[Terrapreta] FYI -

[Kelpie Wilson]

The Energy Challenge
 From Turkey Waste, a New Fuel and a New Fight
Ben Garvin for The New York Times

Greg Langmo, a turkey grower who lobbied for the 
litter-burning power plant, visiting a farm where 
he keeps some of his 49,000 birds.

By SUSAN SAULNY
Published: June 6, 2007

BENSON, Minn. — For anyone curious about what 
thousands of tons of turkey litter looks like, 
piled high into an indoor olfactory-assaulting 
mountain of manure, this old railroad stop on the 
extreme edge of alternative energy production is the place to be.

Benson is home to the nation’s only manure-fired power plant.

Thanks to the abundance of local droppings, 
Benson is home to a new $200 million power plant 
that burns turkey litter to produce electricity. 
For the last few weeks now, since before 
generating operations began in mid-May, turkey 
waste has poured in from nearby farms by the 
truckload, filling a fuel hall several stories high.

The power plant is a novelty on the prairie, the 
first in the country to burn animal litter 
(manure mixed with farm-animal bedding like wood 
chips). And it sits at the intersection of two 
national obsessions: an appetite for lean meat 
and a demand for alternative fuels.

But it has also put Benson, a town of 3,376 some 
three hours west of Minneapolis, on the map in 
another way: as a target of environmental 
advocates who question the earth-friendliness of the operation.

The critics say turkey litter, of all farm 
animals’ manure, is the most valuable just as it 
is, useful as a rich, organic fertilizer at a 
time when demand is growing for all things 
organic. There is a Web site devoted to detailing 
the alleged environmental wrongs at the power 
plant, which detractors consider just another 
pollutant-spewing, old-technology incinerator dressed up in green clothing.

A related issue is that the electricity is 
expensive, as called for in a utility contract 
that led to the plant’s construction, and that it 
requires a lot of input for a rather small 
output. Marty Coyne of Platts Emissions Daily, a 
newsletter that analyzes issues related to the 
energy markets, said it would take 10 
waste-burning plants the size of the one here to 
equal the energy generated by one medium-size coal-fired plant.

David Morris, vice president of the Institute for 
Local Self-Reliance, an advocacy group with 
offices in Minneapolis and Washington, said: “As 
a matter of public policy, it stinks. The problem 
is that it’s using a resource in an inefficient 
way, and required huge subsidies to create a more 
inferior product than what was already being sold on the market.”

All the unwanted attention shows, once again, how 
the landscape of renewable energy production is 
fraught with potential land mines, even in a case 
that seems small-scale and straightforward. What 
could be so offensive about burning turkey poop?

“This is the only advancement in manure 
utilization since the manure spreader — that’s 
100-year-old technology,” said Greg Langmo, a 
third-generation turkey farmer who lobbied for 
the plant, where he now works as a field manager.

Minnesota produces more turkeys than any other 
state, some 44.5 million birds in 2005, the most 
recent year for which data are available. It 
follows that the turkeys leave behind a lot of 
waste in their pens, where most are confined to 
gobble and peck until they are robust enough for 
slaughter. The Benson plant, then, has been of 
considerable help for farmers with a disposal problem.

The plant was built by Fibrowatt, a 
Philadelphia-based company, with financial 
incentives from the State of Minnesota. And, 
without precedent in the United States, it is 
largely a test case, watched carefully because 
Fibrowatt has plans to expand its operation to other big poultry states.

Officials at the company did not expect a 
perfectly smooth start but are surprised by the level of debate over the plant.

“We are completely puzzled by why people would 
make such a major effort to denigrate what we’re 
doing,” said Rupert J. Fraser, the chief 
executive, whose father pioneered manure-burning 
technology decades ago in Britain. Fibrowatt ran 
three such plants there before moving to 
Philadelphia to enter the American market.

“We’re seeking to provide an environmentally 
sustainable service to the industry which 
produces renewable energy,” Mr. Fraser said. 
“We’re not claiming to be the only solution, but 
we think we are environmentally responsible and 
are doing everything to the highest possible standard.”

Fibrowatt is advancing an important goal, Mr. 
Fraser said: the reduction of dependence on 
fossil fuels and their attendant pollutants.

But biomass burning, as it is called, produces 
its own pollutants. According to information in 
one of its federal air permits, the plant is a 
major source of particulate matter, sulfur 
dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and 
hydrogen sulfide. It was granted permission to 
operate because of the way the emissions are 
controlled and cleaned before being released into 
the air — “All projected impacts were well below 
Minnesota’s health risk values,” the permit says 
— but officials will continue monitoring it.

“We shouldn’t just assume that because something 
is called an energy source, it’s a good one,” 
said J. Drake Hamilton, science policy director 
at Fresh Energy, an advocacy group in St. Paul. 
“You have to evaluate: where did this waste 
product come from? You have to look at the whole 
life cycle, how the plants were grown, what the 
turkey was fed. You want to be careful about what 
you’re putting into the air and water.”

Pet owners who see newfound possibilities for 
their household litter boxes should know that it 
will take about 500,000 tons of turkey waste to 
produce enough electricity for a few rural 
counties for a year. And not all litter burns 
well, although turkeys’ does, at least relatively so.

Unlike cow or hog manure, which is wet, turkey 
litter is mostly dry. That aids combustion. So 
does the fact that it is mixed with 
turkey-bedding materials like sunflower hulls, wood chips and alfalfa stems.

At the plant here, a boiler produces 
high-pressure steam that drives a 55-megawatt 
generator. Throughout operations, a negative air 
pressure system controls odors from becoming a nuisance outside the facility.

Part of what drew Fibrowatt to Minnesota, Mr. 
Fraser said, was a legislative mandate, back in 
the early 1990s, that the primary utility in the 
area, Xcel Energy, build a wind or biomass 
generating plant, or contract for electricity 
from one, as a way of reducing Minnesota’s dependence on traditional energy.

To meet the requirement, said Karen Hyde, Xcel’s 
managing director of resource planning and 
acquisition, the company entered into a 21-year 
agreement with Fibrowatt to buy all of the 
waste-burning plant’s power at a rate that was, 
at the time, twice the price of the electricity 
generated by plants fired by fossil fuels.

Because the price of fossil fuel has gone up, 
Miss Hyde said, the contract is more 
cost-effective today: the waste-burning 
electricity is now 30 percent more expensive than 
power from conventional plants.

“Some people call it a subsidy — that’s fine,” 
said Mr. Fraser, Fibrowatt’s chief executive, who 
prefers to look at it as “an incentive for change.”

“Any way you look at it,” he said, “you’re not 
going to get a shift from fossil-fuel energy to 
renewable energy without an equivalent change in 
the financial structure of energy policy.”

Back on his turkey farm, Mr. Langmo let the 
gritty litter from some of his 49,000 birds fall 
through his fingers. In one year, his farms will 
produce 8,000 tons of manure, and the power plant 
is buying manure from farmers for $3 to $7 a ton, depending on the quality.

“Is it green enough?” Mr. Langmo said of the 
operation. “I’m in no position to judge that.”

But he added: “It just feels right. And I think 
the vast majority of Americans would look and say, ‘I think it makes sense.” ”

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