Nature in Balance: Achieving Landscape Scale Prairie Conservation Through Value Innovation

Biomethane [i.e., natural gas derived through anaerobic digestion (AD)] is an opportunity for achieving economic, environmental and renewable energy benefits simultaneously.  Specifically, significant gains in social-ecological goals are possible through AD involving perennial native grassland biomass in combination with agricultural wastes (e.g., livestock manure).  When well planned and managed, compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from AD of renewable resources provide economic and socio-ecological advantages over non-renewable energy sources.  Our aim is establishment of sustainable sources of diverse native perennial grassland biomass that provide financial return for landowners, entrepreneurs, and taxpayers, while also protecting natural resources and mitigating climate change.  Armed with mounting scientific evidence, we’re using diverse native grassland plantings to anchor our strategic planning and implementation initiatives involving AD, and to drive the realization of social-ecological goals shared with the conservation community.  We’ve assembled a high-performing team of experts from public and private sectors to tackle the challenge of restoring 15,000 acres of native grassland on highly erodible lands in northern Missouri and harvesting the biomass for co-digestion with an unprecedented concentration of livestock manure - the largest concentration of its kind in our nation, for production of CNG and LNG.  The know-how gained from this enterprise provides a model for replication on a decentralized basis across large landscapes. Through effective demonstration of our approach, our overarching goal is creation of 30 million acres of native grassland in the Midwest. This presentation provides an overview of our project motivation, development, and achievements to-date