Bair comes to Togie

Elk Mountain may be in the sights of Bair Energy as the potential future home of a green hydrogen plant, but that hasn’t stopped CEO Nicholas Bair from making the rounds to other communities.

On April 5, Bair appeared before the Saratoga Town Council alongside Yvonne Johnson, executive director of the Carbon County Economic Development Corporation.

While Elk Mountain—specifically Simpson Ridge—is being proposed as the site of the green hydrogen plant, Bair told Saratoga’s governing body his company was looking to establish offices in Saratoga.

“We do plan on being in the state for a very long time. We were looking at Triple D (Construction), we’re also speaking to some other contractors for construction but we would be locating a lot of our executives here to run our program,” said Bair. “We are looking to be based out of Wyoming, it’s something that we as a team chose.”

According to Bair, the executive offices in Saratoga would have eight to 15 employees. Additionally, Bair stated hydrogen-powered hydrogen trucks would also be in Saratoga. The initial number given by the CEO was 40 trucks, with the potential of all of them being owner-operated. With the trucks in Saratoga, Bair floated the idea of a hydrogen filling station placed in the community and said it would be the first in the state of Wyoming.

“A filling station for us is a hydrogen filling station for trucks. There may be an opportunity that we could work within your community,” said Bair. “It looks like you’ve got the roads and the capability for that, if we were to have a maintenance shop here and a filling station.”

Councilmember Jon Nelson asked why the filling station would be 40 miles away from the plant itself. Bair replied his company prefers to have the trucks located where the drivers live, adding Saratoga had a better potential for more housing instead of Elk Mountain.

The plant itself, according to Bair, would be a 5 million standard cubic feet (SCF) per day facility. In March 2021, Clean Energy Holdings—which Bair is also the CEO of—announced a 15 million SCF proposed for Colorado.

The majority of the questions for Bair came from Nelson, whose questions ranged from the amount of employees Bair was expecting to bring in to how much water his plant would use and where it would come from. According to Bair, his plant would use 25 gallons per minute in a 24 hour period but added it would be closer to 50 gallons per minute in a 12 hour period as the plant would only operate 50 percent of the time.

“I’m really just trying to get out in front of the reaction that the community’s going to have tomorrow. I’m trying to ask the questions that I know are going to be asked of me over the next week, which is; what does this mean for our natural resources that we depend on, what does it mean for our current housing crunch that we’re in already without another 40-50 people,” said Nelson. “I don’t mean to come off as not being open to welcoming economic growth into the community or welcoming you or your team in the community. I’m just trying to ask the questions that I know are going to be of most concern to people that we represent.”

Bair stated the Simpson Ridge green hydrogen plant would not be using any potable water and had, according to him, five offers for non-potable water including town with non-potable water coming from their abandoned mines.

“We are here to use less water and make a product that is more achievable for the environment,” said Bair. “When you use water at 25 gallon a minute and it makes hydrogen, it actually comes back as pure water.”

With just a brief overview of the project and its potential impact on Saratoga, the council requested Johnson work with them to schedule a town hall meeting where Bair could answer questions from residents.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on April 19 at Saratoga Town Hall.