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Only NC says utilities must buy power fueled by poultry waste. Here’s the problem.


Big Poultry: Part 2

Roughly 250,000 North Carolinians now live within a half mile of a poultry farm. If your family has lived on the same land for generations and one day a neighbor starts building big poultry barns, there is practically nothing you can do to protect yourself from the stink, buzzards and other nuisances that may soon float your way.


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North Carolina is the only state in the country that directs power companies to purchase electricity generated with poultry waste.

But creating a viable poultry-waste-to-energy industry here has not gone smoothly.

The state’s poultry industry has long supported the requirement, which the state legislature mandated in 2007, despite environmental and financial challenges.

The rule was a necessary hedge against “the likelihood” that the industry’s common practice of spreading waste on farm fields could be restricted, N.C. Poultry Federation Executive Director Bob Ford told the Utilities Commission in 2012, according to commission meeting minutes.

“That was one way we thought would really help with getting rid of some of the excess poultry litter out here and it’s helped some, but it hasn’t really been a complete deal,” Ford told The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer this fall.

The requirement that power companies acquire electricity generated with poultry and its waste was tucked into a bill that also paved the way for the growth of North Carolina’s solar energy industry.

But utilities have failed to meet goals set out in Senate Bill 3, namely an original annual target of 900,000 megawatt hours of power by 2014. That’s a tiny fraction of the 135.7 million megawatt hours used in North Carolina last year.

Poultry waste struggles as alternative power source

In 2007, North Carolina became the only state in the country to require utilities to purchase electricity generated from poultry and swine waste. Utilities haven’t yet met those original targets.

Actual Poultry Power Statewide

2007 Poultry Power Targets

654.7

900

2021

2020

655.4

900

2019

604.4

900

2018

399.3

900

309.2

900

2017

2016

201.7

900

2015

147.7

900

2014

97.3

900

26.3

700

2013

2012

14.2

170

2011

1.4

170 700 1.4 14.1 26.3 97.3 147.7 201.7 309.2 399.3 604.4 655.4 654.7 900 900 900 900 900 900 900 900 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2007 Poultry Power Targets Actual Poultry Power Statewide

All measurements in thousand megawatt hours.

Source: N.C. Renewable Energy Tracking System

Instead, power companies and co-ops appear annually before the N.C. Utilities Commission asking members to lower the target to a level they are more likely to meet based on what companies here can produce.

“Setbacks and failures are not unexpected,” the Utilities Commission wrote in the 2012 order where it first delayed the utility companies’ obligation to buy power from agricultural sources.

Poultry power has taken time to find its footing in North Carolina due to more than technological and cost barriers. Environmental groups are critical of what plants using this unconventional fuel can release into the air, including arsenic, chromium and carbon monoxide.

CleanAIRE North Carolina, a nonprofit, is among them.

“There’s no real good solution for poultry litter at the scale that you’re talking about, and that’s the real problem here. More innovation, obviously, needs to be done to take care of that problem,” said Joel Porter, CleanAIRE’s policy manager.

Poultry power struggles

The scale of poultry and swine waste produced in this state led to the carve-out, said Charlie Albertson, the former state senator from Duplin County who was Senate Bill 3’s primary sponsor.

Duplin County, which Albertson represented, is home to about 500 hog farms and more than 350 poultry farms, a Charlotte Observer and News & Observer analysis found. In 2007 farmers in that county raised 57.4 million birds. By 2020, that had grown to 94.45 million - a 64.5% increase, according to N.C. Department of Agriculture statistics.

Farmers primarily dispose of poultry waste by applying it to fields as fertilizer. When they put too much down, it can wash into nearby waterways, causing algal blooms and fish kills, research shows.

“If we got to a place where we had more waste than the land could absorb or we could find a place to put it, that would be a good way to utilize some of it for energy,” Albertson said of his bill.

Initially, a U.S. subsidiary of a United Kingdom company called Fibrowatt seemed best poised to take advantage of the 2007 bill. In 2008, it announced plans to build three plants in North Carolina, in Montgomery, Sampson and Surry counties.

But Fibrowatt’s poultry litter-burning plant operated in Benson, Minn. racked up environmental violations.

Those violations stiffened opposition to the North Carolina projects among residents and environmental groups. They said plants here would stink and release arsenic and chromium into the air.

Perhaps most importantly, Fibrowatt could not strike an agreement with Duke Energy to buy its power.

