technologies that produce methane gas from cow, pig, turkey, chicken and human waste and turn it into electricity, fuel and organic fertilizer.
The market for biodiesel and ethanol really started to boom in August 2005, after passage of the federal Energy Policy Act, experts say. The bill set a new standard requiring the U.S. to use 7 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2012. Today, only a tiny fraction of U.S. biodiesel is made from chicken fat, but that seems likely to change.
Today, only a tiny fraction of U.S. biodiesel is made from chicken fat, but that seems likely to change. The rising cost of soybean oil which accounts for roughly 90 percent of all biodiesel fuel stock is pushing the industry to exploit cheap and plentiful animal fats. This why GELV is positioning itself to acquire the technology and take advantage of the opportunities that have been mandated by the federal government and appear to be just around the corner in terms of peak growth and production.
Green Fuel from Waste: Methane
There is a definite economic advantage. A single filling of 300 pounds of manure will produce about 1500 cubic feet of methane equivalent to roughly 62 US gallons. That's not bad when it costs only three cents to produce. Motoring on methane offers more than the $.03-a- gallon economy. In addition, Methane gas provides 97 to 98% combustion compared to the 27% combustion, (with the rest going out the exhaust in the form of carbon and pollution of gasoline).
There is a definite ecological benefit. Engine wear is also markedly cut since methane, being dry, cannot dilute nor contaminate motor oil in the way that gasoline does and sparkplugs last much longer. Spark plugs taken out of cars after five years on Methane have been as clean as the day they were put them in, running cleaner, smoother and with more power on Methane.
Vegetable waste is a valuable addition to methane raw materials. The manure contributes mainly nitrogen and the straw provides carbon, it seems. The ideal mixture is about 75% droppings (half pig and half chicken) and 25% straw. Methane brewed up from this formula has a caloric value per liquid pound of 22,000 B.T.U. as compared to gasoline's 19,000, propane's 19,944 and butane's l9,680.
Green Fuel from Waste: BioDiesel
The U.S. biodiesel production is tripling annually, going from 25 million gallons in 2004 to 75 million in gallons in 2005. The final tally for 2006 was near 225 million.
As the Black Oil economy dictates the high and rising price of fuel there is accelerating interest in various forms of Methane and Biodiesel creation, although research work on ‘chicken fat’ and pig manure fuel has been going on for many years. We are trying to expand the petroleum base, as 5%-20% blending of biodiesel into petroleum-based diesel could significantly reduce dependence on foreign oil.
The Green Movers & Shakers
The nation's biggest meat corporations have taken notice. Tyson Foods announced in November it has established a renewable energy division that will be up and running during 2007. Competitors Perdue Farms Inc. and Smithfield Foods Inc. are making similar moves. As meatpackers enter the field, they bring massive amounts of fuel stock that could make biodiesel cheaper and more plentiful.
The shift to animal fat as a fuel stock could be key to making the budding biodiesel industry a reliable fuel source for U.S. trucking fleets, said Vernon Eidman, a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota who has extensively studied the biofuels industry. Eidman estimates that within five years, the U.S. will produce 1 billion gallons of biodiesel, and half of it will be made from animal fat. By that time soybean-based biodiesel will account for about 20 percent of the total, he said.
For fuel refiners, the allure of animal fat is clear. Soybean oil costs 33 cents a pound while chicken fat costs 19 cents. Soybean oil is in the blend because it adds necessary lubrication for engine parts.
For companies like Tyson, the attraction is simple. Being the nation's biggest meat company, Tyson is also the biggest producer of leftover fat from chicken, cattle and hogs. Tyson is keeping the specifics of its renewable fuels division under tight wraps. But Tyson Vice President Jeff Webster told a recent investment conference the potential is clear. Tyson produces about 2.3 billion pounds of chicken fat annually from its poultry plants. That's about 300 million gallons that could be converted to fuel.
Biofuel in Action Around the World
The United States produces almost 5,000,000,000 kilograms of fat from chickens, cows and pigs each year, so it is not surprising that enterprising scientists would look for ways to use this ‘waste’ product.
Gas Technology Institute (GTI) DES PLAINES, Ill., has successfully demonstrated that chicken litter can be gasified to produce hydrogen and generate electricity using a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC).
Over 100,000 automobiles have made the switch to Methane recently in Italy, including about one third of the taxis in Milan. Gasoline stations there are now selling "Metano" (Methane gas). Converted vehicles carry heavy tanks in which commercially produced Methane is stored under pressure.
In 2003, the other side of the world, New Zealand was gearing up to use thousands of tons of animal fats (tallow), which is the by-product of the country’s meat industry. It has an output of 150,000 tons of tallow currently exported for use in animal foods or chemicals manufacture. The New Zealand contingent stated that to process this waste is doubly energy-efficient when compared to producing biodiesel from specially grown crops. It was envisaged that use of the biodiesel would be to drive diggers and other machinery on a hydro-electric scheme, giving them the distinction to be the first country in the world with sheep-fat powered bulldozers.
