May 9—By GREG JORDAN

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

PRINCETON — A plan for establishing a new business using locally-mined coal and employing hundreds of people in Mercer County and the counties beyond was announced Wednesday by an entrepreneur with local ties to the area.

Tim Hawks, managing partner of TNT Hydrogen and president of Hernandez Consulting & Construction in New Orleans, spoke by telephone to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph along with Assessor Lyle Cottle and Senator Chandler Swope, R-Mercer, about the project.

"I represent a group of associates," Hawks said. "We have long-term relationships and some of them are local, and basically what we're doing is we're taking existing technology that exists out in the market and putting it together in a unique way and taking the coal that is available in Mercer County and the surrounding counties, the Pocahontas Coal Belt."

Pocahontas coal has unique properties, Hawks said. The process at the future operation will heat it up to 1,200 degrees, but it won't burn due to the absence of oxygen. A hydrogen-based gas will be created from it along with another substance called carbon black.

"The gases are hydrogen, that's unique to this particular coal because the other area coals in the country and even internationally don't product as much hydrogen as the coal in the Pocahontas Coal Belt," he said, adding that the process will create a gas called SimGas which has some methane and carbon dioxide.

This hydrogen gas will be used to generate electricity and fuel vehicles.

"In particular with the hydrogen, part of our goal is the capture the hydrogen market in not only in generating electricity, but also in the future of powering cars," Hawks said.

Toyota in Georgetown, Ky. is about to release the next year's model, two vehicles that will be for sale first in California that operate on hydrogen and Dodge is manufacturing a 3500 model pickup truck which will be running on hydrogen as an option, he said.

And the carbon black has its own uses, Hawks said. It's found in products used every day.

"For those who aren't familiar with carbon black, that's used for making tires in the US as high quality as they are. It's in every piece of plastic that's made because it protects petroleum products in plastics from UV (rays)," Hawks said. "And they are all high-quality products and very valuable products."

Hawks said the business will have six locations in Mercer County employing hundreds of people.

"We have right now six locations in Mercer County that are tied to the national grid," he said.

"Each of the six locations will employ at least 100-plus people in high-paying jobs," Hawks said, adding that the company will have an apprenticeship program where base wages will start at over $30 an hour.

"That's partly because we're also attached to the U.S. credit, have apprentice program where base wages will start at $30 an hour plus," he said. A new web company that's coming to Mercer County can use the electricity generated with hydrogen. Hawks said he also hopes to work with Bluefield State University.

"We're hoping to work with and still trying to actually contact the right person at Bluefield State," Hawks said. "Having attended Bluefield State, I'm still hoping they can be involved in this also."

The company will create both jobs at its coal to hydrogen plants as well as mining jobs and jobs in other businesses, he said.

"We also will have a national monitoring station where we can set up in the Princeton area that will also employ another 100 people, so we're talking about at least 700 people, new jobs, in Mercer County and the coal plant source that we're coming out of is Cornerstone Mines which is above Montcalm and McComas," Hawks said. "They'll employ another additional 500 jobs in the mine also just because of the amount of coal we're taking from the mine to be able to generate the hydrogen and the electricity."

Once operations in Mercer County are established, the plan is to expand into other parts of the region.

"Our next goal after we capture Mercer County is to go to McDowell County and do the same thing to create jobs and help the economy there," Hawks said.

Hawks thanked both Swope and Cottle for their assistance.

"Just a little bit of sharing. I can't speak enough of what Senator Swope and of course Lyle Cottle have done to help us," Hawks said. "Without their help basically and assistance making my dream come true and making other people's dreams come true, this would be something that would probably have took a lot longer to happen and not have the success that it has had."

Hawks said the hope is to start construction by the end of the year. Each of the six plants will cost between $250 million to $300 million. He is currently working with investors.

"That's the reason the financial bankers and equity firms, it takes a little bit longer to get that kind of money out to do a project," he said. "We have a good sound project, we have equipment that's basically been in operation for 15 or more years at other facilities — not ones we own, but other facilities — be there will be proven equipment that we will be using also."

Besides jobs at the facilities, the project will create other job opportunities, he said.

"We're currently within a few months of starting some actual work on our plants. We're in negotiations with several different finance groups and still looking for investors and financing because the sheer dollar amount and volume that this is going to take to get these plants in place, but also what it does for the county," Hawks said. "This will also involve local construction companies and other firms that we're working with and negotiating with that will also bring construction jobs to the area."

Starting construction by the end of the year will require a good deal of prior engineering work.

"There is a lot of engineering, planning. We've done all our preliminary engineering with our own engineers," Hawks said. "We will involve some local engineers to do what's called detailed engineering. The equipment has to be purchased and obviously manufactured, so our hope is it could be as short as 60 days we start purchasing equipment and as long as 180 days. We're dealing with one financial group that has a timeline of when we need to spend the money, which is great, but obviously when you're using this much financing because this is so large it takes time to get through the financing part, and that's where we're at right now."

Swope said that in his view, the future operation is the largest economic development project in West Virginia in decades.

"I've been working since last summer with Tim and my role has been to cut red tape," Swope said. "I introduced him to the governor's office, the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection), the regulatory process of getting a major project like this through takes a lot of time and here in West Virginia we have a Legislature that opens the door to people like this, and all I have to do is make a phone call and immediately I get a response from various regulatory agencies and all that sort of thing."

Cottle said that Hawks contacted him when he started looking into putting a new business in Mercer County and getting through the state licensing and other requirements. The plant will not have smokestacks or produce emissions going out into the environment, he said.

"This will all be green — a green project with zero emissions," Cottle said.

Hawks said he wants to create an economic development project with long-term benefits for the Mercer County area.

"This has been a passion of mine," Hawks said. "I grew up in Princeton and my family goes back quite a bit of time in the Mercer County area and the counties surrounding. My grandfather was a coal miner and my other grandfather was a train engineer who ran the coal lines, so this is a personal passion of mine. I'd like to give back basically to the area, something that will be long lasting."

— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com

Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com