Manure Powered Boiler Focus of Field Day

Dick Wanner
Lancaster Farming Staff

PORT TREVERTON, Pa. — About 75 people turned out Sept. 30 for a no-till/alternative energy/spreader calibration field day sponsored by the Snyder County Conservation District. The field day was held on an 85-acre crop and turkey farm owned by the Mack Curtis family, who also operates a mostly ag-based truck and trailer repair facility at their Wind View Farm.

Curtis is no stranger to no-till. He started his farming career in Vermont some 30 years ago, where his father experimented with no-till and other conservation practices. The family moved from Vermont to a dairy farm in Peach Bottom, Lancaster County, where they no-tilled some of the ground.

And 14 years ago, they moved to their hilly and windswept farm in Snyder County. After 30 years of practice, he said he's still learning how to care for the soil.

"I credit the conservation district with helping to make me more aware of my environmental responsibilities," he said. "We no-till. We tile. We contour. But we're a work in progress. There'll always be something new to learn."

In July, Curtis installed a two-million British thermal unit (Btu) manure-fired boiler on the farm to heat his two 50-foot by 650-foot turkey houses. Each house holds 14,000 turkeys, which are contracted to Empire Poultry. The boiler burns the manure from the houses, replacing propane as a fuel. Over time, the system will pay for itself with fuel savings, but it's not the only reason Curtis decided to install it.

"We figure that by burning the manure, rather than spreading it on the land, we'll be keeping about 20 tons of phosphorus from running off and eventually going to the Chesapeake Bay. I think that's pretty good for a little farm like ours."

The ash from the manure is high in phosphorus, and is potentially a salable commodity. It could be used as a feed additive, or as a fertilizer component for soils deficient in the element. But because marketing ash is a new or even non-existent business at this point, Curtis said he's working with the Pennsylvania Fertilizer Council to develop strategies for handling the byproduct of his heating system. For now, he said he's keeping it in dry storage.

The boiler on Wind View farm was installed by Bio-Fuel Technologies LLC of Mifflintown, Pa. Their website is www.thebiomassboiler.com. Bio-Fuel's president and CEO, Bob Rice, said he's been working on the concept for about 10 years, and started selling systems about five years ago. The company has 11 installations, mostly in schools and greenhouses, but he and his new chief operating officer, Bruce Lisle, expect to double or triple that number over the next year or two.

The core components are a stoker/burner, which sits under a low-pressure tube boiler. Other components include a touch-screen computerized operating system, fuel conveyor, blowers, a cyclone to capture any ash that might have gotten into the exhaust and a few other parts. The base system cost about $200,000. The buyer, in this case Mack Curtis, has to install lines and the heat exchangers that are the real focus on the system.

Curtis said he has 14 heaters in his two barns. Although he hasn't had any heating requirements since they were installed, he expects they'll keep his barns evenly heated from end to end. And, as an important bonus, they'll keep the air drier. Propane, when it burns, injects 0.8 pounds of moisture into the air for every gallon of gas burned. There is some speculation about the effect this moisture can have on feed efficiency and bird health.

Paul Patterson and Michael Hulet, poultry specialists with Penn State extension, are working closely with Curtis to build a database that will help them answer some of the questions about wet heat vs. dry heat in a poultry operation. "We've got data loggers at both ends of both barns to record temperature, moisture, fluctuations...we're going to get a lot of information," said Curtis. "But it's going to take a flock or two before we can draw any conclusions."

A big advantage of the Bio-Fuel system, according to Bruce Lisle, is its ability to burn just about any dry fuel — wood chips, corn stover, switchgrass and even coal. The chain grate that runs through the stoker gets primary and secondary combustion air from above and below. The combustion process is visible through a large window at one end of the stoker. Manure fed into the combustion was totally burned with the first foot or two of its travel on the chain, and reduced completely to ash, which continued on the chain until it fell into an ash pit.

The boiler room demonstration was only part of the field day. Penn State's Paul Patterson was on hand with a power point presentation about the economics of propane, and the place of phosphorus in agriculture, the economy and the environment.

Barry Spangler, an ag conservation technician with the Snyder County Conservation District, ran a manure spreader calibration workshop.

And Joel Myers, with the Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance was on hand to explain the virtues and the challenges of no-till planters.

Dick Wanner can be contacted at rwanner.eph@lnpnews.com, or by phone at 717-419-4703.