Poultry Litter Incineration

Report: Air Pol­lu­tion and Tox­ic Haz­ards Asso­ci­at­ed with Poul­try Lit­ter Incineration

Before the plant was even built, they sold off own­er­ship of the Fibrominn plant to a New York City hedge fund, Con­tour­Glob­al’s Pow­er­Minn 9090, LLC. Fibrowatt, LLC (now owned by the hold­ing com­pa­ny Home­land Renew­able Ener­gy) is pro­mot­ing sev­er­al incin­er­a­tors in the U.S., but does not cur­rent­ly own any. Orga­nized com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion has stopped Fibrowat­t’s plans in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in the U.S. and Europe.

Fibrowat­t’s air emis­sions have been the sub­ject of con­tro­ver­sy. The per­mit grant­ed for their Fibrominn project allows them to be Min­neso­ta’s largest sin­gle source of arsenic pol­lu­tion, their largest source of sul­fu­ric acid air emis­sions, their 2nd largest source of hydrochlo­ric acid air emis­sions, and a sig­nif­i­cant new source of diox­in pol­lu­tion. Based on air pol­lu­tion per­mit data, for sev­er­al pol­lu­tants, Fibrowat­t’s incin­er­a­tors would be dirt­i­er than new­ly-built coal pow­er plants (which we also vig­or­ous­ly oppose).

Once in oper­a­tion, Fibrominn has racked up numer­ous vio­la­tions, includ­ing hav­ing exceed­ed per­mit air pol­lu­tion lim­its for nitro­gen oxide, sul­fur diox­ide and car­bon monox­ide. As a result, the state of Min­neso­ta fined them $65,000 and required that they install a new sul­fur diox­ide mon­i­tor at a min­i­mum cost of $80,000. See the state’s Stip­u­la­tion Agree­ment for more details.

Poul­try waste is NOT a clean fuel. Bio­mass is NOT “green” energy.

Poul­try lit­ter con­sists of about half chick­en or turkey manure and half bed­ding (wood shav­ings and saw­dust). Fibrowat­t’s incin­er­a­tor projects seek to burn about 75% poul­try lit­ter plus about 25% “veg­e­ta­tive bio­mass,” which could be any­thing from crops grown specif­i­cal­ly to be burned to crop residue from tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­ture to oth­er­wise “non-valu­able” wood cut from log­ging oper­a­tions in forests.

There are oth­er com­pa­nies besides Fibrowatt seek­ing to build poul­try and oth­er ani­mal waste incin­er­a­tors. How­ev­er, Fibrowatt is the big play­er, seek­ing to build the largest of them — and the only one in the U.S. seek­ing to make elec­tric­i­ty to be sold as “green” ener­gy to gullible consumers.

Fibrowatt tends to come up with new names for each of their projects. Below is a list of exist­ing and pro­posed poul­try lit­ter incin­er­a­tors. They are tar­get­ing com­mu­ni­ties where there is a con­cen­tra­tion of poul­try waste pro­duc­tion from large poul­try agribusi­ness. They aim to truck in poul­try waste from a 50 mile radius, some­times going as far as 90 miles to obtain their “fuel.”

Air Emis­sions Data for three of the Fibrowatt poul­try waste incin­er­a­tors in the UK (Eye, Glan­ford and Thet­ford plants) can be found com­piled here: Excel for­mat / PDF for­mat for select pol­lu­tants. This data was sup­plied by the Fibrowatt plants to the UK envi­ron­men­tal agency.

Con­tact us for help:

Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work
Mike Ewall
215–743-4884
(email)

Fibrowatt can be stopped!:

