University of Gottingen (Germany) Coordinator of the Bioenergy Village Concept Juhnde, Germany Professor Marianne Karpenstein-Machan is a key member of the team at the "Interdisciplinary Center for Sustainable Development" at the University of Gottingen (Germany) working as the Coordinator of the pilot project called "Bioenergy Village". The project is financed by the Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food, and Agriculture, in cooperation with the Agency of Renewable Resources. The project serves as a world model for converting biological material into electrical power and heat. An interdisciplinary team of 16 researchers, including economists, social scientists, psychologists, and agronomists, cooperate on the project. The plan is to build a block-type thermal power station (or heat and power generator) run by biogas. The biogas is gained from the liquid manure of 800 cows and 1,400 pigs, corn silage, grass silage and cracked grain. It fuels a block-type power station that generates 4,000,000 kWh of electricity annually. For additional heating during winter a wood hogged heating system is planned which can be run either with hogged wood (wood chips) or straw. Professor Karpenstein-Machan, an agronomist, has worked for the past 15 years as a professor at the University of Kassel, conducting research in the area of energy crop science. In addition, she has undertaken research at Cornell University looking at energy balances of agriculture cultivation systems. Professor Karpenstein-Machan believes the time has come to put into practice all that has been achieved in many years of research.