Jay Ford and Eastern Shorekeeper hosted a presentation by Kristen Hughes Evans, Executive Director and founder of Sustainable Chesapeake, a non-profit environmental organization supporting the Farm Manure-to-Energy Initiative, “a regional effort to evaluate the potential for manure-to-energy technologies to provide alternative markets for excess poultry litter nutrients.” The Farm Manure-to-Energy Initiative has evaluated the performance of thermal technologies that convert surplus poultry litter to electricity or heat, such as the Bio-Burner 500 project in Rockingham County, VA. Jane Lassiter also noted that she is working with Ms. Evans on multiple grants designed to save the Chesapeake Bay from manure run off, and said they were working on manure to energy projects.
Ken Dufty was on hand, and provides his notes and first person analysis of the presentation.
During her one hour presentation Evans said she is driven partly by watching children get sickened by poor water quality, and worked with California farmers to expand low and no till farming. She said she wanted to solve these water quality problems here on the Shore (run off from manure) and then export this technology around the world. Note she later repeated this saying “We are water quality people” and she is very excited “to be here at the epicenter of (manure) technology development—we will solve the world’s problems” and export the thermal manure technology we develop right here on the Eastern Shore “around the world”.
Shortly into the presentation, I raised my hand and asked if she is not talking about incineration, where did Dr. Reiter (who was sitting behind me) get his ash from for the USDA grant given to ESRC&D (note: he got it from a project that incinerated chicken manure to heat a poultry house. The project was a dismal failure, could not pass emission tests, and could not even run a week to even make the tests).
The President of Shorekeeper, George Reiger told of his trip to a West Virginia poultry manure gasification project where (he said) the whole valley received its electricity from this one farm that burned (whoops…heated) poultry manure. He indicated that despite his desire to bring that technology to the Eastern Shore to solve the poultry manure problem here (that the industry created but will not solve), they would not come here because of the amount of miles they would have to travel to get the manure from various chicken houses to the combustion facility.
Hughes went on later to talk about “circulating fluidized bed” technology which is the direct injection of fuel into a high temperature incinerator.
Note: During the presentation, Hughes’ denial that she was talking about incineration is misleading and I am absolutely shocked that Mr. Ford allowed this information to stand unchallenged after his introductory remarks that SHOREKEEPER simply wants to bring credible information to Shore residents so they can decide for themselves the merits of the issue. Here is the definition in Wikipedia of incineration: “incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of organic substances contained in waste materials”. In short, when you heat something that produces an ash, it is being incinerated.
David Kabler who referenced Hughes’ multiple references to “combustion sources asked if she thought that EPA regulations would be lessened once the new federal administration was seated. Hughes said that lessening standards probably would not be forthcoming, but she thought that existing standards would probably not be enforced once the new administration takes our environmental reigns. Kabler recommended that we all keep an eye on that pending issue.
I asked Hughes to talk about the 2 projects that were funded with public money through a Conservation Grant written by Sarah Reiter for the ES RC&D and in which Mark Reiter analyzed the ash from one of the projects. All of a sudden, Kristen knew very little about those projects…. even though later she went on to extol the benefits of the Virginia incinerator (whoops, there I go again!) and seemed to know quite a bit about the grant, even explaining why the projects never materialized on the Eastern Shore, where they were supposed to be conducted.
Evans said there is a 3-tier test for the viability of thermal treatment (a much more sanitized term) of poultry manure. They must meet environmental standards, be feasible from a technological perspective, and be profitable. She said there is no project YET that meets all three. Then another gentleman raised his hand and asked if she could name the projects that came close. Evans referenced the Glenn Roads project where a farmer burned wood in a boiler next to a chicken house and then experimented with chicken manure as a fuel in that boiler. While Evans said it worked beautifully, however he was no longer using chicken manure in his wood incinerator. This was due, she said to the farmer caring too much about his neighbors and the beautiful view shed, and the smoke that comes out the stack was too visible.