• In August 2012, Fibrowatt aban­doned their effort to build a facil­i­ty in the cen­tral Shenan­doah Val­ley of Vir­ginia, after it was appar­ent that the util­i­ty would­n’t buy the ener­gy and that there was­n’t enough lit­ter to sup­port a large-scale incinerator.
• In Feb­ru­ary 2012, Fibrowatt with­drew the sec­ond of their three pro­pos­als in North Car­oli­na. They gave up their plan for an incin­er­a­tor in Bis­coe, Mont­gomery Coun­ty, leav­ing only their Samp­son Coun­ty, North Car­oli­na pro­pos­al, which by late 2012 also seems to have been abandoned.
• In Jan­u­ary 2012, com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion defeat­ed Fibroan­des in Pichidegua, Cachapoal Val­ley in cen­tral Chile. After 18 months of legal actions and mobi­liza­tions, involv­ing local author­i­ties and con­gres­sists, the region­al Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment Com­mis­sion defin­i­tive­ly reject­ed the project, which was pro­posed by Fibroan­des com­pa­ny as the first, to be repli­cat­ed in Chile and Latin America.
• In August 2010, after a six-week cit­i­zen upris­ing against Fibrowatt in and around Hart Coun­ty, Geor­gia (and in near­by South Car­oli­na), pub­lic offi­cials start­ed to come out against Fibrowatt and, once Fibrowat­t’s attempt to secure a pow­er pur­chase agree­ment fell through, they aban­doned their attempt to locate in the area.
• In March/April 2010, the Com­mis­sion­ers of Sur­ry Coun­ty, North Car­oli­na, the Elkin Cham­ber of Com­merce, the Yad­kin Val­ley Cham­ber of Com­merce and the Yad­kin Val­ley Tourism Author­i­ty came out opposed to Fibrowat­t’s pro­posed incin­er­a­tor in their com­mu­ni­ty. The Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers with­drew their mil­lions of dol­lars of finan­cial sup­port for Fibrowatt. The Yad­kin Val­ley Cham­ber wrote “The cham­ber is a pro-busi­ness orga­ni­za­tion, but we do not sup­port any busi­ness that would have a neg­a­tive impact on tourism, our cit­i­zens or the envi­ron­ment.” On May 16th, 2010, Sur­ry Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to stop nego­ti­a­tions with Fibrowatt and pur­sue oth­er busi­ness­es for the Elkin site, putting an end to the four-year bat­tle to stop Fibrowatt in the Wilkes and Sur­ry Coun­ty area.
• In March 2010, Fibrowatt was kicked out of Page Coun­ty, Vir­ginia, only a month after a furi­ous pub­lic learned that Fibrowatt was meet­ing with their pub­lic offi­cials, when coun­ty offi­cials wrote the com­pa­ny to say they’re no longer inter­est­ed. See more at the Page Coun­ty Cit­i­zens website.
• In 2005, after years of oppo­si­tion, the Fibroned project in the Nether­lands was stopped when the pro­jec­t’s per­mit was reject­ed for the sec­ond time.
• In 2002, oppo­si­tion to Fibrowat­t’s pro­posed “Fibromiss” incin­er­a­tor in Magee, MS caused the com­pa­ny to leave town and try locat­ing else­where in the coun­ty (Menden­hall, MS), where they have been opposed by local residents.
• Green Delaware, a grass­roots envi­ron­men­tal group in Delaware state has led the effort to ban incin­er­a­tion statewide in 2000, forc­ing Fibrowatt and oth­er poul­try waste incin­er­a­tor pro­mot­ers to move their plans out­side of the state.
• Carl Strick­ler, a key play­er in Fibrowat­t’s U.S. oper­a­tion (and Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Fibrominn project) was defeat­ed in 1998 when his pre­vi­ous com­pa­ny (Read­ing Ener­gy) was kicked out of Mor­risville, Penn­syl­va­nia — a small com­mu­ni­ty out­side of Philadel­phia — when they tried to build a wood waste incin­er­a­tor there in 1997.

