Smithfield to turn hog waste into diesel fuel

AOL News/Reuters | 02.21.03 | Bob Burgdorf

[yankeedame]

Smithfield to turn hog waste into diesel fuel

By Bob Burgdorfer

CHICAGO, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Smithfield Foods Inc. , the nation's largest pork producer, said on Friday it will build a $20 million facility in Utah that will use waste from 500,000 hogs to make biodiesel, a renewable vehicle fuel.

Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that can be made from any fat including vegetable oil and used cooking oil. About 15 million gallons were used in the United States last year.

Smithfield said it will be the major partner in BEST BioFuel LLC, a partnership that will build the plant at Smithfield-owned swine production facilities near Milford, Utah.

"Livestock waste can be a source of clean, renewable vehicle fuel," said Robert F. Urell, Smithfield senior vice president, engineering and environmental affairs, in a news release.

The Smithfield facility will be built at Circle Four Farms in southwest Utah. Construction is scheduled to start in April, pending final approval of a conditional use permit and a permit from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.

Smithfield's Utah swine operation produces about 1 million market hogs a year, and the biodiesel project will use the waste from about half of those hogs, the company said.

"The Utah facility is a specially suited location for this because we are able to order the waste in pipes," said Dennis Treacy, Smithfield's vice president of environmental affairs and government relations.

About 90 percent of U.S. biodiesel is made from soybean oil. U.S. biodiesel use increased to about 15 million gallons in 2002 from 500,000 in 1999.

For the Smithfield project hog waste will be collected and processed into biogas which will then be converted into biomethanol. The biomethanol will be transported to a plant outside of Utah for processing into biodiesel fuel using soybean oil, animal fat or used cooking oil.

Use of animal waste for biodiesel is rare but the methanol from the waste could be used for the fuel, said Fred Mayes, a manager at the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy.

"By starting with methanol, which is a fairly clean substance compared with grease, you are improving the mix and my guess is you would be improving some of the specific characteristics of the biodiesel," Mayes said.

The Smithfield facility could start producing fuels as early as October, the company said.

Smithfield Foods is the leading processor and marketer of fresh pork and processed meats, and the largest hog producer, in the United States.

02/21/03 16:54 ET

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[yankeedame]

LOL, now is the title of this article a straight line or what?

[DainBramage]

Hogwash?

[Orangedog]

They really need to work on the reading comprehention of the headline writers.

[Pontiac]

This is a recycling idea that makes sense. Animal waste is a big environmental problem.

[TheBattman]

Better use---- turn hog waste into fuel-air bombs for use in the Middle East...hehehehe

[Mark Felton]

Why stop with just hog waste?

[Boundless]

> About 90 percent of U.S. biodiesel is made from
> soybean oil. U.S. biodiesel use increased to
> about 15 million gallons in 2002 from 500,000
> in 1999.

Here's link for those interested in biodiesel:
http://www.veggievan.org/biodiesel/

I have a VW TDI, and if BD were available here, I'd
consider using it, esp. if it were cheaper than
conventional diesel fuel.

...but it's generally uneconomic to make BD unless you
have a source of convertible oil that is already a
disposal problem. Most of the people who brew their
own BD use waste cooking oil from restaurants (some
of whom pay you to take it away).

This porker deal sounds practical.

Growing soybeans to make BD, however, doesn't add up
today. It might in the future if it's too expensive
to purify imported tanker bilge to EPA Tier-II.

[CJinVA]

bump

[Darling Lili]

Smithfield Foods Inc. , the nation's largest pork producer, said on Friday it will build a $20 million facility in Utah that will use waste from 500,000 hogs to make biodiesel, a renewable vehicle fuel.

Does that sound like the dream employment opportunity, or what?

[org.whodat]

Hogwash?

It will probably work, probably stop tail-gater's too! Nothing like driving down the road behind a load of hog's on a hot day, as they say it get's real, Ha.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Boundless]

> It will probably work, probably stop tail-gater's too!

Actually biodiesel made from restaurant cooking oil
reportedly does smell just like being downwind of a
fast food joint. A lot of people find it less
objectionable than the smell of conventional diesel.

I won't speculate on what porker diesel smells like.

The smell is a problem in the UK, because it gives
away BD users to the police, who, having nothing
better to do, arrest people running their diesel
cars on BD. Since there's apparently no way for these
folks to pay the fuel tax, BD is an "unapproved fuel".
And since in the UK, everything that isn't mandatory
is prohibited (unless heavily taxed), its illegal to
save the environment and recycle waste oil.

Also keeps the coppers from making much more
dangerous arrests of real criminals armed with
those nasty firearms that theoretically don't
exist anymore in the UK :-)

Supposedly there's a similar underground of BD users
in Euro countries with rapacious fuel taxes and
costly high-grade diesel fuel. It's literally
cheaper to run your diesel car on unused salad oil
fresh from the supermarket than on taxed highway
diesel.

[ChefKeith]

Like Emeril says "Pork fat rules"

[texas booster]

I agree. If biodiesel plants, or at least these poop to methane converters, could be made available at an economical price, think of how many areas with ground water problems could be helped.

Chicken pens in Maryland and Arkansas, feedlots by Amarillo and in Nebraska, and other areas where feedlots are located could really use a solution. High denisty feedlots require lots of science to mitigate the lakes of decaying matter.

This could be a solution where a raw cost comparison of methane vs. diesel doesn't work. The true cost would have to include savings from smaller amounts of animal waste that needed to be processed.

[Sunnyvale CA Eng.]

"I won't speculate on what porker diesel smells like."

Perhaps they can blend it right and get a pleasant "bacony" scent. Mmmmmm....bacon.

Does anybody know if its possible to use human waste for BD - I'm sure its been looked into. Odor may be a problem here - could create an aftermarket for mufflers made from little Christmas tree air fresheners though.

[Sparta]

What do you know about biomass fuel?

[strela]

Smithfield Foods Inc. , the nation's largest pork producer, said on Friday it will build a $20 million facility in Utah that will use waste from 500,000 hogs to make biodiesel, a renewable vehicle fuel.

Smithfield had best hurry - the Democrats have been using the same raw material as the intellectual source for their political ideology for years now. There's only so much pig poop to go around.

[Pontiac]

The true cost would have to include savings from smaller amounts of animal waste that needed to be processed.

One question here that begs answering is how much if at all will this reduce the amount of waste needing processed? Will this ease or exacerbate processing?

Back on the dairy farm we used to just spread the manure on the fields. But we did not have a big “pack em in” industrial farm.

[texas booster]

Spreading the effluent onto fields was the preferred method when I was young. I believe that the problem comes in from the huge feedlots that need to dispose of millions of gallons of waste.

Free fertilizer is a good thing. Too much is not, causing localized and downstream pollution.

I wonder, like you, if the Smithfield process will significantly reduce the volume of waste, or if it is a PC boondoggle just so they can appear enviro-friendly.

Of course, I don't live downwind of their feedlot.