I did ask the question “isn’t it true that the ash from these incinerators has a very high concentration of phosphorous (actually 2-12 times more concentrated than chicken manure) and isn’t it true that this phosphorous is not readily available to plants, thereby causing even higher loads of phosphorous to surrounding waters like the Chesapeake?” Evans responded that this phosphorous is even more available to plants than that in chicken manure…and the uptake is sometimes being 10 times more available to plants. She then asked Dr. Reiter who was introduced by Evans as the world’s foremost expert on ash from poultry thermal treatment if that was true, and Dr. Reiter hesitated and then seemingly reluctantly said…”sometimes”.
Note: other studies on ash from poultry manure incinerators, including Dr. Reiter’s own study in the recent grant initiative, concludes that the phosphorous contained in the ash is highly concentrated and indeed is not readily available for plant uptake, therefore requiring more ash to be spread on the fields to meet the plant’s needs than organic manure itself.
Keep the final verdict out for this bees’ nest.
As one ponders why someone would want to make Cape Charles, Virginia the “epicenter of manure technology development” to solve the world’s problems and export the thermal manure technology developed on the Eastern Shore “around the world,” one must wonder what sort of an inducement factor for that proposed project, which incidentally is fraught with engineering problems according to the report entitled “On-farm Demonstration of Energy Generation and Phosphorus Recycling as an Alternative to Land Application of Poultry Litter” written by FPPC for Eastern Shore of Virginia Resource Conservation & Development Council, the ATTACHMENT B of the SWOT REVIEW of Northampton County’s 5 YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN 2014 – 2018 Adopted by the Board of Supervisors on April 8, 2014 with Updated Status Reports as of 1/23/2015 – Katie H. Nunez, County Administrator and With Modifications as made by the Board on February 23, 2015, as part of the initial Board of Supervisors retreat on March 10, 2012 was, where the Board of Supervisors and the Department Heads identified as Threats to the County as follows:
* “No Growth Crowd” – perception of the county; few landowners for the majority of the land
* Perception of “not business friendly”
* Retirees/groups who don’t want change
* Well-organized special interest groups
* Impacts of belief that county is not business friendly; county has excessive regulations, etc.
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Clearly, by labeling these people who might protest this siting of the “epicenter of manure technology development” in Northampton County to solve the world’s problems and export the thermal manure technology developed on the Eastern Shore “around the world” as a ‘No Growth Crowd,’ and by singling out retirees/groups who supposedly don’t want change as ‘threats’ to Northampton County, these people and their interests are being purposefully marginalized in what seems to be a tacit message to business interests such as the chicken industry that opposition to their plans will not be tolerated by the County government.
Seems to be a question that should be asked, anyway – were you chicken manure burning people guaranteed no citizen opposition in Northampton County?
As to the report entitled “On-farm Demonstration of Energy Generation and Phosphorus Recycling as an Alternative to Land Application of Poultry Litter” written by FPPC for Eastern Shore of Virginia Resource Conservation & Development Council, it serves as an excellent primer on the engineering problems that must be overcome to make the use of what is called “thermochemical conversion” in the executive summary of that report:
Executive Summary: This project involved demonstrating two different thermal manure-to-energy technologies at two locations.
One project was located on a poultry farm in Cheraw, South Carolina and the goal was to demonstrate the generation of grid connected electricity on a farm by using poultry litter as the fuel source.
The second project was located on a turkey farm in Port Republic, Virginia and the goal was to demonstrate an alternate method of heating a poultry house using turkey litter as the fuel source.
Both projects employed thermochemical conversion technologies that utilized poultry litter generated on their respective farms.
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And here is where we engineers get to play word games with lay people or non-engineers like Ken Dufty in an effort to obfuscate and confuse and deflect, which engineers can be very good at, indeed:
ENGINEER: But you are so wrong, Mr. Dufty, when you say we are going to incinerate the chicken manure.
We’re not going to incinerate the chicken manure, we are going to subject it to a thermochemical conversion technology, which is not the same thing as incineration.
According to your definition of incineration from WIKIPEDIA, “incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of organic substances contained in waste materials”.
Now, here is where you can see how wrong you are.
