MMSD ready to fire up methane deal to power Jones Island

From an article by Marie Rohde in The Daily Reporter:

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District is poised to enter into a 20-year contract to buy methane gas to run the Jones Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, a move district officials say will save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

But the project will cost $94.7 million in infrastructure improvements.

“We will be able to purchase methane gas at 48 percent of the cost of natural gas,” said Kevin Shafer, MMSD’s executive director.

The district could begin using methane as early as January 2013, but the system would not be fully functional for several years after that.

While methane gas is increasingly used as a fuel to produce electricity, this plan is unusual in that it requires piping the gas 17 miles from the Emerald Park Landfill on the eastern edge of Muskego.

Posted in: Biogas