Tempest brews in a hog lot
IOWA - 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.
Source: Des Moines Register
16 January 2006
2 minute read
