It's all Turkey doo-doo to me - Green fuel? or Green Fertilizer?

[jbg]

Burning question of the day for environmentalists:

Is it more environmentally friendly, to dispose of turkey droppings to:

1. Burn it for fuel;
   
2. Use it for fertilizer;
   
3. Let it encrust auto windshields; or
   
4. Some other idea
   

Please post responses. Article with criteria linked here, excerpts below:

June 6, 2007

The Energy Challenge

From Turkey Waste, a New Fuel and a New Fight

By SUSAN SAULNY

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.

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.

*****

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.

****

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.” ”

[jbg]

No thoughts on this issue?

[B. Max]

No thoughts on this issue?

Yeah. Alberta has lots of coal we would gladly sell to that power plant.

[jbg]

No thoughts on this issue?

Yeah. Alberta has lots of coal we would gladly sell to that power plant.

So what would you do with the turkey droppings?

[B. Max]

No thoughts on this issue?

Yeah. Alberta has lots of coal we would gladly sell to that power plant.

So what would you do with the turkey droppings?

What I would like to do with it is bury treehuggers in it. But I guess that's not politically correct and since I'm so PC I would ask what did they do with it before.

[jbg]

What I would like to do with it is bury treehuggers in it. But I guess that's not politically correct and since I'm so PC I would ask what did they do with it before.

Use it to cover car windshields, I guess.