Fibrowatt never built in North Carolina. By 2017, Fibrowatt’s Minnesota plant was shuttered. By 2019, it was demolished.

This satellite image shows NC Renewable Power, a former coal plant in Lumberton that has been revamped to burn poultry litter for power. When applying for a revamped permit earlier this year, the plant saw stiff opposition from local residents and environmentalists.
This satellite image shows NC Renewable Power, a former coal plant in Lumberton that has been revamped to burn poultry litter for power. When applying for a revamped permit earlier this year, the plant saw stiff opposition from local residents and environmentalists.

Instead of arsenic, carbon monoxide emissions were central to concerns voiced earlier this year when another power company, N.C. Renewable Power, asked state regulators to approve a new permit for its existing plant outside Lumberton. The company wanted permission to emit more carbon monoxide than its state permit allowed.

Burning chicken waste to generate electricity at the converted coal plant released more carbon monoxide in 2017 than at least seven other North Carolina power plants, including some burning coal, according to EPA.

More than 30 local residents and environmental advocates objected to the new permit at a public hearing. Nobody spoke in favor of the changes.

DEQ granted the updated permit, but the plant is not operating.

A new model?

Carolina Poultry Power is one of five companies approved to use North Carolina poultry waste to generate power. Its leaders say they may have found a model that could work for the industry by scaling down the size of plants.

“I feel pretty strongly this can be done the right way or the wrong way,” said Rich Deming, Carolina Poultry Power’s managing partner, adding: “But it’s been done the wrong way in the past and really given us a black eye.”

The company opened its first plant in 2019 in Farmville in Pitt County, three boilers tucked behind a sweet potato packing facility off of U.S. 264 Alternate.

In 2023, Carolina Poultry Power plans to open another plant in LaGrange, with a Wilson plant planned to go online in 2024. Both have received air permits.

The Farmville plant burns 250 tons of poultry waste a day. That sounds like a lot but it’s not when compared to what larger plants can burn, Deming said. The owners of a since-shuttered Robeson County plant advertised it as capable of burning 285,000 tons of litter annually – or about 780 tons a day – when fully operational.

Carolina Poultry Power burns about 250 tons of poultry litter a day at its Farmville, N.C., plant. The company and others like it are backed by a requirement in a 2007 bill that North Carolina utilities purchase some power from hog and poultry waste.
Carolina Poultry Power burns about 250 tons of poultry litter a day at its Farmville, N.C., plant. The company and others like it are backed by a requirement in a 2007 bill that North Carolina utilities purchase some power from hog and poultry waste.

With smaller fuel supply needs, Carolina Poultry can better control the quality of its poultry litter fuel supply to address some environmental concerns, he said.

Wet litter is difficult to burn, for instance, and can cause more pollution. Smaller plants can reject the wet waste because they only need so much at a time.

“Trying to scale it up like it is an old-style centralized plant is just going to be a disaster with this kind of heat stock,” Deming said of burning poultry waste.

Porter, the CleanAIRE policy manager, acknowledges that Deming’s approach has advantages. But the Farmville plant still emits too much carbon dioxide and other pollutants, he said.

“You still have these emissions that are contributing to the bigger problem that is climate change, not to mention the local air issues. It’s not ideal,” Porter said.

Still, Carolina Poultry Power is planning to expand in Eastern North Carolina.

Expansion ahead?

This year will see more electricity generated from poultry waste than ever before, said Jay Lucas, an engineer with the Public Staff, the state’s utility customer advocate. Nearly all of the state’s utilities will be able to meet their requirements of the 700,000 megawatt hour goal.

That, Lucas said, “is better than we’ve ever done before.”

Because this industry is starting to find its footing, Duke Energy expects to meet its portion of the mandate from here on out, said Randy Wheeless, a company spokesman.

Duke pays more for power generated from poultry litter than it does for solar, whose use was also mandated in the 2007 legislation. Wheeless would not share specific costs, though, saying that information is confidential.

Electricity bought and sold in North Carolina actually costs the same, no matter where it comes from. But in addition to power, renewable energy companies also sell a certificate for each megawatt hour they generate..

Poultry certificates cost more than some others, including solar, according to both Lucas and Wheeless.

Still, utilities must buy them due to policy choices, not market forces. ”If you were going to start from scratch, that would not be the first thing you would pick for generation,” Wheeless said.

This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.

Read more stories from the “Big Poultry” project at newsobserver.com, charlotteobserver.com or heraldsun.com.