Horse waste to turn green via new technology from MaxWest

MaxWest Environmental Systems, Inc. and Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association (FTBOA) have announced a partnership to convert horse waste into renewable energy.

Ocala/Marion County is home to 431 thoroughbred breeding and training farms covering more than 70,000 acres of Florida’s pastures. The disposal of horse/stall waste is a problem that increasingly draws the attention of state and local government agencies. Currently, individual farms are responsible for the disposal of stall waste. MaxWest’s gasification technology will provide FTBOA members with a convenient, environmentally friendly method of horse manure disposal.

Horse waste will be trucked from farms, training centers, sales companies, and other equine facilities across Marion County to a site owned and managed by the partnership. The manure will be mixed with wood waste and then gasified in MaxWest’s integrated gasification system to produce renewable thermal energy, which will then be used to produce “green” electric power for sale to the power grid.

The facility is expected to convert upwards of 100,000 tons of stall and wood waste per year. The process should produce approximately 7.2 megawatts of exportable energy daily, enough to power over 1,400 homes.

Most recently, MaxWest has focused its technology on working with municipalities to convert biosolids to green energy at wastewater treatment plants and is presently talking with Florida dairies and cattle feedlots across the United States. The FTBOA project is its first expansion into working with horse waste.

The MaxWest system works with wood, crop wastes, and other forms of carbon-based wastes such as plastic. MaxWest systems are presently operating at facilities converting wood, cow, chicken, and mixed wastes.