A poultry firm is planning to set up a revolutionary power plant fuelled entirely by waste products.

But people living near the proposed site say they want reassurances over the "green" generator's non-polluting credentials. 
Banham Poultry has applied for planning permission to set up the plant at its Bunns Bank site, in Attleborough.

Eventually, the company hopes the new station will produce enough electricity to supply a whole town.  If it gets the go-ahead, the generator will be the first of its kind in the UK and could have major implications for East Anglia, which is very much at the heart of the of the poultry industry.

Chicken litter from the region is already used to produce power at Fibrowatt plants in Thetford and Eye.
The finer details of how the Attleborough generator would convert waste into energy are being kept under wraps, but Banham Poultry has confirmed it is pushing ahead with the plans.

A statement released yesterday said the objective was to turn process factory waste into environmentally-friendly energy.

"Banham Poultry is utilising state-of-the-art technology to convert their waste into energy. They will be the first chicken producers in the country to pick up the challenge laid down by the Government to reduce waste and be more energy conscious without harming the environment,"  the statement said.

"If this pioneering venture was repeated throughout the country, it would dramatically reduce the levels of waste disposal and the demand on energy produced from normal resources such as coal, oil, gas or nuclear power."

Broadly speaking, the new plant would take waste by-products and subject them to controlled heat.  Gas would be released and used to power engines, which would in turn produce electricity.

Three chickens that traveled around the planet 108 times as eggs aboard Shenzhou III, China's third unmanned spaceship, hatched Tuesday in a Beijing laboratory, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The chickens, one female and two male, hatched from nine eggs that traveled on the seven-day flight, which ended April 1.  The chickens, kept in a laboratory in the China University of Agriculture, belong to a black-boned species native to China's Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces. 

Scientists chose black-boned chickens because of their pure bloodline, which will enable any genetic variation caused by spaceflight to be easily tracked, Xinhua said, quoting the head of the research team, Yang Ning. 

Yang said it was fortunate both male and female chickens were hatched, which he said will allow them to reproduce and extend the research potential. He told Xinhua the project will prove valuable in researching genetic theories and breeding
technology -- and also could yield economic dividends. 

What's more, he said, the chickens' birth also demonstrates the sophistication of the spacecraft's life support systems. 

The latest Shenzhou (pronounced "shun-jo") module was aloft for six days and 18 hours. The previous two unmanned Shenzhou vessels were launched in November 1999 and January 2001. Xinhua didn't say what happened to the six remaining eggs. 

A pet hen is accompanying a sales rep to work every day.

Mrs Elvis leaps on to the seat next to Jim Smith each morning as he travels from his home in West Kingsdown, Kent.
He says she is completely car trained and occasionally lays him an egg.

He told the Sunday Mirror: "Apart from a few feathers, you wouldn't know I've had a bird keeping me company. Customers can't believe it when I pull up with a hen perched next to me.

"I used to get very lonely on long car journeys so it's great having the hen with me to chat to. She likes to listen to country music [of course!!] on the radio, clucking away. She's certainly one-in-a-million. It's just a pity I can't get her to map-read.

"I've had some weird looks from other drivers who can't believe what they are seeing. Some motorists hoot their horns,  others just laugh and wave. I've been called an egg short of an omlette.  But as long as it's good humoured I don't care."