Cor­po­ra­tion	Facil­i­ty Name	City/County	State	Coun­try	MW	Capacity/Fuel (tpy = tons/year)
Exist­ing
EPR/Fibrowatt	Fibropow­er	Eye	Suf­folk	UK	12.7	150,000 tpy poul­try lit­ter; See emis­sions data
EPR/Fibrowatt	Fibro­gen — Glan­ford Pow­er Station	Flixbor­ough	North Lin­colnshire	UK	13.5	Chick­en Lit­ter & Meat/Bone Meal; See emis­sions data
EPR/Fibrowatt	FibroTh­et­ford	Thet­ford	Nor­folk	UK	38.5	450,000 tpy chick­en lit­ter / oth­er bio­mass; See emis­sions data
Ener­gy Pow­er Resources Ltd.	West­field Pow­er Station	Car­den­den, Fife	Scot­land	UK	10	110,000 tpy chick­en lit­ter; See emis­sions data
Pow­er­Minn 9090, LLC (own­er) Fibrominn, LLC (oper­a­tor)	FibroMinn	Ben­son (Swift Coun­ty)	Min­neso­ta	USA	50	Went online June 2007 500,000 tpy turkey lit­ter plus 100–200,000 tpy alfal­fa; See Fibrominn per­mits here (scroll down to Fibrominn); See ini­tial stack tests: 7/4/2007 and 7/6/2007. Pic­tures avail­able here.
Defeat­ed Proposals
Fibrowatt	FibroMont	Mont­gomery	North Car­oli­na	USA
Fibrowatt	FibroAn­des	Patagua Cer­ro community	Pichidegua town VI Region (State)	Chile	35	300,000 tons/year; Oppo­si­tion group: Comite en defen­sa del medio ambi­ente de Pichidegua
Fibrowatt	Fibro­Ge­or­gia	Hart or Banks County	Geor­gia	USA		Oppo­si­tion group: Stop Fibrowatt in North­east Georgia For arti­cles, see Fibro­Ge­or­gia facil­i­ty pro­file.
Fibrowatt	Fibro­Hills	Elkin, Sur­ry Coun­ty (ini­tial­ly tar­get­ed Wilkes­boro, Wilkes County)	North Car­oli­na	USA		After a four year fight against Fibrowat­t’s pro­pos­al to build in Wilkes or Sur­ry Coun­ties, grow­ing oppo­si­tion from area res­i­dents, includ­ing the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty, result­ed in the the with­draw­al of finan­cial sup­port from Sur­ry County.
Eng­i­nu­ity Ener­gy LLC		Steel­ton (Dauphin County)	Penn­syl­va­nia	USA	10	Plan to burn poul­try lit­ter to pow­er the Arcelor­Mit­tal Steel­ton steel mill near pub­lic hous­ing was fought by NAACP and defeat­ed in 2010. For arti­cles, see Eng­i­nu­ity Ener­gy facil­i­ty pro­file.
Fibrowatt		Page Coun­ty	Vir­ginia	USA		Page Coun­ty Cit­i­zens stopped Fibrowatt after a one month cam­paign in February/March 2010, result­ing in Page Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­ers inform­ing Fibrowatt that they were no longer wel­come.
Fibrowatt		Augus­ta County	Vir­ginia	USA		With­drawn after it was appar­ent that Domin­ion Pow­er did­n’t see buy­ing Fibrowat­t’s pow­er as finan­cial­ly wise, and that the demand for lit­ter as a fer­til­iz­er in the cen­tral Shenan­doah Val­ley exceeds the cur­rent sup­ply. See: Too Lit­tle of Lit­ter? — Fibrowat­t’s Poul­try Waste Ener­gy Project On Hold, Va. Offi­cials Drop Lit­ter-To-Ener­gy Plan for Val­ley and this April 2012 report from VA Tech
Monopow­er Ltd.	Kil­ly­car­ran Bio­mass Com­bined Heat and Pow­er Plant	Mon­aghan, Emy­vale		Ire­land	20	In July 2009, the pro­pos­al to site a chick­en lit­ter and mush­room com­post incin­er­a­tor at Emy­vale, Mon­aghan in Ire­land has been reject­ed by Mon­aghan Coun­ty Coun­cil and by The Irish Plan­ning Appeals Board (An Bord Pleanala). Back­ground info on the project avail­able in: Eval­u­a­tion of Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment (5/26/2005).
