Kluthe, who has 4,000 head of finishing hogs about three miles west of Dodge, said he has spent much of his life thinking about a way to capture the energy of methane while eliminating the odor from the slurry pits in his hog facilities.

"What we're smelling here is methane gas," Kluthe said, standing outside one of his confinement buildings. "That's what we're going to make the power out of. Two or three years ago, I heard this was going on and I thought, 'Wow, this could be awesome.'"

On Thursday, Kluthe will go before the Nebraska Power Review Board with his proposal to build the state's first methane digester, which would create energy to be sold to the local utility. Kluthe has been working on the project for more than two years as a way to convert the manure from his hogs into electricity.

"When you talk about renewable energy, you don't get any more renewable than that," Kluthe said. "The glory of the methane digester is, it's going to get rid of the smell."

Kluthe, 48, is planning to build a digester south of his four hog confinement buildings that would produce up to 60 kilowatts of power and allow him to add two more 1,000-head confinement barns.

He would sell the excess electricity from his farm to the Nebraska Public Power District, which would then supply the electricity to the Cuming County Public Power District. Kluthe's farm is in Colfax County, which borders Cuming and Dodge Counties.

The digester is expected to produce enough energy to support about 35 homes a year. But its greatest value will be in generating electricity during peak usage times, when the Cuming County utility needs more power to fill demand. Kluthe estimates that, once approved, the digester could potentially be up and running by Christmas.

Methane digesters have been around since the 1970s, but only in the past few years have they become more technically sound and viable for livestock producers, who have become more interested in methane fuel as air-quality standards in some states have threatened their livelihoods.

Few people in Nebraska were familiar with the workings of a digester when Kluthe began his project. When he pitched the idea originally, Kluthe got a lukewarm response. Interest grew among power providers and state officials about a year ago as the Bush administration began promoting biomass energy projects around the country.

Kluthe declined to give the cost of the facility, but he has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development for $80,000, which was expected to cover 25 percent of the facility cost.

There are other grants as well, including one from the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund to the Nebraska Public Power District for the project. Kluthe said he believed the facility would end up paying for itself within about six years.

"I never dreamt this would materialize the way it has. I'm hoping we're blazing a trail here that can be followed."

Tim Texel, executive director of the Nebraska Public Power Review Board, said no one in the state has done a project similar to Kluthe's digester. Kluthe needs approval from the power board because Nebraska is the only state in which all power providers are publicly owned and Kluthe would become a private provider, albeit on a very small scale. Another farmer earlier this spring was approved for a 10-kilowatt wind turbine in Stanton County.

"The push from the federal government on biomass projects and renewable energy is driving these applications, and I think we will see more of them," Texel said.

This is how Kluthe's system would work:

Hog manure from the slurry pits would flow into another deep pit that has a large canopy -- an anaerobic digester. The pit is stirred and kept heated, producing methane that is channeled into a pipe that fires up a specially designed engine. That engine turns the turbines that produce electricity.

Because hogs are prolific in producing manure, there's always a supply for the engines, which makes methane a potentially reliable source of fuel.

"As long as the generator is running, we've got a constant source of power," said Elwood Moore, general manager for Cuming County Public Power.

The effluent that flows from the digester into a lagoon will have lost much of its odor. The effluent, which has been broken down by the process, is ready to be used as fertilizer.

"When I first started, I thought it was simple," Kluthe said. "I thought I just had to find somebody to buy my electricity and get off and running."

Kluthe said he had a lot of help along the way from the NPPD and Cuming County Public Power, as well as Colfax County officials who are faced with balancing the needs of livestock producers with those of rural residents who are growing weary of confinement operations.

Chuck Meyer, Colfax County's zoning administrator, said he worked with Kluthe to determine if a methane project was viable.

"With the number of hog farmers we've got in Colfax County, we thought it was a good idea," Meyer said. "When we started it was not feasible and it couldn't be done, but now we're at the time of getting contracts signed."