Harrisonburg, VA
United States
Latitude: 38.44957
Longitude: -78.86892
Year Opened: 2000
Burner: Unknown Type
Cost (in millions): 7
"Learn lessons from failures, such as the Harmony project, which involved a timed-release fertilizer: even though there have been some failures, the community should not be turned off to more pilot projects. Lessons learned from Harmony: avoid insufficient capitalization, inconsistent input of feedstock properties (when moisture gets so high the manure/litter behaves differently), not enough attention paid to end markets." p18 in http://www.shenandoahrcd.org/WSFStrategyPlanfinalJuly05.pdf
"In addition to the pelletization plant in Delaware, one Virginia-based company experimented unsuccessfully with transforming poultry litter into an organic-based fertilizer while using the energy produced during processing to power the facility. The Harmony-Shenandoah Valley project, which began in April 2000, predicted that it would use at least 24,000 tons of excess litter annually to produce a variety of value-added fertilizers for home and commercial markets. The project was supported by $500,000 in equity from Rocco (a commercial poultry processor), a $500,000 matching grant made by DCR from the Water Quality Improvement Fund, and $1 million in financing from Duke Energy. The plant was abandoned in December 2003 while only 5,376 tons of poultry litter had been used. According to DEQâs report, the project had significant financial difficulty because of limited markets and difficulty competing with the cost of production for chemical fertilizers. The plant was also unable to successfully use the gasification process to generate the energy needed to operate the plant." Source: http://jlarc.state.va.us/Reports/Rpt314.pdf
EJN Biomass Spreadsheet - 2006