GRRO News

 

TEMPEST BREWS IN A HOG LOT

An Eldora inventor wins a $500,000 USDA grant to mass-produce a hog-manure dryer.

Eldora/New Providence, Iowa – January 15, 2006

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By JERRY PERKINS,DES MOINES REGISTER FARM EDITOR 

An Eldora inventor has received a $500,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to commercialize a machine that removes water and odors from hog manure by spinning the slurry like a tornado.

<>Concerns over water pollution, odor and noxious gases contained in hog manure have plagued Iowa's hog industry. The Tempest dryer can help solve that problem, said Loran Balvanz, who developed the Tempest dryer through Global Resource Recovery Organization Inc., an Eldora-based company he founded by in 1999. Balvanz is chairman of the company.

The machine removes water from hog manure by spinning the slurry at a high speed. Water is sucked off the top of the dryer and is vented outside, where it vaporizes. Solids whirl to the edge of the dryer where they can be collected, reducing the volume and weight of the treated product.

<>The dryer also has been used to treat other waste products, Balvanz said. 

<>Because the Tempest separates water from the solids in the manure, Balvanz said, it can solve air and water quality problems caused by hog manure.  <>

The first project for the joint venture using the Tempest will be a 2,400-head hog-feeding operation being built by Mike Teske near Eldora, said Bill Flowers, president of Global Resource Recovery Organization.  <>

By using the dryer technology daily, at least 75 percent of the nutrients from the Teske hog operation will be captured and all the liquids will be eliminated, he said, eliminating the need for long-term storage of liquid manure at the Teske farm.  <>

After the water is vaporized from the hog manure, about a ton of dry fertilizer will be collected a day, he said. The solids can be stored on the farm and applied, when needed, as fertilizer.  <>

Flowers said the Eldora company's agreement with Farm Pilot Project Coordination Inc., a nonprofit organization set up by the Agriculture Department to help implement manure treatment technologies, will form a joint venture that will commercialize the Tempest in animal feeding operations throughout North America.  <>

The $500,000 Agriculture Department grant will pay for the design, testing and equipment used in the project.  <>

If the joint venture is profitable, Flowers said, the pilot project will re-invest its share of the profit into funding the commercialization of additional technologies.  <>

"The unique part of this is that the government is going into business to make money to fund more projects," Flowers said.  <>

The Farm Pilot Project Coordination program has selected 14 pilot projects using various technologies for treating poultry, dairy, swine and composting operations in seven states, including Iowa, Flowers said.  <>

Eventually, the Global Resource Recovery Organization joint venture will use the Tempest drying technology in cattle, poultry and other hog operations.  <>

The Tempest dryers are being manufactured in Eldora by U.S. Manufacturing Inc., a company that makes parts for grinders and also is owned by Balvanz.  <>

Flowers said the dryer at the Teske farm should be in operation in August. If the pilot project goes well, Tempest dryers should be commercially available in a year, he said.

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