Chicken Power | Green Energy News

July 10, 2005 – Vol.10 No.16

CHICKEN POWER.

It’s hard to imagine a tasty chicken sandwich as a cause of water pollution, but it may be.

As way to dispose of chicken litter (manure), large chicken farms often spread it on fields as fertilizer. At first glance this seems a productive use of waste. However, in cases where fields are in close proximity to rivers and steams, rain on fertilizer-soaked soils sends runoff into waterways. Fertilizer as fuel for crops is a good thing. Fertilizer entering water is not.

What’s fuel for crops might, however, be better used as a fuel for chicken farming operations.

The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) has demonstrated the possibility of using gasified chicken litter as fuel for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). In a project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, GTI, Earth Resources Inc. and the University of Georgia, litter is fed into a gasifier operating at 1550 degrees F (843 C). The resulting gas is scrubbed and fed into a SOFC operating at 1470 F degrees (799 C).

The fuel cell, as fuel cells do, generates electricity and heat. The solid byproduct of the gasification process can be used as fertilizer. (True, the process still makes fertilizer, but less than the amount that would have been spread on fields before the gasification process and fuel cell were introduced.)

In a farming operation, electricity generated is used on site and thermal energy is used to heat chicken houses. The solid byproduct/fertilizer could be used on fields, or perhaps sold to other farmers or to the fertilizer market

Key to the technology would be cost, which researchers think could be affordable.

Another option, by the way, would be to use a Stirling Engine generator in place of the fuel cell. Stirling engines, less expensive than a fuel cell and already commercially available, would burn the gasified chicken litter and offer lower emissions than an internal combustion engine, but not as low as the fuel cell . Visit the GTI at http://www.gastechnology.org/ , and for Stirling engine technology visit STM Power at http://www.stmpower.com/