QUESTIONS ABOUND – It’s been one year since the former Pleasants Power Plant became Omnis Pleasants. - Steve Allen Adams

Editor’s note: This article has been edited to remove, clarify and expand on statements that did not meet The Weirton Daily Times’ standards for fairness, and also to include additional information provided by Omnis Fuel Technologies.

Officials with the company that purchased the Pleasants Power Plant more than one year ago said their purchase of the plant was straightforward, that they are in compliance with terms of a loan agreement with the state of West Virginia, and that the company has no connection to political donations to a state economic development official.

State officials confirmed in a July 10 letter that “Quantum remains compliant with the terms of its loan with WVEDA.”

Omnis Fuel Technologies finalized the purchase of the Pleasants Power Plant a year ago from Texas-based ETEM, which was set to begin demolition of the mothballed facility. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the transfer of the merchant coal-fired power plant on July 24, 2023, with the sale of the plant finalized on Aug. 1, 2023.

By the end of August 2023, Gov. Jim Justice celebrated the resumption of operations at the plant, with Pleasants County Commission President Jay Powell beamed onto a video screen in the ballroom of Justice’s Greenbrier Resort for the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting, complete with Pleasants Power’s smokestacks burning coal.

“For the first time ever, the Pleasants Power Plant, a coal-fired power plant, is taking new life right in front of our eyes,” Justice said to the crowd.

Omnis Fuel Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Omnis Global Technologies, which is under Hodson Investments LLC, owned by Santa Barbara businessman Simon Hodson and his wife, Peggy. Hodson’s sons, Jonathan and Michael Hodson, are involved in the businesses, as is Randall Smith, Hodson’s brother-in-law and chief financial officer of several of Hodson’s companies.

The plant goes by several names according to various documents: Quantum Pleasants, Omnis Pleasants and Omnigen. But the goal is the same: to build Hodson’s patented “quantum reformers” on nearby property, which burn coal through a process called “ultra-high temperature pyrolysis separation.”

The process creates two byproducts according to Hodson’s patent: graphite that can be used for multiple manufacturing processes and hydrogen, which can be pumped into the Pleasants Power Plant for electricity generation. According to the company’s “Omnis Energy” website, a number of scientists with Ph.D.s are on its board, though a recent Wall Street Journal article quoted other scientists who question the company’s claims for its quantum reformers.

According to information from the company, a demonstration project of the quantum reformer technology took place Aug. 7.

LOBBYING WORK

The Pleasants Power Plant was first slated to be shut down in 2018, but deactivation was delayed to 2022. Energy Harbor, formerly FirstEnergy Solutions, announced in 2022 that it would close Pleasants Power beginning May 31, 2023.

The plant was sold to ETEM, with Energy Harbor leasing the plant through the end of May 2023. The plant was to go into mothball status then, and ETEM planned to demolish it.

But the passage of Senate Bill 609 on March 6, 2023, required companies to obtain approval to decommission or demolish power plants from the state’s Public Energy Authority. SB 609 passed the state Senate unanimously and only had five nay votes in the House of Delegates from Democratic lawmakers. One of the people working on lawmakers to pass the bill was Bill Cole, a former senate president and Republican lawmaker from Mercer County.

Cole is a businessman and entrepreneur who first became involved as an investor in two other Hodson-owned companies in the state: Omnis Building Technologies, which plans to build patented prefabricated buildings; and Omnis Sublimation Recovery Technologies, with plans to pull rare earth elements from mine drainage sites. All of the Omnis/Hodson businesses have addresses in Morgantown.

Speaking during a meeting of the Public Energy Authority on Sept. 7, 2023, to explain the Quantum Pleasants project, Hodson said, “The position that was originally taken by Energy Harbor and by ETEM was that … they weren’t interested in selling the plant. They weren’t interested in preserving the plant. They were going to shut the plant down,” Hodson said. “Because of the requirements of Senate Bill 609 – that any group who was going to shut down a power plant had to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the people of West Virginia that shutting it down was in the best interest of the people and of the state – they couldn’t tear it down without doing that and they saw that was going to be a difficult task.”

Speaking by phone Tuesday, Cole said his work advocating for SB 609 given his financial interest in the project was not a conflict of interest, with the goal being to preserve the plant. Since Omnis took over the plant last year, they have added about 50 additional full-time jobs to the approximately 160 jobs that were saved due to the plant continuing to operate.

“The bill was not to be self-serving,” Cole said. “The bill was to save West Virginia and its natural resource production.”

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

More than two months after the announcement of the re-start of the Pleasants Power Plant at The Greenbrier, the state Economic Development Authority held an emergency meeting on Nov. 9 to grant preliminary and final approval to Quantum Pleasants for a $50 million loan on a 30-month term at a 1% interest rate for expansion and retrofit of the plant and to expand employment from 160 to 600 workers. Members of the public at that emergency meeting included Cole.

