In this tiny village an hour east of Prague, there are one pub, one school and fewer than 500 residents, and a common mode of transportation is rusty, single-speed bicycle. Most Czechs have never heard of the place.

But, these days, Kněžice Mayor Milan Kazda is fielding daily calls from politicians, energy experts and ecologists. Their interest? A conglomeration of concrete fermentation tanks, boilers and generators here: the village's shiny new 127 million Kč ($6 million) bio-gas power plant.

This is one of the first Czech municipalities to generate its own energy. Since late last year, the plant — running at about 90 percent capacity — has used manure, straw and other biological waste (or biomass) to generate heat and electricity. The result is a village that is virtually energy self-sufficient.

And that's getting some people talking at a time when the Czech Republic is looking to become less dependent on Russia for its energy supplies. Russia's oil and gas fuel much of Europe, and the eastern giant sends shock waves down the supply chain every time it faces off with another country over prices, as it did recently with Belarus.

"Biomass is single-handedly the best, most readily available alternative source of energy," says Zdeněk Andrlík, an energy expert at Interel, a European Union public affairs consulting agency. "Clearly, biomass won't do much by itself to reduce our dependence on Russian oil and gas, but it's a way to diversify our energy sources."

Boosting renewable resources

Only 4 percent of the Czech Republic's energy currently comes from alternative sources. According to an EU agreement, the Czech Republic, like other EU countries, should be generating at least 8 percent of its energy from renewable resources such as biomass by 2010.

"It's a very ambitious goal," says Daniel Vondrouš, first secretary of the Environment Ministry. "But we will try to get as close to achieving it as possible."

The EU covers up to 75 percent of the cost of building such renewable-energy facilities, as it did in the case of Kněžice. Further funding from the Environmental State Fund amounted to about 20 percent.

"It was a lot of paperwork, but it was worth it," says Kazda, the mayor. "Basically, we wanted to revive the tradition of villages being self-sufficient and support local farmers by buying up their biological waste."

The village now produces all of its own heat. The electricity produced by the bioplant, meanwhile, is sold to the national power grid.

"We just about break even," Kazda says. "But the people living here see the whole project as an investment."

According to Andrlík, more bioplants like the one in Kněžice will sprout up across the country in the next few years, following the leads of countries such as Germany and Austria.

Russian reliance

Some people are not so optimistic.

"The notion that every village will have its own power plant is a very romantic one," says Kateřina Koubová, spokeswoman for the Industry and Trade Ministry.

But, while plants like Kněžice's may be the most promising alternative energy source, and biomass itself could also supplement existing power plants, don't expect the Czech Republic to shed its dependence on foreign oil and gas any time soon, energy experts like Andrlík say.

But the country could at least work to limit that reliance, policy makers say.

The Czech Republic imports about 64 percent of its oil from Russia through the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline. The rest comes from a mix of sources through the Adria and Ingolstadt pipelines from Croatia and Italy.

When it comes to natural gas, Czechs are even more dependent on Russia, which supplies 70 percent of their natural gas, with Norway supplying another 30 percent.

Andrlík says Algerian gas could help limit Europe's energy reliance on Russia. "If the European Union put pressure on Algeria to do business directly with them, this would help limit Russia's energy clout," he says. "The problem is that Algeria has been talking about cooperating with Russia."

Coal still king

The most widely used energy resource here remains locally mined brown coal, which generates some 65 percent of Czech electricity. But much of the country's coal reserves lie outside the government's current coal-mining limits. Lifting those would mean razing towns and destroying vast stretches of landscape.

Nuclear energy, on those days when the Temelín plant in South Bohemia is running properly, can generate about 30 percent of the country's electricity supply.

The key to limiting dependence on Russia and forestalling any potential energy crisis, says the Environmental Ministry's Vodrouš, is to cultivate as many different energy sources as possible.