Turkey poop a great coal alternative, Israeli study finds

As Thanksgiving approaches, study shows turkeys may be more useful in the coop than on the plate

By TOI STAFF

Illustrative photo of turkeys (bazilfoto; iStock by Getty Images)

If you’re a turkey, this is a grim time, with Thanksgiving around the corner. There may be some room for hope, though, as a new study show turkeys may be more  useful alive, eating — and excreting.

A new Israeli study shows that turkey excrement may be a major untapped resource in use as a combustible biomass fuel. The study, authored at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, said that this waste fuel could one day replace up to 10 percent of coal used in generating electricity, which would be a positive boon to the environment, not to mention to turkeys.

“Environmentally safe disposal of poultry excrement has become a significant problem,” said the researchers in a statement. “Converting poultry waste to solid fuel, a less resource-intensive, renewable energy source, is an environmentally superior alternative that also reduces reliance on fossil fuels.”

Researchers were intent on killing two birds with one stone: finding a method to treat turkey excrement for combustion that worked efficiently and, as a result, helping the environment by reducing dependence on fossil fuels. The waste was treated using two formulas for the creation of combustible biomass fuels. The first, hydrochar, involves heating the wet excrement to temperatures of up to 250°C under pressure, a process known as hydrothermal carbonization (HTC). The second is called biochar, and in it the biomass is slow heated at a temperature of 450°C (842°F) in an oxygen-free furnace.

“We found that poultry waste processed as hydrochar produced 24 percent higher net energy generation,” said Prof. Amit Gross, chair of the Department of Environmental Hydrology and Microbiology at BGU’s Zuckerberg Institute, in a statement. “Poultry waste hydrochar generates heat at high temperatures and combusts in a similar manner to coal, an important factor in replacing it as a renewable energy source.”

The study also showed a significant reduction in emissions of methane (CH?) and ammonia (NH?) and an increase of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as a result of the HTC process being conducted at higher temperatures.

“This investigation helped in bridging the gap between hydrochar being considered as a potential energy source toward the development of an alternative renewable fuel,” Gross said. “Our findings could help significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity generation and agricultural wastes.”

The study, published in Elsevier’s Applied Energy, was made possible through funding from the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Rosenzweig-Coopersmith Foundation, the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources, the Rieger Foundation and the Zuckerberg Scholarship Fund at BGU’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research.

November 20, 2017 | 11 Comments »

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11 Comments / 11 Comments

  1. @ Edgar G.:
    I just had this same conversation with somebody else about another topic. If you make an assertion, the burden of proof is on you. Don’t ask me to look for it. Googling is really easy. You just type in the question where the WWW would go and hit enter.

  2. @ Sebastien Zorn:
    Why ask me . You are the google expert..so look it up and you’ll find it. I know I read all about it many years ago and that several projects were in the making, a few already producing, not in commercial amounts but enough to run or partly run their own factories. After that, it would only be a single step to build a plant. I think there even was a small town completely fueled by the methane from it’s garbage conversion plant at the garbage dump.

    There was a lot of enthusiasm about the idea then..

  3. @ Edgar G.:
    Good points, Edgar.

    I also note that the processes involved in usefully preparing the turkey excrement for fuel, involve heating it — with what? sunlight? Would that sunlight be better employed, activating solar panels? The study doesn’t seem to take in all the pertinent factors.

    I once read, that several pounds of toxic waste (spent solvent, from removing the ink) are generated, for every pound of newsprint that is recycled. In this area, I am somewhat expert; because I used to formulate resins from scrap material.

    All that said, if we can help solve our energy problems by processing turkey poop, I’m all for it. I am disappointed, though, in that I thought this article might be about Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/229344

    🙂

  4. Not just Turkey poop. If you google, “Excrement Fuel,” with and without quotes a lot comes up. For fun, I googled, “Hot air, fuel” and something came up about using hot air as a fuel source on a CNN site so I thought that maybe the Soros fake news industry broadcasts could also be recycled for fuel at some point.

    I was also reminded of the hilarious dinner scene in which at a hypothetical dinner party, a group of adults talk about excrement at the table, a child who says she’s hungry is told that isn’t dinner conversation and somebody goes off in private embarassedly to eat. in Luis Buenuel’s “Phantome de la LIberte”

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2k3meo

  5. @ Edgar G.:

    I may have read that “Stinking” event in De Commines, maybe Pepys, maybe the Casket letters…… it’s gnawing away at me right now. Makes me feel I’m getting uber-bottelt………I give up.!!……for now……….

  6. @ Edgar G.:

    Alternately they could just get the materials from Turkey, they talk a lot of poop there.

    Completely irrelevant, but at the back of my memory there is a fact, a medieval treaty or war, or agreement or event, which was referred to as “The Stinking…………..”. I don’t mean that mid 19th cent. reference but centuries earlier.

    Nothing to do with the present subject.

  7. I don’t suppose that they’ve added up the costs of incubating the eggs. raising, feeding and etc over a turkey lifetime yet. The costs of the housing facilities., pens, fences, medications, occasions when disease wipes out whole flocks….

    Yet, it sounds a good idea, it’s well known that the pioneer covered wagons going west, would collect dried buffalo excrement, to use for fuel when crossing woodless areas, which were vast.