Turning Chesapeake Bay Watershed Poultry Manure and Litter into Energy: An Analysis of the Impediments and the Feasibility of Implementing Energy Technologies in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in Order to Improve Water Quality

摘要

In its 2005 Manure Strategy, the Chesapeake Bay Program recognized the significance of controlling nutrient loads from manure in order to restore the Chesapeake Bay. An important component of an overall nutrient management strategy for agricultural lands, therefore, involves finding alternative uses for excess manure. This is particularly important because as animal operations become more concentrated and the acreage of cropland available for manure application is lost to development, the challenge of manure management is only expected to intensify. Additionally, regulations that limit land application and require phosphorus-based nutrient management plans will likely result in an increase in the amount of excess manure that is available. One potential use for the regions excess manure is energy generation. Using excess manure to feed energy generation systems could potentially result in a reduced nutrient load to the Bay, thus improving water quality. This report explores this option by analyzing the feasibility of using poultry litter for energy in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Poultry litter, rather than manure from other livestock types, was chosen for this report because the Chesapeake Bay watershed is known to be a major national producer of poultry and poultry litter is often concentrated in particular regions and is easier to transport. In order to better assess the feasibility of this option, this report looks at technologies that could potentially be used to convert poultry litter into energy and identifies impediments and incentives that a litter-to-energy project may encounter in this region.