A recent TV special covered the use of Pig Manure to produce an alternate fuel.
Pigs pump out funky new fuel
Manure-to-oil process in test phase
By Bob Downing
Beacon Journal staff writer
Fri, Apr. 07, 2006
WOOSTER - In its lifetime, a pig produces enough manure -- 10 pounds a day -- to yield up to 21 gallons of crude oil.
So could pig poop one day be fueling America's cars?
Yuanhui Zhang, an agricultural and biological engineer at the University of Illinois, thinks that's a possibility.
The researcher, who spoke Thursday at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, has been working for 10 years on a process to turn hog manure into crude oil.
Using thermochemical conversion, Zhang and his team heat and pressurize the manure in a reactor or an industrial-strength pressurized oven. The resulting product is a heavy crude oil that has more energy than ethanol and nearly as much as diesel.
``We're not there yet,'' Zhang said. ``It's going to take more time and more money.... But the science looks workable.''
The manure-to-oil process is working in the laboratory, he said, but more research is needed to eliminate technological and engineering problems.
A pilot project is being planned and probably will be carried out at a pig farm, Zhang said.
A furnace-sized piece of equipment would be large enough to handle the pig manure from a small farm, he said, and the oil could then be collected and shipped away for refining.
Turning manure into oil would do more than create a new energy source. It could also solve a problem for farmers -- getting rid of the manure, which now is mostly spread on farmland.
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Pig Manure
Well Bob, If I could raise my own fuel, guess everyone would have to live with it. LOL 
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