The Netherlands Powered by Chicken Poop?

Filed Under: Environmental News, Green Technology on August 26, 2009

Workers Agree: Our New Plant Smells Lovely!

A new power plant has opened in the Netherlands and the Dutch plan to run it on.. chicken poop. No lie. Chicken manure, much prized by gardeners for its extreme fertilization properties, is also very good fuel, apparently.

The Dutch are utilizing one of their largest semi-natural resources – chicken manure – and turning it into a green fuel. This plant is the world’s largest biomass power plant that runs exclusively on chicken crap and it has a capacity of 36.5 megawatts or 270 million kilowatt hours per year. That’s enough to power about 90,000 homes or 200,000 Prius(es? i?).

OK, 90,000 homes anyway.

Of course, burning poop isn’t exactly “green” or “carbon neutral” in and of itself. The trick here, as with any sustainability issue, is to look at the entire process rather than just one aspect of it.

When chicken manure is spread over a farm’s fields, poured into leaving ponds (this happens at most large chicken factor… er… farms) or similarly disposed of, it decomposes and gives off both CO2 and methane. When it’s compacted and burned, however, it gives off only trace CO2 in comparison. So it’s much greener that way and it produces electricity, displacing (in theory) coal and gas-burning plants.

This huge plant will use about 440,000 tons of chicken droppings per year, which is about a third of what the Netherlands produces in total. I guess they really like chicken.

So now, when you recharge your 9-volt Dutch battery and touch it to your tongue, you can claim “It tastes like chicken!”

To which I will reply, “CRAP!”