifier: Tree farm, St. Helena Island
• Food Waste-to-Energy with Anaerobic Digester: Columbia, SC
• Manufacturing Small-Scale Biogas Cogenerators in South Carolina

The council includes a range of stakeholders, including the major power companies in the state of South Carolina. In looking back through the meetings and after a scan of members, I find no reference to Fibrowatt here. I can’t draw any conclusions from their lack of participation, but I do find it strange that on the Shenandoah Valley working group none of these alternatives have made it into the discussion yet. These alternatives don’t even seem to be on the table…yet Fibrowatt is there, despite the robust investment in research going on around the industry!

For the next round of research I am going to look into the anaerobic digester technology to see what I can find out about how it works, and pros and cons. Keep an eye out for the posts!

Poultry Waste Gasification - Part 2

Last year I found the article, “Could Chicken Manure Help Curb Climate Change” in the USA Today paper; it was written by Brian Winter, and there is a link below. It’s an interesting case study of a farm-scale application, which may serve as the proof of concept for larger scale, industrial plants. The graphic accompanying this post was part of the article.


This is part two of the gasification posts, following up on last Friday’s which is here: http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2011/03/poultry-waste-gasification-part-1.html

Essentially, the graphic is an overview of the gasification process, where manure is feed into a gasifier and heated to high temperature, producing gas that can be used as fuel for other purposes – heating chicken houses in this case – and also producing biochar, the as product that can be used as fertilizer.

The article highlights the process’s advantages in reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas that is attributed to rising temperatures, reduced visibility, and other pollution-related impacts.

A feature of the gasification heating is a low oxygen approach – the article says that this means no smoke or odor from this stage of the process. This is the advantage gasification seems to offer over burning/incinerating processes such as the one used in Fibrowatt plants. However, while the process has a low impact in smaller-scale applications, there is still the problem of logistics – hauling the waste material to the plant – in the larger scale applications that might be proposed.

The USA Today article can be found here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2010-02-10-cheap-carbon_N.htm

Poultry Waste Gasification - Part 1

This morning we’ll start looking at alternatives to burning poultry litter as a fuel for generating electricity. My goal is to get a sense of how these alternatives compare with the Fibrowatt process…while I am just beginning to do this research, there will be a bit of learning and a discovery process.

The first approach I want to take a look at is gasification – a process that involves heating organic waste material to a point where it produces gas, which in turn becomes a fuel for the generator. I have a couple of reports that I’ve scanned through, and the links are below.

One of the reports show the following as the advantages of thermal heating produced using gasification:

• Steam production for space and process heating
• Electrical energy generation
• Heating of grow-out houses (poultry facilities)
• Producing chilled water for grow-out house cooling

The first item is the report of a gasification demonstration in Michigan, which used turkey litter as the fuel. The report is credited to a firm called Recovered Energy Resources, Inc., located in Washington, VA. Maybe I’ll make some time to find out more about these “locals” in the future, but for now, their web page is parked, although I do find an active yellow pages listing. One of the listings I found for them said they specialize in gasification based Biomass-to-Energy Power Plants in the Range of 1 - 10 MW.

The test was done in Michigan, working with Xcel Energy, and the date of the report is 2006. As late as 2010, Xcel reported that they were still in the process of converting three coal plants to gasification plants; however, I found a press release from November 2010 that says progress is halted due to costs. On the “coincidence, I think not front” it also happens that these decisions were made after the November 2010 elections.

Here is a straightforward reporting of the results of the poultry litter gasification test:

They monitored the emission of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and sulfur dioxide – all components of air pollution or greenhouse gas. Their reports show “exceptionally low” output for nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide, probably the worst of these by-products. There were visible calcium emissions, which they say are easily controlled.

The ash from this process was deemed to be of a fine, powdery composition – some of the other methods produce “clinkers” or chunks of ash, a high percentage of phosphorus, which makes it potentially saleable, and easy to handle while removing it from the gasifier.

So, on first pass, here is an alternative to Fibrowatt that could be applied to the poultry waste problem. Clearer, it is a scalable application, meaning that it could be used at the farm level, but offers the possibility of industrial-scale application as in the Xcel Energy case. But what I haven’t found yet is the total impact of those emissions, as in how much there is – if we are talking tradeoffs, then what might make this a better or worse technology than Fibrowatt’s?

I haven’t gotten far into how the process works with this one yet either. So I will look for that sort of material next: how does it work?

