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A pioneering pig farm in North Carolina that has led the way in its industry for embracing renewable technologies, has reported a 10 per cent-plus increase in its biogas yields by investing in two new chopper pumps made by Landia.
Soon after Butler Farms opened just over a quarter of a century ago, the owner quickly wanted to reduce its impact on the environment, culminating in the development of its own pig-manure-powered biogas operation in 2011.
As a contract grower that takes 20,000 pigs per year from their arrival weight of around 40 lbs to their departure size of about 290 lbs, Butler Farms of Lillington (just south of Raleigh) has enough manure to warrant a one-million-gallon storage lagoon turned anaerobic digester (60 ft x 180 ft x 18 ft deep) for the (up to) 10,000 gallons of manure that are produced every day.
‘Do whatever we could to lessen our impact’
“We may have started out in 1994 as a simple generic contract grower”, said owner, Tom Butler, “but we wanted to do whatever we could to lessen our impact on the environment and our community. It’s a never-ending learning process. We’re pig farmers, not engineers or renewables experts, which is why perhaps we didn’t have the best mixing system for a biogas plant”.
Now referring to the old small mixers as ‘eggbeaters’, Tom said that the pressure ratios on the previous set up, plus varying diameters of pipework also put a strain on the biogas engine, but that Landia helped to optimize the system.
‘We are finally getting everything mixed properly’
“Power isn’t always everything”, he continued, “but our first mixers were so undersized. We’ve gone up from around just 10 HP to 60 HP, which means we can now move a million gallons whenever we want to; using two Landia Chopper Pumps at the start of the process and then just one is sufficient to keep everything moving. This is quite an achievement because our lagoon is rectangular, not round, but with two nozzles per pump, we are finally getting everything mixed properly, so its perhaps no surprise that we’re seeing such as increase in methane levels for our biogas plant, which will continue to improve as we fine-tune the operation”.
He added: “Now that we have the right mixing system, our next step is to look at a more consistent supply of feedstock, because at the moment we have gaps, which we need to level out. So, we’re starting to look at introducing food waste, which again is why the Landia Chopper Pumps are such a good investment. We know that the equipment is more than capable of handling it. When we go ahead, we’re looking to add another Landia unit for our 20,000-gallon inground concrete intake tank, because again, the small existing pump won’t be able to handle the solids. A Landia pump will make sure that the consistency of the feedstock particle size will benefit our digester”.
He concluded: “As much as new chopper pumps have been a revelation, for me, customer service is extremely important. For far too many businesses today, that customer care just isn’t there anymore, but at Landia it is alive and well. They take a keen interest in our business and want us to succeed”.
Tom admits to having not that long ago reduced his working week at Butler Farms to around 20 hours. He says he tends to do a lot of ‘pointing’. But for somebody who has just celebrated his 80th birthday, perhaps he can be forgiven…
June 30, 2021 - Landia
