Minneapolis, Minn.-based U.S. Energy Services Inc. and Chicago-based Integrys Energy Group Inc. have entered into an agreement with Johnson County Landfill in Shawnee, Kan., that will supply renewable landfill gas to farmer-owned cooperative Mid-Missouri Energy Inc.'s 40 MMgy ethanol plant in Malta Bend, Mo. U.S. Energy Services estimates that the deal, which was announced in late July, will displace more than 90 percent, or approximately 3,300 million British thermal units of the natural gas used at the plant each day.

U.S. Energy Services will provide Mid-Missouri Energy with biogas management services, including economic use impact analysis, thermal value management services and offtake agreement negotiation. U.S. Energy Services works with energy providers to manage natural gas, electricity and alternative fuel needs.

Integrys Energy Services is a nonregulated energy supply and services company that serves residential, commercial, industrial and wholesale customers in developed competitive markets in the United States and Canada.

Mid-Missouri Energy General Manager Greg Bower said the organizations were able to negotiate a price that allows the co-op to offset part of its gas costs by using the renewable fuel to power the plant.

The operation will move the pipeline-quality gas approximately 150 miles along Panhandle Eastern Pipeline's interstate pipeline from the 800-acre Johnson County Landfill, which is owned and operated by Deffenbaugh Industries Inc., to the ethanol plant. First opened in 1995, the Johnson County Landfill is scheduled to close in 2027 due to exhausted capacity.

Although many ethanol plants are displacing part of their thermal requirements, no other plants displace as high a percentage of its fossil fuels with a waste-derived fuel, according to U.S. Energy Services.