Research conducted on behalf of the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative has identified a host of challenges that would face anyone interested in building a pipeline to move swine manure.
As part of its ongoing effort to identify feasible methods for moving swine manure from areas with surplus phosphorus to areas that face a phosphorus deficit the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative, in partnership with DGH Engineering, examined the feasibility of constructing a 14 inch diameter, 35 mile underground manure pipeline.
MLMMI executive director John Carney reports, while a pipeline could potentially reduce road traffic while efficiently relocating nutrients, it would cost a minimum of $42,000,000 to build and seven cents a gallon to operate and would face a host of additional challenges.
When MLMMI investigates ideas like this we always start by asking ourselves, could this be practical and could it be economically feasible?
We thought this might have some potential.
As we worked our way through it and we worked with an engineering firm that has the deep expertise and the knowledge to be able to give us an informed preliminary estimate.
Once we realized that this was a $42,000,000 investment we realized that that’s quite a lot of money, and also the operating cost of 7 cents a gallon would also be quite substantial for the industry and then, of course, above and beyond that any project of this nature, of course, would involve a lengthy public consultation and public hearing process so there’s many challenges with this.
As we got into it and really gave it its due consideration, the conclusion was there’s many challenges with this idea.
The full report can be accessed by visiting the Manitoba Livestock Manure Management Initiative web site at manure.mb.ca.
