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Yuanhui Zhang knew that some people would pooh-pooh
his research proposal to take the stink out of hog manure 11 years ago. He’s heard every joke and pun in the book, but
Zhang is able to keep his sense of humor, partly because he realizes that
the potential value of his research goes beyond cheap punch lines. Using a technique he developed known as
thermochemical conversion, Zhang, a professor of agricultural and
biological engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
initially believed that he and his research team could eliminate the
environmental pollutants and odors associated with storage and disposal of
liquid animal waste on large concentrated animal-feeding operations. In short, he thought he could turn something that
smells awful into products that have no smell. He was thinking about something like odorless
fertilizer, but he may have stumbled on something much more valuable. “We are turning so-called waste material into
something useful,” Zhang says.
Human greed is the very thing that has fueled
interest and helped Zhang narrow his research. Consider that a barrel of crude oil in 1996, when
Zhang began his research, traded for around $22 a barrel; today oil costs
more than $70 per barrel. Furthermore, world oil consumption is expected to
grow to 118 million barrels per year by 2030, and increasing demand for
fossil fuels in developing nations such as China and India, which combined
represent more than two-fifths of the planet’s population, continues
to drive up energy costs. To combat the inevitable petroleum shortfall and cut
back on U.S. dependence on the earth’s finite supply of petroleum,
energy experts believe that developing renewable sources of fuel,
particularly on Midwestern farms, is key. National security and environmental concerns aside,
swine-manure conversion appeals especially to hog farmers, who fork over
billions of dollars each year to have the smelly pits located beneath their
pig pens pumped. Zhang takes it off their hands for free. His researchers collect manure — the fresher
the better, he says — and haul it back to the lab, where it’s
dumped into a pressure cooker for 40 minutes to squeeze out a dark, viscous
substance that, molecularly, is almost identical to the black stuff that
sent Jed Clampett’s family to Beverly Hills. Thermochemical conversion mimics the process by which
nature produces oil, substituting swine manure and laboratory equipment for
the remains of dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, cave people, and
prehistoric plants, which are heated and pressurized over millions of
years. The process yields five parts: one is oil and the
remaining four are wastewater, which retains 95 percent of the fertilizing
capability of the original manure. Net energy balance is another plus. According to the
researchers’ calculations, three parts come out for every unit of
energy that goes in. Compare that to the output of corn ethanol, which,
depending on whom you ask is closer to 1.0 — or, some scientists say,
a negative balance. One 250-pound hog can produce as much as 15 gallons
of oil, adding approximately $10 of profit per animal. One half-gallon
batch of manure converts to about 9 ounces of a No. 6 heating oil that
retains no trace of manure odor. Naturally the research has drawn a flurry of attention from the
commercial interests, and businesspeople are helping Zhang with the next
step: nailing down the economics of larger-scale production. Otis Jessee, a principal with Jefferson City,
Mo.-based Worldwide BioEnergy, bought the exclusive license to
Zhang’s technology and is working on building a pilot plant. He has
plans for a 1,000-square-foot facility located near a 5,000-head hog farm,
most likely in southeastern Missouri. Jessee, a semiretired engineer, has given $200,000
over the past years to underwrite some of the costs and has agreed to pay a
3 percent royalty back to the University of Illinois. He estimates that
construction could begin in three months and that the poop plant could be
pumping out petroleum within a year.
“There is a lot of potential, but we’re
just trying to do it on a small scale,” Jessee says.
“We’re also going to do human waste.”
Bioenergy was everyone’s mind at this
year’s Agronomy Day, held in Urbana. In addition to swine manure, tours focused on
biodiesel, wind power, miscanthus, and switchgrass. “We’re not here to bash corn; we’re
not here to bash trees. It’s all going to be part of the
answer,” says Frank Dohleman, a researcher studying miscanthus and
switchgrass.
Hans Blaschek, director of the U of I’s Center
for Advanced BioEnergy Research, says that the environment has taken center
stage in recent years. “Yes, it’s true that high oil prices have
been driving a lot of the interest,” Blaschek says, “but I
think people are concerned today more about the environment more than they
ever have before, and renewable bioproducts offers us an opportunity to do
things that are sustainable.”
Just look at how far ethanol has come since the
national energy crisis of three decades ago, he says. Blaschek acknowledges that the debate over whether
crops should be used for fuel or food will continue to be waged into the
future, but he suggests that that the future for bioenergy and Illinois
agriculture remains bright: “Some people think it’s like a
dot-com event or something, but let me suggest to you that this is not
going to be a flash in the pan.”
Ethanol critics call the fuel a boondoggle because
the planet’s energy needs would not be met even if corn covered every
acre of Earth.
Certainly the same holds true for hogs, but Zhang
agrees with Dohleman’s assessment that biofuels research is aimed to
augment, not immediately replace, oil. Zhang asks the American public to have patience with
researchers. Next he wants to develop and optimize a continuous
thermochemical conversion process that turns the swine manure into a liquid
biofuel. He’s hoping that one day lawmakers in
Springfield will realize the value in funding cutting-edge biofuels
research like his. “I hope our state leaders are listening.
We just don’t have as much support as other Midwestern states, in my
opinion,” presumably because of the Chicago-centric nature of the
Illinois legislature, he says. “The engineering part we need to perfect, and
we need to learn more about the chemistry. Manure itself is very
complicated.”
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2007.
