LUSK – On March 5, the Niobrara County Commissioners met for a second time on this day, at the Niobrara County Fairgrounds. The second half of the Commissioners meeting was about the Sidewinder H2 Clean Hydrogen & Fuel project update.

Representatives from the respective companies are involved in the, now renamed Sidewinder H2 Clean Hydrogen & Fuel project, spoke to the public about a variety of things involved with the project. The project had previously been called the Pronghorn H2 and Sidewinder H2 Clean Hydrogen & Fuels Project. This project has now been split between Converse and Niobrara Counties.

Due to limited time, County Commissioner Chairman Pat Wade, asked questions on behalf of the public and the Commissioners. Scott Baron, Nick Alexander, Peter Gray and Thomas Malloy were on hand to explain what clean hydrogen looked like and to answer questions.

A green hydrogen plant is proposed to be constructed with Converse and Niobrara Counties. This project will take about a decade to complete. They still are looking for interested parties to participate within the project to place wind turbines on land to help generate clean hydrogen, which during the process will generate electricity. This will be the alternative to the use of fossil fuels and coal, which Wyoming is known for.

Focus Clean Energy, a Boulder, Colorado base company. Martin, who is the president and founder of the company, said they are seeking land from private owners to place wind turbines on. Martin and his cohorts are seeking to build trust within the Wyoming communities and to educate the public about the clean hydrogen process.

Wind turbines will be built to be the power sources for the hydrogen plant. Over the course of the next few years land will be surveyed, environmental studies will be completed and the applications of permits. Throughout the process they will be seeking buyers for the electricity that will be generated from the process.

Nordex USA and ACCIONA are both Chicago based companies that will be joint owners of the two projects. These companies are based in Germany and Spain and other European countries.

Notable reasons for choosing Wyoming for this project is the wind Wyoming experiences throughout the year. Water is a key element used as well. During the meeting they said they did not want to use the water from Wyoming aquifer but would drill further down and would use brackish water that way not to disturb the water table.

According to Martin there are ranchers chosen to participate by offering their land for use for wind farms to be constructed upon.

Martin also said the tax revenue for the county would triple and throughout the year they would only use two to five pivots of water year-round. He went onto share they were not here to force themselves upon landowners, but to educate people about what clean hydrogen looked like.

“This is a new opportunity to create revenue above and beyond,” Martin said. “We also understand that water is a sensitive issue. We would be using the same amount of water just like other companies in Wyoming use.”

Chairman Wade told them water has been an issue in the State of Wyoming for a long time, especially in Niobrara county. Wade said back in the 1970s people from the community had developed a water board to protect their natural resources, such as water.

“We are still in the early stages of development,” Martin said. “We cannot say where we will be getting the water and it is available to us elsewhere and we would be sourcing it elsewhere and piping it in.”

“Some of our landowners want to sell us their water to use,” Martin said. “Our intentions are not to impact any of the existing water users. If we found out we were impacting a water user then we would bring water in for them.”

“We don’t want to bring a project in that would have negative impacts that people are a afraid of. We don’t want to do that to anybody. We and them will be looking very hard at the sustainability of the water,” Martin said.

The next County Commissioners meeting will be held on March 19 at 9 a.m. at the Niobrara Courthouse.