Chicken manure is a fuel, not a waste material, so obviously, since chicken manure is not a waste material, it has to logically follow that we are not using incineration as a waste treatment process, since there is no waste to treat.
Rather, our thermochemical conversion process is the application of heat and chemical processes in the production of energy products from biomass and a key thermochemical conversion process is gasification.
So the fact that we are producing energy products from the chicken manure means we are engaging in thermochemical conversion, as opposed to incineration.
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See what fun you can have with words?
So the thing to do here with the engineer is to accept what the engineer is saying about thermochemical conversion not being the same as incineration and instead do an en passant move over to emissions and ash, which brings us back to the utility of the report entitled “On-farm Demonstration of Energy Generation and Phosphorus Recycling as an Alternative to Land Application of Poultry Litter” written by FPPC for Eastern Shore of Virginia Resource Conservation & Development Council, which, as said above, serves as an excellent primer on the engineering problems that must be overcome to make the use of what is called “thermochemical conversion” in getting rid of chicken manure, be it fuel or waste material, for one can certainly be the other in the world of engineering.
As the report noted at p.2, “At this time, the system in SC is not currently being operated by the farmer, since it cannot continuously generate electricity.”
“While the project did prove that electricity can be generated on a farm and connected to the grid, a critical lesson learned is the importance of ensuring that all the components are designed to meet the inputs and outputs with each component’s efficiency taken into account.”
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Somebody didn’t do their engineering homework correctly, is what they are saying there.
As to the Port Republic, Virginia, project, at p. 3, the report informs us as follows:
However, the GR system failed to operate as designed.
The system had mechanical problems with the material handling equipment.
This caused the system to shutdown numerous times through the evaluation period.
The system would operate for several days without problems, and then shutdown due to errors.
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So much for the “epicenter of manure technology development” to solve the world’s problems and export the thermal manure technology developed on the Eastern Shore “around the world” being right at hand here, but maybe tomarrow.
So what about emissions, then?
At p.3 of the report, we were informed as follows with respect to the Port Republic project:
FPPC worked with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to secure a Biomass Test Air Permit, which allowed the unit to operate for testing purposes only.
This permit allows for additional data collection needed to support the final permitting decision process.
While initial emissions testing showed the system might need an abatement system for
particulate matter, later results from a 3rd party testing company showed the system need more emissions work than anticipated.
Global Refuel spent over a year trying to find the correct abatement technology to control the particulate matter, but decided that continuing to pursue the market for this technology was not in their company’s interest.
This project has shown that the Global Refuel system’s concept of burning poultry litter and heating the poultry house through hot air via a central duct work system can work.
However the combustion system needs more development to overcome its weaknesses.
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So there are a few issues there, people.
Getting back to the chicken manure issue, we have this from p.5:
Since the litter is collected once a year from the rooster and pullet houses and twice a year from the nest egg houses, covered storage was required to keep the litter dry.
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Think about the implications of that for a moment, people, as it affects groundwater quality.
To turn Cape Charles and Northampton County into the “epicenter of manure technology development” to solve the world’s problems and export the thermal manure technology developed on the Eastern Shore “around the world,” how much manure storage will be required and where will that be sited?
Getting back to the report:
The amount of manure from each type of house varies with the nest egg houses producing 67% of the litter, the pullet houses producing 18%, and the rooster houses producing 15% of the litter (mass basis).
It is well known that organic material can change with time and environment.
The different litters were not mixed except for some crossover in the litter storage shed.
These changes affected the energy content of the litter and this will be evaluated so the conditions of the litter feedstock going into the gasifier will be consistent and introduced at maximum efficiency for the system.
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There, people, is one of the major obstacles to be overcome in the development of this technology for chicken manure, and that should not be glossed over, nor should these from p.6:
System Design
For over twenty years, it was believed that manure could be gasified and the resulting syngas be used to produce liquid fuels or directly generate electricity in modified generators.
Several of these gasifiers used traditional style gasifiers with fluidized beds updraft, or downdraft systems.
These were proven technologies for traditional biomass and other products such as municipal solid waste and coal.
