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Friday, April 16, 2010

Process converts chicken manure to electricity, offering hope for less pollution from farms

Chicken manure has garnered headlines for contaminating the Chesapeake Bay, but one Southern farmer may have found a way to use it for good. Mississippi chicken farmer John Logan and University of Mississippi researchers have converted chicken manure into energy with the world's first successful chicken poop digester, Phoebe Judge of National Public Radio reports. Digesters have been used to covert cow manure into energy. Chicken manure was mixed with other types of manure to produce fuel, but Logan's digester is the first to use only chicken waste.

Logan, a self-proclaimed conservationist, brainstormed the idea several years ago when he realized "phosphorus content in his groundwater had become too high, because of chicken fecal contamination," Judge writes. Every day, Logan's digester mixes four tons of chicken manure with bacteria to create methane gas, which is then converted to energy. Logan says his electricity bill went from $8,000 per month before he installed the machine to $200 during the first month of operation. Last month he received a small check from the power company for the electricity his unit put into the system.

Digesters have not caught on due to a number of state, local and federal energy policies. You can read our report about those problems in California here. However, Logan is marketing his digester to other chicken farmers and already has four operating in Mississippi, two in the works in Maryland and Delaware and plans for production with three companies in Italy, Australia and India. "The more options that chicken growers have in handling the manure in a proper and environmental manner, the better off they are, and the better off the industry is," Bill Satterfield, executive director of the Delmarva Poultry Industry trade group, told Judge. (Read more)

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