February 27, 2025 - A new economic development project in Mason County could bring thousands of jobs over the course of 10 years, West Virginia’s governor said.

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 news release said.

The site is anticipated to house the following projects:

• Mountaineer coal to hydrogen: A chemical looping process that takes West Virginia coal and generates hydrogen, steam, electricity or syngas. The initial phase of the project will use 200 tons of coal per day, but subsequent phases could use up to 2900 tons of coal per day with multiple phases planned.
• Monarch Compute Campus: Two sites accommodating more than 1,000 acres of buildable space for data centers.
• Mountaineer AtmosClear: A biomass power plant that can be used to assist with forestry management. By better managing the forests, West Virginia will be able to increase huntable lands for West Virginia residents.
• Mountaineer Hydrogen: Natural gas-powered reforming process that will generate blue hydrogen for use by local businesses.

“West Virginia is uniquely positioned to power America’s energy resurgence,” Morrisey said in the news release. “With today’s partnership, West Virginia is set to gain high-paying jobs and help the United States compete on a global scale to power the future of technology.” 

The governor said the project could bring more than 3,000 high paying technical, construction and installation jobs.

According to its website, B&W’s Brightloop technology allows for low-carbon hydrogen production, net-negative energy production, clean coal power production and waste byproduct utilization for various applications.