Kansas to tap manure as source of electricity
By Steve Everly, The Kansas City Star
Meadow muffins, meet Reddy Kilowatt. Let’s translate that: Meadow muffins, better known as cow manure, have a future in producing electricity.
Gene Pflughoft is the economic development director for Grant County in southwest Kansas. Early next year, he said, equipment at a cattle feedlot will begin turning manure into fuel that could make electricity for 30 homes. If the demonstration project is successful — and Pflughoft is confident it will be — larger units could be placed at feedlots to take advantage of the state’s abundant supplies.
Kansas has plenty of cow manure, with two cows for every human in the state. Over the course of a year, just one cow’s manure contains the same amount of energy found in 140 gallons of gasoline.
“There’s a lot of interest, and it’s very renewable,” he said.
The Bipartisan Policy Conference in Washington — established by former U.S. Sens. Bob Dole, Howard Baker, Tom Daschle and George Mitchell — recently issued a study that said Kansas could use more cow manure by blending it with coal. The report said that 50,000 cows could provide enough dung to power 24,000 homes. Manure from other sources is also being used — even to make gasoline.
In Missouri, poultry farmers have approached Kansas City Power & Light about adding manure as fuel to coal-fired power plants. The utility said it was collecting information. Meanwhile, a 55-megawatt plant in Minnesota is relying on turkey droppings.
Valero Energy, a Texas refining company that can make 3 million gallons of fuel a day, is providing cash to a company that has made batches of high-octane gasoline using manure in a fermented mix. A demonstration plant at Port Arthur, Texas, will produce 1.3 million gallons of fuel a year.
Mark T. Holtzapple, of chemical engineering at Texas A&M University, spent nearly 20 years developing the process that can produce gasoline for $1.75 to $2 per gallon without government subsidies. He half-jokingly recommends manure futures as an investment.
“I believe we will have a shortage of manure in the future,” he said.
Kansas has nearly 100 commercial feedlots that fatten 2.5 million cows every six months. Each produces an average of 6 pounds to 8 pounds of manure a day — 7 billion pounds of the stuff a year.
No wonder the authors of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s report suggested that a Kansas power plant located near some feedlots could use a blend of 90 percent coal and 10 percent manure to generate electricity.
