Tuesday, 7 October 2008: 10:00 AM
George R. Brown Convention Center, 372C
Vitalia Baranyai, Environmental Science and Technology, University of Maryland, 0214 H.J. Patterson, Building #073, College Park, MD 20742, Joshua McGrath, 0214 H.J. Patterson Hall, Bldg. 073, University of Maryland, University of Maryland, Dept. of Environmental Science & Technology, College Park, MD 20742-5825 and Sally Bradley, Nutrient Subcommittee Staff, Chesapeake Research Consortium, Annapolis, MD 21403
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. The purpose of this report was to analyze the feasibility of using
poultry litter for energy in the Chesapeake Bay
watershed. Using excess manure to feed energy generation systems in this region
could potentially result in a reduced nutrient load to the Bay, thus improving
water quality. This report explores 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. The findings of this report
suggest that litter-to-energy systems are, for the most part, technologically
feasible; however, there are other challenges that must be overcome to make these
systems a viable option in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including high system
cost and the issue of litter availability. In addition, there are still a
number of variables that need to be better understood in order to determine
whether litter-to-energy systems are truly feasible in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.