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The Brussels Post, 1981-02-18, Page 7lot, manure we energy . THE BRUSSELS POST, FEBRUARY 18, 1981 — 7 THE POTENTIAL OF FARM WASTE—Charlie Thomas (left), a Brussels area farmer, shows Ross Kercher of RR2, Kippen-, some of the odourless pig manure Mr. Thomas produced on his farm by a separation process. The Brussels area farmer told the Alternate Energy Update in Clinton last Thursday that there may be ways of using manure to produce ethanol or butanol gas and earn more return on that than simply spreading the manure on their fields. (Photo by Gibb) PANELISTS DISCUSS ALTERNATE ENERGY ALTERNATIVES—Some of the panelists at last Thursday's Alternate Energy Update, held at the Clinton OMAF office, were (left to right) Nick Whyte, a broiler operator from RR2, Seaforth, who is using wood.to heat his barn; Helmet Speiser, of the Energy Resource Management Centre, Ridgetown, who spoke on the use, of heat pumps and heat exchangers, and Prof. ,Jack Pos of the University of Guelph's School of Engineering, who discussed on-farm production of methane gas. (Photo by Gibb) BY ALICE GIBS Nick Whyte is convinced energy costs for fuels like oil and propane are going to increase more than labour costs in the next few years. That's why Mr. Whyte, who runs a broiler operation at RR2, Seaforth, is heating his barn with maple wood cut from his farm woodlot. The extra labour required in collecting the wood is still costing him less than using oil to heat the barn. • Mr. Whyte, one of the speakers at the Alternate Energy Update held in Clinton Thursday, put a large addition on his broiler barn in 1978. He decided at the time to try and cut his heating costs by using wood from his farm, so purchased a boiler from Robert Bell Industries in Seaforth. The combination boiler in a room five feet away from the barn can burn any solid fuel, and some liquid fuels. The boiler in Mr. Whyte's barn switches to oil when water temperatures in the boiler drop below a certain I evel. Should someone overfire the boiler, vents on the furnace act as a choke and cut off the fire before temperatures rise to a dangerous level. Nick Whyte told the audience a wood- fuelled furnace works only in an operation where someone is around the farm anyway, since the boiler must be fired every three' or four hours during the day.. This winter, the third on the system, Mr. Whyte is burning fairly large pieces of wood cut from his farm woodlot in the spring and late fall, when labour on the farm isn't in peak demand. Mr. Whyte cautions he's learned by experience dead trees don't produce much heat value when burned. The Seaforth area farmer said a well- managed woodlot should produce one cord per acre per year of wood for the farmer. The second year Nick Whyte used wood to fuel the boiler, he asked Ministry of Natural Resources staff to inspect his 50-acre woodlot, and mark the trees that didn't have saw log potential. He 'said conservation authority staff will girdle the trees so they die slowly, which starts the drying out process before they're cut. Mr. Whyte has found it lakes the maple trees he burns eight months before they're dry enough to burn well in the boiler. The farmer, who cuts 50 cords per year from the woodlot. warned "safety is an important factOr" in working in the woodlot. He said there's always a risk of falling trees toppling on. someone and a danger of injuries when using a chain saw. The farmer said due to these hazards he nevefsends anyone to the woodlot alone. Mr. Whyte has found it takes two men four hours to cut a cord of wood, in the four-foot lenigthshe burns in the barn. Nick Whyte estimates labour costs at approxi- mately $28 per cord. The wood is always cut and transported back to be stored near the barn, so it's only handled once, which saves on labour costs. The broiler operator told other farmers at the energy update the boiler cost him $6,500, but he spent approximately $2,000 more to have it altered so it could burn wood as well as oil. He also constructed two small woodsheds to store the cords, so that additional cost must be considered. Nick Whyte said he's found a dual boiler, when fired on oil, works at a slighly lower, between five to- 10 per.cent, efficiency rate than a straight oil-burning boiler. That means he uses five per cent more oil in the furance, when he burns oil. ETHANOL EXPERIMENTS Charlie Thomas, a Brussels area hog farmer, discussed his experiments in producing ethanol fro,m hog manure on his farm. Mr. Thomas said he has already discovered how to take volatile solids out of the manure. The farmer showed the audience a box of manure, now almost odourless, which had been separated into a solid state only the day before. He said he's also studying whether he can make feed from the manure produced on the farm, by putting it through a hydrolosis process and refeeding the product back to his hogs. Mr. Thomas told the audience he believes manure is "rather an important product" and perhaps using it as a fuel or feed would provide the farmer more return than simply spreading the farm wastes on his land. Farmers see homemade energy possibilities from crops. Mr. McQuail said he per- sonally has reservations a- bout ,turning over control of the renewable forms of ener- gy to multinational compan- ies, and would prefer