Use of Chicken Manure Could Supplement Fuels and Prevent Toxic Runoff

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Monday December 17, 3:25 am Eastern Time

Chicken Manure May Be Used in Fuel

FARM SCENE: Chicken Manure Could Become Environmentally Friendly Fuel,

Professor Says

By VICKI SMITH

Associated Press Writer

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- Al Stiller admits his discovery is at the outer

limits of what some already consider a fringe science. He can't even fully

explain why it works.

But chicken manure, he insists, makes good fuel.

Liquefied, cooked and sterilized by heat and intense pressure, it can be

blended with diesel to power an engine with no significant difference in

performance.

And that, says the West Virginia University chemical engineering professor,

has global implications: If it were to catch on, a blend that's 65 percent

diesel and 35 percent liquid waste would reduce the nation's dependence on

foreign oil and solve a nagging environmental problem for the poultry

industry.

``I don't know how it does it,'' Stiller says. ``It just does.''

Chicken farmers in West Virginia, land, Virginia and other states have

been blamed for fouling streams and rivers with runoff that is high in

nitrogen from manure plowed into the ground as fertilizer.

Many believe the runoff damages fish and plant life, leading to outbreaks of

such toxic microbes as Pfisteria piscicida. Yet, as food and meat production

increase, so too will the need for disposal.

Stiller and two other WVU scientists say their work has the potential for

widespread use.

The field of biofuels has not received its due, they say, and the little

work that is being done focuses mostly on corn and soybeans, both of which

have established lobbies to seek funding.

The poultry waste-to-fuel idea was born in 1996, while Stiller was working

on a coal liquefaction project. He needed sources of hydrogen to break the

coal down, and he began using old tires.

He quickly discovered that the supply of 250 million tires per year was

insufficient. Stiller switched to animal manure, which showed such potential

that he cut coal out of the project.

Even in the small, rural state of West Virginia, poultry is a $200 million a

year industry with about 350 farms producing 91.3 million broilers last

year.

``The average guy in West Virginia has about 500 tons of litter to dispose

of every year,'' says Rich , Stiller's research partner. ``Converting

that to fuel would be worth almost a quarter-million dollars.''

Farmers could have self-contained units to dispose of waste, produce fuel

and then use that fuel to help power diesel generators or farm equipment at

a lower cost.

Horse and cow manure may also work in a fuel blend, Stiller says, but

chicken farms have a political problem in need of a solution, so that's

where he has focused.

At first, the work was done with no university funding and no student

assistants. The West Virginia Development Office has since kicked in funds

and the scientists have found a commercial partner in Northco Corp., a

town company that manufactures mining equipment

Stiller still needs to study the practical economics for a farm. He also

wants to investigate the potential of the residue that's left behind when

the manure is liquefied.

On the Net:

West Virginia University: http://www.cemr.wvu.edu/index1.html

U.S. Department of Energy: http://www.ott.doe.gov/biofuels

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