450,000 tons of poultry manure burn at 750°C — the fire keeps 70,000 Dutch homes lit, and the ash heads back to farm fields as phosphorus fertilizer.
Chicken manure is simultaneously a fuel and a future fertilizer, and one facility in the Netherlands has been running that loop at industrial scale for years. BMC Moerdijk processes 450,000 tonnes of poultry manure annually — roughly one-third of all poultry manure produced in the Netherlands — through a fluidized bed furnace that combusts it at approximately 750°C.
The heat boils water into high-pressure steam. That steam drives turbines. Those turbines generate a gross 285,000 MWh of electricity per year, with 245,000 MWh delivered to the grid — enough to cover the annual electricity use of about 70,000 households.
Why Chicken Manure Burns Hot Enough to Drive a Turbine
Poultry manure contains a high proportion of organic carbon and nitrogenous compounds — primarily uric acid and undigested proteins — along with bedding material. That organic fraction is what combusts. At 750°C in a controlled fluidized bed furnace, organic carbon oxidizes completely to CO₂, releasing the heat that generates steam.
Nitrogen partly converts to NOx or N₂ and is captured in downstream pollution-control systems. The minerals — phosphorus, potassium, calcium — do not burn. They cannot. They survive the furnace intact and concentrate into the remaining ash.
What the Ash from Burned Manure Actually Contains
The 55,000 tonnes of ash that exits the furnace each year is pathogen-free, odorless, and dense with phosphates and potassium. BMC Moerdijk processes and ships this material to customers across Europe as a soil improver — a direct substitute for synthetic fertilizer.
Phosphorus is a finite nutrient. Once it washes from farmland into rivers, it locks into sediment and effectively exits the agricultural system. Combustion ash short-circuits that loss by concentrating phosphorus into a stable, transportable form that goes back to soil rather than downstream.
The Closed Loop BMC Moerdijk Calls “Coop to Crop”
Feed becomes manure in the coop. Manure fuels a turbine at Moerdijk. Ash returns to the fields that grow the next round of feed crops. Nothing leaves the system as waste — it exits as electricity, then as fertilizer, then as food again.
The plant has also investigated adding anaerobic digestion to the process. Projections suggest converting 250,000 tonnes of poultry manure into 30 million cubic meters of biomethane annually, with CO₂ savings estimated at up to 206,000 tonnes per year.
The numbers that make this feel almost implausible are the ones that are most firmly verified. A single facility. One country’s chicken droppings. Seventy thousand homes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much electricity does one tonne of chicken manure produce at BMC Moerdijk?
Approximately 690 kWh gross and 597 kWh net per tonne, based on technical documentation for the facility.
Is the ash from burning chicken manure safe to use on farm fields?
Yes. Combustion at 750°C destroys pathogens, and the resulting ash is dry and odorless, used across Europe as a phosphorus- and potassium-containing soil improver.
How much of the Netherlands’ poultry manure does BMC Moerdijk handle?
The facility processes about one-third of all poultry manure produced in the Netherlands each year.
Does burning chicken manure produce greenhouse gas emissions?
Combustion produces CO₂, but it also prevents methane and nitrous oxide emissions from raw manure storage and field application, and the plant is described as carbon neutral on that basis.