Other companies worked with entrained flow systems and other non- conventional gasifiers.
The problems encountered by these systems were primarily related to material handling, and the manure causing additional problems such as tars and other contaminates in the syngas.
These contaminates could quickly destroy any engine unless the syngas was cleaned.
On the small farm-level scale, the syngas contaminates were viewed as a costly problem.
Research with biomass gasification can directly relate to manures; however manures tend to offer more challenges than woody biomass.
For this reason most recent manure thermo-chemical technologies do not use traditional gasification methods or they directly combust the syngas.
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It is those problems that make these things a maintenance nightmare from an engineering standpoint, which point seems to have been totally glossed over in this dog-and-pony show this thread is about.
“Oh, trust us, people, no problemo, we have matters firmly in hand!”
Except they don’t.
As to the ash from the chicken litter, we have from p.9 as follows:
The 6-auger gasifier presented a challenge.
It would produce a carbon rich ash that maintained a significant portion of the energy in the feedstock but the augers would not be damaged or we could extract more energy from the ash, but at the expense of damaging the augers.
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So what ash are we going to analyze here, people, to determine its impacts on groundwater?
And back to p.22 for emissions for the chicken manure:
Emissions
The emissions were not tested using a 3rd party company as originally planned.
The emissions were checked periodically using a portable electronic emissions monitor.
The monitor could check Oxygen, Carbon Monoxide, and NOx.
The concentration of CO were always under 50 ppm while the NOx ranged from 50 to 125 ppm.
These are not EPA methods and should not be used for anything other than a way of checking to make sure the system is operating within its designed operating parameters.
Although the amount of particulate matter was not measured, the particulate matter was visible and that could lead to permitting issues in some states.
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So we can see that there are perhaps some issues here that should be further explained by the Shorekeeper people before a further commitment of resources is made to turning Cape Charles and Northampton County into the “epicenter of manure technology development” to solve the world’s problems and export the thermal manure technology developed on the Eastern Shore “around the world.”
Just a thought, anyway.
Now, if Ken Dufty were to come back in this above hypothetical scenario and ask either Shorekeeper or this hypothetical engineer or Dr. Reiter, the world’s foremost expert on ash from poultry thermal treatment, if in the end, is burning chicken manure in an incinerator really any different from burning chicken manure in a manure-to-energy facility, the answer would have to be, NO!
Regardless of the semantics employed, or the word games employed, and in these contests, which I have a lot of experience with, that is the name of the game, use word games and semantics, defined as the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text, to confuse lay people, thus making it difficult for them to ask reasonable questions or get responsible answers instead of obfuscation, as seems to be the case here with the denial of Kristen Hughes Evans, Executive Director and founder of Sustainable Chesapeake, a non-profit environmental organization supporting the Farm Manure-to-Energy Initiative, that incineration of chicken manure will be involved, in reality, as Ken Dufty makes abundantly clear, incineration of chicken manure is required if you are going to extract energy from it to do useful work, so in both cases, when you boil it all down to basics, whatever name you want to attach to it, be it incineration or thermal combustion, you are indeed burning chicken manure.
Thus, in either case, what comes into the exhaust stack in both cases from the combustion process and what goes out with the ash in both cases is based on an analysis of components of what the chicken manure in both cases contains.
That is known as a mass balance, and the mass balance is independent of the process employed.
What goes in must be accounted for in what comes out.
What doesn’t go up the stack remains with the ash if the combustion process is complete.
So the question for either Dr. Reiter or Kristen Hughes Evans would be this:
If either were to be presented with a sample of ash from an incinerator burning or incinerating chicken manure as a waste product, and a second sample from a thermal combustion unit burning or combusting chicken manure as a fuel, by any method of scientific analysis, would they be able to say with a degree of scientific certainty which sample came from which process?
Or would it in fact be a case of the ash from the incinerator being no different than ash from the manure-to-energy facility, assuming chicken manure as the fuel in both cases?
And if not, why would that be?
It would be very interesting and instructive to see how either would address that issue.