Al6—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 2,1980
York
BY JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
YORK Looking for a
quick way to reduce our total
national fuel dependency by
three percent?
“Then stop producing
food,” says Joe McCurdy,
agriculture engineer with
Penn State’s ag college.
McCurdy headed up a panel
of speakers on energy in
novations at the York Agri-
Business seminar held last
Thursday at Avalong Farms
Restaurant.
While non-farmers tend to
label big harvest machines
and large horsepower
tractors as high energy
consumers, statistics
disclaim those myths.
Although the total food in
dustry uses 16.5 percent of
the nation’s fuels, actual on
farm production takes only
three percent of the nation’s
total needs.
Just preparation and
cooking of America's meals
uses a bigger chunk and
transportation and
marketing account for even
more.
Pennsylvania agriculture
is almost totally petroleum
based, including the running
of some on-farm electric
generators. Fertilizers and
chemicals account for the
biggest use. Com production
is the largest crop user of
energy, with alfalfa and hay
production in the second
spot.
One fanner on the panel is
making farm energy history
by turning his dairy farm
waste into the energy to
produce milk. He’s Horace
Waybnght, operator of
Mason-Dixon Dairy in
Adams County, where a
unique system is converting
manure from 800 milking
cows into generator fuel
“It’s efficient and sim
ple,” Waybnght attests.
“And it helps to control
odors.” He estimated a
hundred thousand dollars is
invested m the system,
which has been in operation
for two thousand hours.
Manure is flushed and
pumped into a huge plastic
bag digester and kept heated
to 95 degrees through heat
exchanger pipes. The
methane produced by the
warmed manure is drawn
off, blended with a small
amount of diesel for ignition
and engine lubrication, and
used to run a diesel engine
that operates the electric
generator to power milking
equipment.
Wastes pumped from the
bag are run through a
“squeezer”
separates nutrient-high
fluids for field irrigation
from dried solids suitable for
cattle bedding. Waybnght
projects the system will pay
for itself in five years or less.
For the full story, see page
one
Wind power is frequently
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agri-business seminar explores energy
mentioned as another
energy alternative. Panehst
Robert Johnson is a research
engineer with Pennsylvania
Power and Light, which has
a wind turbine operating a
few miles west of Hazelton.
The machine, in operation
since September of 1978, is
four-bladed with a horizontal
axis. A medium-size
machine, it’s geared toward
the needs of residential or
small commercial
customers.
“It has very, very good
mechanical reliability, but
we’re disappointed with the
output,” Johnson admitted.
That output to date has been
only two percent of the
turbine’s potential capacity.
Site of the machine, he
warns, is of prune im
portance m 'locating a wmd
turbine. At least one full
year’s wmd data should be
accumulated before finally
setting up a wmd turbine
system.
Cost of the turbine will be
prohibitive to the average
home owners or small
business, though. Projected
cost for one is estimated at
$30,000 to $50,000, with PP&L
mvestmg $230,000 m the
Hazelton experiment.
Solar energy, popular
winner m alternative energy
polls, will continue to be
worthy of a lot of talk but
limited action believes E.
Randal Beck, of the York
County Planning Com
mission.
The cost effectiveness of
solar is not practical for
wide commercial use, with
Beck citing estimates of nine
thousand football field size
solar collectors needed to
replace the energy
generated by the inoperable
Three Mile Island nuclear
plant.
Most effective use of solar
m agriculture, he figures, is
incorporating it in new
facilities for livestock
which
housing, or the farm house
itself.
Stone storage is the
simplest and cheapest
method of solar heat
retention; but the stones
must be spotlessly clean and
totally dry, or mold,
moisture and eventually
odor problems may arise.
“Now they can stand here
and say it can’t be done
but I’ve seen' it done,”
argued Richard Potts,
Fulton County farmer and
alcohol distilling enthusiast.
Potts spoke on the con
troversial procedure now
earning praise from sup
porters, while being viewed
by many specialists as
impractical.
Most of the information
bemg put out on alcohol
pertains to beverage-types,
claims Potts, and that’s not
applicable to fuel distillate.
He’s building two
prototypes for alcohol
production, one at Wilson
College m a research study
and another a cutaway
demonstrator. Potts said
any patents that come out of
the Wilson College ex
periment will be turned over
for use by the public.
“Use your junkyard,” he
urged farmers interested m
trying alcohol distilling
He warned, though, that
all components must be
“dairy-house clean,” and
estimated 20 gallons per
hour as a reasonable rate of
production, with costs
ranging from 42 to 90 cents
per gallon depending on the
operation’s efficiency.
A researcher from the
Northeast Solar Energy
Center called the panelists’
topics “the four big can
didates for renewable
energy in agriculture.”
About 160 million gallons of
gasoline or its eqmvalent
were used to farm in Penn
sylvania last year.
William Locheretz, Ph.u.
and senior agriculture
scientist at the Center, then
shot down the likelihood that
any of the alternates will
large replace current
petroleum based fuels.
Alcohol, the most hkely
suitable, requires corn
which is already in demand
and higher priced in the East
than in the gram-glutted
Midwest.
Methane does not adapt
readily to mobile systems,
although it has proven uses
m building facilities, where
low-temperature heat is
required.
Wmd and solar are both
dependent on weather
conditions and thus must be
backed up with more secure
and reliable energy sources
Instead, Lockeretz sees
the four renewables more as
“energy insurance” than
complete substitutes,
systems that can be utilized
as long as they have a
backup method.
He opmioned, “Farmers
can do a lot of innovation and
respond to the challenge of
energy do-it-yourself
systems better than the
average home owners.”
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William Locheretz told York farmers that current
energy alternates will not replace petroleum fuels.
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