A new economic development project in Mason County could bring thousands of jobs over the course of 10 years, according to the governor. Fidelis and Babcock & Wilcox have joined forces in the development of B&W’s BrightLoop facility at the Mountaineer GigaSystem site in Mason County. A news release from Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s office said the Brightloop facility is expected to provide power to the Mountaineer GigaSystem site, a planned 2,300-acre Monarch AI data center system, which consists of the Monarch Compute Campus at North Point Pleasant and the Expansion MCC.
The site will include a chemical looping porcess that will turn coal to hydrogen. It will also include data centers and a plant that will handle a natural gas-powered reforming process that will generate blue hydrogen for use by local businesses. The governor said the project could bring more than 3,000 high paying technical, construction and installation jobs.