local agricultural industry, if an investment pays off within a ten year period that's con- sidered a good investment. Mr. Speiser said the payback period for many solar install- ations is now in the five to seven year period. In a slide presentation, Mr. Speiser showed several solar collector installations on the sides of barns and workshops. He said a fanner who decided to build a solar collector on the side of his farm workshop to provide heat for the building spent an additional $500 for the col- lector. The payback period was only three to five years and the collector Provided the only. means of heat in the shop. PAY BACK IN FIVE YEARS The costs on installing a similar collector on a new farrowing barn were $4 per square foot; but Mr. Speiser said the payback period was still within five years. He said vertical wall collectors, tather than horizontal roof collectors are more practical in Huron Catty, easier to build and don't have the same problem of heat build- up in the summer'. He added roof collectors do have a problem with snow accum- ulation, even when built at a 60 angle. Mr. Speiser said farmers considering a rock 'storage systme to collect heat should remember they need only one cubic foot of rock per one foot of collector. The energy expert' said oversizing the rock storage area will prove useless. He also told farmers he doesn't think Solar energy for grain drying, is the answer in Ontario. He pointed out it takes one month to dry the average-sized bin of corn, and said the large producer just can't afford that much time.. The speaker also outlined uses of heat pumps and heat exchangers. He warned dust can be a problem when farmers use heat exchangers in swine arid poultry build- ings and also warned freez- ing is a potential hazard with exchangers. He said farmers must be able to wash heat exchangers often to over- Come the 'dust problems. He recommended farmers con- sider some of the pre-manu- factured exchangers, but al- so demonstrated a plywood model a farmer could make himself. Mr. Speiser pointed out these warp and must be replaced every few years. The energy expert said the disadvantage with heat exchangers is the heat you recover can likely only be used in the building you recover it from, unless you use ducts and heat pumps to transfer the warm air to another building. Tony McQuail, describing his experiments with a wind- mill erected on a hill on his farm, said the generator has only been operational for a short time, but in that period reduced the Hydro bill from seven kwh to four kwh. Mr. McQuail said when the wind- mill and generator are fully operational, 'it looks like it will produce more power than they can use on 'the farm. He said the most wind is produced in•December and January on his farm, the same period when Ontario Hydro has the most drain on its system. Mr. McQuail hopes he can eventually feed his excess power back into the Hydro grid system. METHANE GAS Jack Pos, from the Univer- sity of Guelph School of Engineering, outlined exper- iments to produce methane gas' on the farm. He said China now has seven million methane-producing digest- ers in operation on farms and communes. He said most are buried underground, and the ,gas produced has to be cleaned before it can be used in internal combustion en- gines. In Vancouver, Prof. Pos said, the city's entire fleet of small trucks have been modi- fied to use methane gas produced at the city's muni- cipal waste plant. The professor, involved in the ARCAL pilot methane plant project at the Univer- sity of Guelph, said their research has shown it's better to use methane gas as it's produced. He cautioned , farmers they'll still have manure ii4posal Problem Please turn to page 9 BY ALICE GIBS Farmers who attended. last Thursday's Alternate Energy Update seminar at the Clin- ton OMAF office were warned there's going to be.a rapid escalation in world prices for non-renewable control of companies who' resources like oil and natural' might produce fuel froM gas. The man delivering that these sources. message was Lucknow area, He advised individual farmer Tony McQuail, who is farmers to study ways they now using both solar and can do the same amount of wind power to cut rising work using less energy. energy costs on his own Predicting a price of $100 per farm. barrel for oil in the future, Mr. McQuail told the 40 Mr. McQuail said if we were farmers who attended thathe using energy produced local- hopes farmers can: develop ly, citizens might have more energy from renewable control of energy collection. sources such as crops and He concluded by saying manure as a marketable we're now in a "volatile commodity. He said the time" trying to determine Ontario Federation of Agri- energy needs 10 years down culture (OFA) is currently the road, Working to persuade both the Helmtit Speiser, of• the government and Ontario Hy- Energy Resource Mapage- dre to be more responsive to meat Centre, Ridgetown, farmers and other individ- discussed some of the solar uals developing energy energy alternatives available Crops. He said two possible to farmers. He said there are Ott -farm products that can be now a number of barns and used AS filets are oils frOrri farm workshops in south- seeds like rapeseed and the western Ontario heated by alcohol-based fuelS produced the "sari. He said In the,