Located just beyond the Watauga County Landfill site in Boone lies a greenhouse built to use biomass energy, which is generated from agricultural and food waste materials, to grow plants year round.
The greenhouse was made through the NEXUS project, a biomass energy research team consisting of faculty and students from the Sustainable Technology and the Built Environment (STBE) and Appalachian Energy Center (AEC).
“The NEXUS project is aiming to help Appalachian rural farmers to increase their income or increase their productivity by extending growing seasons,” Hei-Young Kim, research assistant at the Appalachian Energy Center, said. “With the greenhouse, we can extend the growing season but here, on top of the mountain, we need some kind of heating system.”