ASS—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 2,1980
Mason-Dixon
(Continued from Page AI)
the reclaimed bedding that
Waybright is getting from
his system.
At Mason Dixon, they’ve
got more than enough cows
to power the system. In fact,
they’re only using part of
their cow power.
A freestall bam housing
700 cows is flushed twice a
day, with water recycled
from previous flushings and
from tiie milk parlor.
Some of the manure laden
water goes into the pit below
the bag.
In order to work, the put
must be kept at least at 95-
degrees F., although it is
running five-to-eight degrees
above that.
Heat to keep the pit warm
comes from a heat ex
changer on the generator.
Water warmed by the
generator circulates through
pipes in the pit.
Biogas production has
been going so well that Met
Ed is seriously interested in
hooking the farm onto their
power grid as an electrical
supplier.
If the figures developetfby
Sheaffer and Roland are
borne out by a year or so of
practical expenence on the
Mason Dixon Farm, the
liklihood that other utilities
would hook up to other farms
seems almost certain.
Waybright’s construction
cost per kilowatt of
generating capacity was
$350. That compares to $l2OO
for a nuclear plant, and
Manure entering the pit
contains about 12-percent
solids. In its two week long
journey through the pit, the
manure loses 20 percent of
its weight, much of its
acidity and comes out at the
other end bearing nine
percent solids.
Engineering for the
system, which was installed
in September, was done by
the firm of Sheaffer and
Roland, with offices in
Washington, D.C., and
Chicago.
Many of the construction
techniques are still Sheaffer
and Roland secrets, but the
basic idea is simple, ac
cording to Jack Sheaffer, a
Lancaster. County native
from the village of Bird-in-
Hand.
Sheaffer holds a PhD in
engineering, lives in Chicago
and is president of Sheaffer
and Roland. S&R, he said,
has been working on
methane electrical
generation for a number of
years, but that this is their
first really successful,
venture.
“This is an economic
unit,” Sheaffer said.
“We didn’t need a
government grant to build it.
There are lots of digesters
around the country, but this
one works. It should pay for
itself in anywhere from
three to five years, and it
takes a minimum of labor to
operate.
“It can be readily linked to
a still for the production of
alcohol, and it can help solve
the dairyman’s pollution
control problems.”
Sheaffer said the
Waybnght system cost
$150,000 and that with all the
engineering work done, and
the experimental bugs
worked out, they could not
reproduce a similar system
in anywhere from three to
four weeks.
One drawback to the
system is the number of
cows needed to make it
economically feasible.
Sheaffer feels 400 cows
would be needed to make the
system pay for itself with
electrical power savings.
But that doesn’t take into
account the pollution con
trol, the value of the alcohol
that could be generated with
a still using waste heat from
the generator, or the value of
The Stewart & Stevenson dual fuel Diesel engine drives the Oelco generator
which provides electrical power for the farm. The piping in the background
transfers methane gas from the digester to the engine. The rectangular metal
box located above the engine in the exhaust piping will recover the waste heat
from the engine. Future plans call for this waste heat to power a grain distillation
plant.
Richard Waybright, part-owner and manager of
Mason Dixon Farms, Inc.
about Iflsoo for' a coal
generating facility.
Waybnght expects to be
using a 300 kw generator to
supply Met Ed, and he thinks
he might be able to run it off
the same manure pit now
supplying his 100 kw
generator. There is a
possibility, thoughj that
they’ll have to build another
pit.
With the excess heat from
the generators, a 200-gallon
per day gasohol still will be
put mto operation.
The still would use nearly
half the farm’s com crop of
65.000 bushels per year.
Going mto the still, the
com would be seven to nine
percent protem. It will come
out as distillers grains at
about 30 percent protem,
which the farm would use for
dairy feed.
If the still were to operate
300 days a year at 200 gallons
a day, Waybnght feels they
would be able to replace all
or a major part of the 25,000
gallons of diesel fuel and
15.000 gallons of liquid
propane they now buy an
nually to run tractors, to
heat water and to dry their
hay and gram.
WE'RE GROWING BETTER
This black rubber bag traps methane gas escaping from fermenting manure
from part of the Mason Dixon dairy herd.
w **»
•v* I*> “
im
A"
*
w **♦»
Some 200 reporters and government officials converged on the Mason Dixon
Farm Wednesday to look at a methane digester that should cut the farm's
nual electricity bill in half, from $30,000 to $15,000 and eventually eliminate the *
need for any power purchases.
Manure that has passed through the methane digester is free of disease
causing organisms. By extracting the liquid from the solids, the solids can be
used for bedding. The machine that separates the solids and the liquids is a new
idea from Surge, and is now being test marketed around the country. Initial
units, at about $25,000, are still quite expensive.
9