EPR/Fibrowatt & Bio-One	Fibroned	Apel­doorn		The Nether­lands	30	385,000 tpy poul­try litter
Blair Fox Generation		Muchea (Shire of Chit­ter­ing)	West­ern Australia	Aus­tralia	approx. 11	108,000 tpy poul­try lit­ter; oppo­si­tion web­site archived here
Fibrowatt	Fibro­Coast	Samp­son	North Car­oli­na	USA
Fibrowatt / Per­due AgriBusiness	Clean Bay Pow­er Project	Sal­is­bury, Wicomi­co County	Mary­land	USA	10
Dar­wal­la Group		Mt Cot­ton (near Bris­bane in Red­land Shire)	Queens­land	Aus­tralia	5	60,000 tons per year
Pro­posed (most have been aban­doned by now)
Con­tour­Glob­al	Pres­i­dente Caste­lo Branco		San­ta Catarina	Brazil	30
Con­tour­Glob­al	Arabutã		San­ta Catarina	Brazil	30
Con­tour­Glob­al			San­ta Catarina	Brazil	60	The com­pa­ny plans a total of 120 MW of capac­i­ty, so there may be two oth­er pro­pos­als in addi­tion to the oth­er Brazil­ian pro­pos­als men­tioned above.
Joseph Mitchells (Letham) Ltd.		Letham		Scot­land		13,000 tons/year of poul­try slaugh­ter­ing byprod­ucts to be burned in pyrol­y­sis/­gasi­fi­ca­tion-style incin­er­a­tor. Per­mits grant­ed in 2007.
Rose Ener­gy		near Gle­navy, Antrim County		North­ern Ireland	30	250,000 tons/year of chick­en lit­ter (and bone meal residue) to be burned in flu­idized bed com­bus­tor; Oppo­si­tion group web­site: Rose Tint­ed Energy
Ener­gy Pow­er Resources Ltd.	DEPR Nether­lands	Moerdijk		The Nether­lands	30	358,000 tonnes / yr chick­en lit­ter and 20,000 tonnes / yr feathers
Ener­gy Pow­er Resources Ltd.	Cor­by Mixed Bio­fu­el Plant	Cor­by	Northamp­ton­shire	UK	36	34,000 tonnes / yr chick­en lit­ter & 168,000 tonnes / yr waste straw
Earth Resources Inc.	Plant Carl	near Car­nesville (Franklin Coun­ty)	Geor­gia	USA	20	Ini­tial­ly was to go online mid-2007, but in mid-2010, they still haven’t start­ed con­struc­tion. Using flu­idized bed boil­er. Orig­i­nal plan to burn poul­try lit­ter has changed to include trash or “bio­mass.” See Plant Carl facil­i­ty pro­file for arti­cles, reports and per­mit documents.
Fibrowatt	FibroShore	East­ern Shore, MD (Dorch­ester, Wicomi­co, Som­er­set, or Worces­ter Counties)	Mary­land	USA	38.5	200–300,000 tpy chick­en lit­ter plus 100,000 tpy of forestry residues
Fibrowatt	FibroMiss	Menden­hall (Simp­son Coun­ty)	Mis­sis­sip­pi	USA	40	200–300,000 tpy chick­en lit­ter plus 100–200,000 tpy for­est residue / crop waste
Fibrowatt			Arkansas	USA
Land­Stud­ies, Inc. & Five Winds International		Dun­can­non Bor­ough, Per­ry County	Penn­syl­va­nia	USA	10	2007 Arti­cle about these con­sul­tants scop­ing out poul­try waste incin­er­a­tor pos­si­bil­i­ty. Fibrowat­t’s tech­nol­o­gy being considered.
Allen’s Hatch­ery & JCR Enterprises		Linkwood (Dorch­ester County)	Mary­land	USA		12,000 tpy poul­try lit­ter; burn­er to be built by rem Engi­neer­ing
West Michi­gan Co-Gen		Ottawa Coun­ty	Michi­gan	USA	4.3	65,000 tpy turkey lit­ter & oth­er ani­mal wastes (cat­tle and chickens)
Bar­low Projects	Will­mar Bio­mass Pow­er Plant	Will­mar (Kandiy­ohi Coun­ty)	Min­neso­ta	USA	18–21	266–300 tpd turkey litter
Sites That Were Once Considered
Fibrowatt				Bel­gium
Fibrowatt				France
Fibrowatt				Ger­many
Fibrowatt				Italy
Fibrowatt				Japan
Fibrowatt				Por­tu­gal
Fibrowatt				Spain
Fibrowatt			Alaba­ma	USA
Fibrowatt			Texas	USA
Fibrowatt			Wis­con­sin	USA
Fibrowatt			Iowa	USA
Fibrowatt			Okla­homa	USA