Friday scatblogging – this power plant is not chicken shit

It is just going to burn this widespread power source, pictured at left. Considering that North Carolina has plenty of CAFO-size chicken “farms,” it seems like a good place to build a chickenshit power plant.

Of course, besides skeptical residents raising a stink over the plant, the main question is, how much of a stink the plant itself will raise. And there’s a difference of opinion on that.

Fibrowatt announced plans Wednesday for a 300-acre site, bolstered by $2.5 million in financial incentives, in the heart of Eastern North Carolina's poultry processing region, in Sampson County, where chicken farms will provide the fuel source. …

Fibrowatt announced plans Wednesday for the 300-acre site, bolstered by $2.5 million in financial incentives, in the heart of Eastern North Carolina's poultry processing region, where chicken farms will provide the fuel source.

500,000 tons? That’s almost 1,400 tons a day. How securely, so to speak, will that much “fuel” be stored? I mean, residents in the area already have to breath in the fumes from CAFO-size chicken farms; it’s a rightful worry they don’t get inundated with a second round of chickenshit smell. Or, a third round of chickenshit smoke, which odor, thankfully, I am clueless about. And, I’m not joking:

Fibrowatt’s next step is to apply for a state air-quality permit. Several environmental groups have decried poultry-waste burning as nothing more than waste incineration that emits two major pollutants: sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides. Some emission levels from poultry-waste power plants are comparable to those of a modern coal-burning power plant, Fibrowatt officials acknowledge.

But they say worries are overblown and will, yes… go up in smoke.

According to the company, the poultry droppings are delivered in covered trucks to a fuel storage building, which typically holds five to 10 days of fuel. The building is designed to prevent odors from escaping.

John Swope, executive director for the Sampson County Economic Development Commission, is one of two dozen officials who visited similar plants that Fibrowatt built in Minnesota and the United Kingdom.

“Everything Fibrowatt told us was true,” Swope said. “It was very clean. No odor.”

But, some critics aren’t convinced:

”The air pollution permits for these plants are going to be a horror story,” said Louis Zeller, clean-air campaign coordinator for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League in Glendale Springs. “We’re going to find out how much pollution these things are actually going to be able to put into the atmosphere.”

Well, whoever’s right, this is only a starting point. Fibrowatt wants to build three more plants, that would burn either chicken or turkey droppings, in the same area.

No shit.

And, there’s enough turkey and chickshit in the area to produce 5,500 tons or more of scat a day? Maybe it is time to eat less meat.