There’s a small community of 3,400 people on the edge of the northern plains whose residents have grown accustomed to outsiders and the press. Some people come to Benson, Minn., to see the Chippewa Valley Ethanol Co. plant on the outskirts of town, where routine production sometimes stops so the facility can distill top-shelf spirits like Shaker’s vodka. That same refinery also attracts those who want to learn more about its pilot gasifier, where corn stover, straw and soybean stubble can all be used to replace natural gas. But there’s more to Benson’s renewable reach than the ethanol plant.

Farms across the Land of 10,000 Lakes raise more than 45 million turkeys a year. Jennie-O Turkey Store Inc. has more than 100 farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and six turkey-processing plants in Minnesota. According to the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association, 75 to 80 pounds of feed is needed to produce one 30-pound turkey. “That feed not remaining in the turkey flesh has got to go somewhere, now doesn’t it?” says Rupert Fraser, CEO of Homeland Renewable Energy LLC, a New Hampshire-based holding company with roots in the United Kingdom. For every pound of turkey meat, there’s roughly one-and-a-half pounds of manure produced. In Minnesota, those 45 million turkeys dish out a million tons of litter a year. Poultry litter consists of excrement from the birds, plus wayward feed, feathers and wood particles from bedding. Fibrominn LLC, a Benson-based power plant, recently started using this plentiful waste as its fuel. At 55-megawatts (MWs), it’s the largest poultry-litter-fired power plant in the world, and the first of its kind in the United States.

The technologies being implemented at Fibrominn to effectively combust alkaline-rich poultry wastes, properly handle and condition the material, and contain the powerful odor, were not developed on the fly. It was the culmination of 15 years of work originating in the U.K., where people from Benson traveled to understand more completely how this type of a plant affects the surrounding community. Now that Fibrominn is operational, people with stakes in other large U.S. poultry regions are flocking to this northern town in the heart of turkey country to get a closer look at the facility.

From Union Jack to Stars and Stripes
Herbaceous biomasses have fueled boilers for a long time. Animal wastes like poultry litter have a different makeup, however, that cause fouling and slagging during the combustion process. “Animal biomass is more alkaline,” Fraser says. “Alkalines behave differently under high temperatures—they get sticky and foul up with ash … many who have tried to combust, gasify or heat-treat animal manures have found significant challenges.” In 1989, Rupert Fraser and his father, Simon, set out to overcome these challenges. In doing so, they changed the way people think of power and stinky poultry litter.

The elder Fraser’s experience in forest residue combustion in Scotland, and family ties with a United Kingdom turkey farmer, were the basis of the proprietary technologies used in Benson. “We didn’t design the fuel to fit the plants, we designed the plants to fit the fuel,” says Rupert Fraser, referring to the three power plants he and his father engineered in the United Kingdom during the ‘90s. The United Kingdom plants, which collectively produce 64.7 MWs of power, are all still running but no longer owned by the father and son team. The dissolution took place in 2002. Rupert Fraser relocated across the pond, where he started Homeland Renewable Energy, a holding company for Fibrowatt LLC—the project development arm using advancements in those same technologies Fraser brought with him from the United Kingdom.

Building in Benson
It was only natural for Fibrowatt to build its first U.S. plant in Minnesota, even though there are several other large poultry production regions in the United States. According to Carl Strickler, Fibrowatt’s vice president and COO, the company has projects under development in Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina. But in the end it was Minnesota that had all the right attractions.

“It’s a turkey-dominated region,” says Fraser, speaking of Minnesota and specifically of Benson. “It’s also sufficiently forward thinking, and there’s strong enthusiasm and desire there to see alternatives put to good use.” The state has a biomass mandate that was pushed through the 1994 legislature, which made Benson an attractive site indeed. Approximately half of the state’s electricity is provided by Xcel Energy, which is required to acquire 110 MWs of biomass-derived power. The Fibrominn developers inked a long-term energy supply agreement through a subsidiary of Xcel, Northern States Power Co., contingent upon its startup. The security of the power purchase agreement facilitated the fundraising efforts to begin building in Benson. Fraser says the company arranged $202 million in a 20-year debt-arrangement, taken on by a consortium of insurance companies: John Hancock, Prudential and Metropolitan Life.

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