Two poultry companies Allen Family Foods and British-owned Fibrowatt are planning to build power plants fueled by chicken litter in Maryland’s Dorchester County. The approach was conceived in part because of new state and federal regulations that tighten restrictions on the use of chicken litter as fertilizer. Poultry waste has been blamed for polluting Chesapeake Bay tributaries and causing fish kills. Chicken giant Perdue Inc. has found another way to use the waste so it doesn’t end up on Eastern Shore farm fields. The company is building a $12 million plant on the outskirts of Blades, DE to turn chicken litter into fertilizer pellets for Midwestern farms. The multibillion-dollar poultry business is one of the largest on the Delmarva Peninsula, which has more than 6,000 chicken houses, each one holding about 25,000 birds. The chickens create as much as 800,000 tons of litter a year, much of which is spread on farm fields as fertilizer. The Dorchester County Chamber of Commerce has endorsed plans for a 40 megawatt power plant that would burn 300,000 tons of poultry litter purchased from local farmers and 100,000 tons of forest waste a year producing enough electricity to power all of the county’s homes. The plant would be operated by Fibroshore, the U.S. subsidiary of Fibrowatt, which runs three chicken waste power plants in the United Kingdom.
In the United States, several federal agencies have been promoting power generation from burning LFG (Land Fill Gas) but now Inch’on City in South Korea is home to the largest garbage-fueled power plant in the world.
The municipality of São Paulo has combined cooling and power from incineration of biomass and the city of Seoul, South Korea, another major metropolitan area elsewhere around the globe, just began to receive power to more than 180,000 households from what currently is the world’s largest garbage-fueled power plant. The 50-megawatt plant runs only on bio-methane, i.e., the gas that is collected as garbage or other animal waste decomposes. A private firm, Eco Energy, invested 77 billion won (83 million U.S. dollars) in building the power plant.
In return, the company received commercial rights to the electricity generated by the plant that began operating 12 December. The plant sits on a mammoth garbage dump in the coastal city of Incheon, which is located west of Seoul. The private company retains those commercial rights for 11 years before they hand over operations to a South Korean department for waste management.
In 2002, ASDA supermarket chain in Britain was unwittingly at the centre of a cooking-oil scam. The company’s innocent involvement in a moonshine operation at Llanelli, South Wales, led to a special ‘frying squad’ to be set up by Dyfed Powys police, who discovered that hundreds of fuel-tax dodging drivers were running their cars on “extra value” cooking oil mixed with methanol.
Ironically, as a knock-on effect ASDA decided to try running its own fleet of trucks on waste from kitchen frying pans that the company produces- more than 50,000,000 litres of used cooking oil and 138,000 litres of waste frying fat every year from its canteens, restaurants and rotisseries. And, having been approached earlier by a biofuels refiner, they decided to go into the biofuels business for themselves. A ‘spin-off’ was the boost to the legal use of recycled cooking oil by vehicles on Britain’s roads and from January 2003, trucks were to carry slogans saying “This vehicle is powered by chicken fat”!
According to a report published by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), not only is the livestock sector a major contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—18%— as measured in CO2 equivalent, but it also is a major source of land and water degradation. Most of the air and water pollution comes from manure.
When emissions from land use (such as production of feed crops and grazing land) and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9% of CO2 derived from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65% of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2.
Green Energy Live is developing new technologies and along with America’s farmers and livestock businesses are working together to provide Green Energy for our future today.
Green Energy Live Bio Waste Mission
- Acquire Green Technologies that convert animal waste into fuel and electricity
- Build completely covered feedlot and dairy facilities to:
- Protect and preserve our environment by keeping rain and surface water separate from animal waste.
- Complete management of urine, manure and rain water
- Use patented anaerobic digester fermentation technology
- to capture animal waste and produce biogas methane
- liquid N-P-K fertilizer stream,
- clean recyclable water
- nearly pathogen free biomass fiber which resembles peat moss
- Renewable methane gas for “green” electrical energy output
- Methane Gas Production from Chicken-Pig-Cow-Sheep-Horse and Human manure -- also the construction of Methane Gas digesters of all sizes
The recycling of diverse consumables, such as the re-use of cooking oils and that of animal fats and their waste product, is one part of the biofuels innovations, but there are other important aspects regarding this diversity we can also appreciate. By using otherwise waste and by-products in this manner we do not upset the ‘balance’ of the agricultural panoply. Animals raised and plants grown that are already designated for human consumption are not in excess of current needs. However, when it comes to growing crops for biomass fuels for specific use, which unlike fossil fuels are not already there on tap, agricultural planners and environmentalists need to take care that this particular form of supply for modern energy production does not cause us unwanted problems.
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