Via Mankato Free Press (Prairie grass slated for biofuel use)
For years, there has been talk and plans for converting grass to energy. Beginning this fall, several groups plan to actually do it. “We wanted to do something on the ground. We already have the fuel and we have an end user in place,” said Neal Feeken, renewable energy coordinator for The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota.
The fuel is on about 300 acres of native or restored prairies in Nicollet, Le Sueur, Sibley and Rice counties, mostly on Department of Natural Resources or U.S. Fish and Wildlife land.
The user is a new biomass power plant in Shakopee being opened by the Mdewakanton Sioux and Rahr Malting. The plant is designed to use a biproduct from the barley malting process, steam and other biomass to produce electricity.
Feeken said their project, being funded with a $20,000 grant from the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, will determine the cost of harvesting and delivering the biomass to the plant. By determining what a custom-harvesting business will need to charge per acre and how much a landowner would need to make per acre, Koda will be able to calculate what it will need to charge for the electricity.
But Christopher Anderson, senior media relations manager with the conservancy, said the project is more than just finding ways to help economic activity in rural areas. The conservancy sees it as a way to protect a nearly extinct ecosystem—tallgrass prairies. “Tallgrass prairie are the most endangered ecosystems on earth. Minnesota is down to less than 1 percent of what it had,” Anderson said.
