500 KW Biogas Plant In Hanover, Germany: The process of converting feedstock into biogas has been perfected in Germany. Over 4000 plants such as this 500 KW Biogas Plant in Hanover, Germany are providing gas and electric power to Germans. The biogas plant being built in Leona, Texas, will be constructed similar to this plant.

Silage Storage: Two years of energy is stored in the form of sorghum silage in bunker silos.

 

 

One of the key factors in achieving soil sustainability is the application of the nutrient and carbon rich byproducts back to the fields growing the energy crops.

Since most of the biomass is removed when the sorghum silage is harvested, no-till or strip tillage methods are very effective practices for retaining organic matter and improving the soil condition index.

 

 

NRCS Texas State Conservationist Don Gohmert (far left) and Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Todd Staples (second from left) help business partners Buddy Alders and George King (far right) break ground on their new biogas plant in Leona, Texas on June 5, 2009.

Alders will use his baled wheat straw to supply poultry operations with clean bedding. He will then reclaim the poultry litter, and use it at the biogas plant, along with other nutirents, to grow algae, which will produce biodiesel. The biodiesel will then go back to the farmers that are raising the crops.

 

Farmer Buddy Alders and Allen Smith, NRCS coordinator for the Post Oak Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D), stand in a field of sorghum that will be harvested to fuel the biogas plant and produce electricity for Houston County Electric Cooperative.

The the sign at the entrance of America's first cellulose biogas plant, Mustang Creek Biogas Plant, tells the story: Texas Agriculture Delivers Clean Energy. The plant is being constructed on I-45, just north of Leona, Texas.