The test results source is here: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-ess-p2-ag-workshop-ppt-Schneider-PoultryLitter_192728_7.pdf
Wikipedia article on Xcel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcel_Energy
Press release on halting the Xcel Plant: http://www.jsonline.com/business/111018219.html

Poultry waste to energy: alternatives to Fibrowatt

I have been gathering some information on alternative methods for producing energy from poultry litter since I first came across the Fibrowatt proposal last year. In Page County, when we first encountered the company, we got a saturated message that made it sound like their process is the only solution.  There are some alternatives, and these technologies appear to offer scalable solutions – they can be installed down to the single farm level, with the possibility of being increased to larger-sized operations. Like any technology that deals with industrial scale waste, which is effectively what we are talking about with poultry litter, they come with trade-offs; still it seems worthwhile to check them out.


So over the next few posts I will be reviewing some of this material and posting summaries on the blog. While I am educating myself on them, I'll refer to the technologies as:

• Biochar – a process that heats the waste at a low temperature, providing heat for local use and a by-product, the char, that can be used as a fertilizer, with the benefit of long-term storage of carbon dioxide
• Gasification – a process that uses heat to treat the waste, producing a gas fuel the feeds the process itself and heat that can be used in a variety of applications. There are by-products, my research will look into what they are and alternatives for using them.

I have case study material from South Carolina, Michigan, and West Virginia to go through here – what it says to me is there is no need to rush ahead with the proposed Fibrowatt approach. Virginia’s working group should be sure to take a look at these alternatives as well.

Repost: An Open Letter to Fibrowatt

The second poultry litter to energy working group meeting has been scheduled for 1:00pm Monday, March 28, 2011 at the DEQ office in Harrisonburg (address and directions: http://www.deq.virginia.gov/regions/valley.html ). Continuing on the topic of Fibrowatt for today, I am reposting from the archives an “Open Letter to Fibrowatt.” I wrote this post after an exchange with Terry Walmsley of Fibrowatt, where he accused me of spreading misinformation on my blog about his company.


The irony of that accusation was that most of the material I originally referred to comes from the Fibrowatt web site. There are plenty of alternative locations where you can find information about the company or its practices, however, my initial research in March 2010 was drawn from their own information sources.

Page County and the rest of the Shenandoah Valley are enjoying the beginning of an active tourism boom, which celebrates outdoors activities. From Roanoke to Front Royal there are hundreds of events in this sector – marathons, fun runs, endurance bike races, etc. – that one could logically expect to be harmed by such a prominent and visible source of air pollution. In Page County’s case, where employment has been a chronic challenge, active tourism has been among the bright spots; while a Fibrowatt plant located there might have an impact from adding a few jobs, it would certainly offset those gains with losses in the tourism sector.

Here is the repost, with a few edits for brevity.

Terry,

As I mentioned privately last week, I appreciate your candor and support in the research. I'm disappointed now that [you'll] be calling into question the language I use to describe the potential impacts of industrial uses of land that is currently open farmland and part of the overall character of Page County.

I gave you and Fibrowatt a fair shake and treated the research with an arm's length approach. While I read the press and other side's perspective, I avoided the use of the word "incinerator" to describe the furnace process. I have argued here that maybe Fibrowatt's process is part of a solution that bridges the fossil fuel society we currently are to a sustainable zero impact society of the future. I have come to a fairly complex conclusion and stand on middle ground about this prospect.

In the end I didn't even draw on the Yadkin River Keeper or the other Fibrowatch material to make my decision. The "alleged" shake-down violation and "alleged" late compliance with self reporting that I read about on your own site led me to the Minnesota permitting document and the list of what's allowed in the plume coming out of the 300-foot stack.

…readers can imagine for themselves the impact a plant [in Page County] will have on tourism...since Shenandoah National Park attracts 1 million visits annually and Luray Caverns another half million; and we now have 3 triathlons, 2 state level bike races, and quite a few 5 and 10Ks going on in the area, I think the impact of a 300 foot stack and a plume - no matter how benign one might say that plume is - will have a very serious impact on a County that has [no other economic advantage]. Have you modeled the economic impact your plant would have on these industries upon its prospective arrival?

Those triathlons would end when groundbreaking occurs. That means several hundred room nights and meals go up in smoke, since the tri-athletes come for the weekend and enjoy the area before and after their event.

Now, I don't hold [Fibrowatt] entirely responsible for this potential impact - it is [Page County EDA] that is trying to change the balance with the discussions you are now having.

I'll stand by my descriptions. I have written my stand against any industrial use of the [proposed Page County location] long before I heard about Fibrowatt. Any industrial use of that site is going to have a devastating impact on the Page County economy - including a Fibrowatt plant.

Best,
"Cabin Jim"