ShowMeEnergyNews

Show Me Energy Cooperative began as little more than an idea in current Board of Directors’ President Steve Flick’s mind. As a seed company owner (Flick Seed of Kingsville, Missouri), Steve was concerned about the amount of grass seed hulls he was forced to dispose of annually. In this case, disposal meant burying, burning, adding them to a sanitary dump site, or simply distributing them over a landscaped area. Each solution had its particular costs and negative aspects. He began to wonder if there might not be a better solution that would actually transform this “residue” into some sort of viable product.

With the support of a few close friends and business associates, the idea was pursued to practicality in 2003. A wholly owned company named Missouri Bioenergy, LLC was formed to carry the project forward.

Investigations indicated a logical solution to the problem would be to form the residue into a biomass fuel pellet to be burned in pellet stoves, furnaces, and other pellet-type appliances. Subsequent testing and research proved such a product was not only viable, but also necessary in an economy where insufficient amounts of fuel pellets were available on the general market.

Once the necessity and feasibility were approved in 2004, plans were instigated to develop the idea into a working producer-owned cooperative venture under the name Show Me Energy Cooperative over a three-year period.

Purchase was made of a tract of land in Centerview, Missouri for the plant site, and with the support, approval, and assistance of an entire host of governmental, business, and political entities and the ongoing efforts of a growing number of interested private parties, development of the land and preliminary construction began to take place.

A temporary office, a group of product storage silos, three quonset style input media storage units, and a warehouse and bagging facility, as well as water, sewer, electrical and road access were completed by late 2006.

During that same time, formal organization began with the board of directors of Show Me Energy Cooperative to formulate, plan, and carry out, an equity drive that would allow the final steps in phase one of the project, the building of a state of the art pellet manufacturing facility utilizing local agricultural biomass to produce fuel pellets to equal any currently found on the market in quality, durability, and performance.

The equity drive, which began in January of 2007, raised approximately $7 million and closed prior to the beginning of actual construction which began early summer of the same year.

Plans are already underway for the continuation of Show Me Energy Coooperative’s future endeavors.