From pigs to prairie grass: Missouri company seeks new biogas feedstock

A St. Louis alternative energy company has started the second phase of an ambitious biogas project in northern Missouri that aims to turn prairie plants from marginal farmland into renewable natural gas. Roeslein Alternative Energy, in a partnership with Smithfield Foods and a group of Midwest universities, has begun converting the first of a thousand acres of lower quality farmland to prairie grasses.If the company can find a solution that is both technically and financially viable, it could provide broad environmental benefits as well as new income for farmers. But getting there will require building from scratch a whole new system for planting, harvesting, transporting and converting the feedstock.Founder Rudi Roeslein originally approached pork producer Smithfield Foods with a proposal to cover and capture methane from 88 waste lagoons at the corporation’s nine hog facilities in northern Missouri.