According to the loan agreement between the EDA and Quantum Pleasants, part of the $50 million loan will go toward purchasing between 30 and 60 acres beside the Pleasants Power Plant to build a demonstration facility for the quantum reformer technology, an air separation unit and space to build other quantum reformer units.

“We want to have one (quantum reformer) for operating on site for two reasons,” Hodson said in his presentation last year to the Public Energy Authority. “We want to show people that you can do it. We want to show people on a full commercial scale what they’re going to see. This will act as a training center then for all the additional people that we’ll be hiring.”

However, company officials said that negotiations between Omnis Fuel Technologies and the neighboring Solvay facility – now known as Syensqo – had been fruitful. Emails to Syensqo spokespeople were not returned. During a visit to their Willow Island facility, company employees who declined to be named were unaware of any potential sale of adjoining property to Omnis.

“The purchase is not a requirement for the demonstrations, but we are in active discussions with Solvay regarding the purchase,” a company spokesperson said.

Hodson said the goal was to have a quantum reformer demonstration project up and running within six months of September 2023, increasing employment from 160 jobs to 200 jobs over an 18- to 24-month period. According to the loan agreement, employment at Quantum Pleasants could exceed 200 jobs and approach 600 permanent jobs.

In the loan application, the company said it applied for a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Title 17 Clean Energy Financing loan. According to a Wall Street Journal article, Hodson was seeking $800 million through the DOE Title 17 program, but the company was told in March that the next step in the application process would be a demonstration of the technology.

“… Borrower has engaged in communications with the United States Department of Energy with respect to the Hydrogen Project and has submitted an application to that agency for federal funds from the Title 17 Clean Energy Program for funding necessary to complete the Hydrogen Project,” says the loan agreement between Omnis and the West Virginia EDA signed on Dec. 4.

According to the rules put in place by the DOE Loan Programs Office for the Title 17 program, potential loan candidates are invited to apply by the DOE after going through a pre-application process. Companies wishing to apply can meet with the DOE Loan Programs Office to discuss project eligibility, the application process and questions. But a project candidate only moves on to the two-part application and review process if they meet the minimum qualifications for the loan program.

The DOE defines viable projects as those that “Involve technically viable and commercially ready technology … demonstrated at near commercial scale under expected process conditions with results supporting the expected performance of the proposed deployment.” A DOE spokesperson said the department does not confirm nor deny the identity of applicants.

On Aug. 7, the first commercial-scale demonstration project for the quantum reformer technology at the Pleasants Power Plant occurred. According to the loan agreement, Omnis is required by the EDA to “promptly and continuously pursue the DOE application” and prohibited from stopping that pursuit.

“We have been working through the application process with the DOE since August 2023, keeping the relevant state agencies notified of our progress,” a company spokesperson said. “The next step in the application process is the demonstration of the commercial aspects of our technology.”

The loan agreement requires Omnis to deposit a $50 million matching investment in a bank, which counts toward a possible total investment of $1 billion in the project. According to the loan agreement, the company also invested an additional $50 million. The EDA loan can only be used for construction and expenses related to the Quantum Pleasants project.

“I would point out that this demonstration was the purpose of the loan, and is scheduled to occur with a full complement of government officials in early August,” the spokesperson said. “We remain compliant with all terms and conditions of our loan with the state of West Virginia.”

According to claims made in a recent federal civil rights lawsuit, a former company official, Michelle Christian, accused Hodson of lying to state and federal officials in order to secure the $50 million loan. Company officials say that the company has investigated her claims and determined that her lawsuit is entirely without merit.

Kris Warner, the executive director of the EDA and a member of the Public Energy Authority, said he would not be able to answer questions about the EDA’s work on the Quantum Pleasants loan without permission of the Governor’s Office, which he had not yet received.

As executive director of the EDA, Warner and his staff serve the EDA Board, which is chaired either by Gov. Jim Justice or Department of Revenue Secretary Larry Pack as the governor’s proxy. EDA board members are appointed by the governor.

The EDA director does not have a vote on the board, but Warner does sign loan agreements on behalf of the board once approved. The loan agreement between the EDA and Quantum Pleasants was signed by Warner and Omnis Fuel Technologies CFO Randall Smith.

RAISING THE DOUGH

According to its statement of organization filed with the Federal Election Commission, Conservative Policy Action was created on Jan. 25, 2023. A federal 527 super political action committee, Conservative Policy Action is able to raise unlimited campaign contributions and use the funds to support or oppose candidates.

According to Conservative Policy Action’s year-end 2023 campaign finance report covering the months of July through December 2023, the first two donations to the super PAC were $50,000 from BC Holdings LLC, owned by Bill Cole; and $50,000 from Santa Barbara-based Aumon Corp. whose CEO is Randall Smith, the same CFO for Hodson’s Omnis companies.

Conservative Policy Action raised a total of $327,337 since its creation, spending all of its contributions by the end of June. More than $230,990 – or more than 70% of the PAC’s donations – was spent in support of Warner’s GOP primary campaign for secretary of state against Doug Skaff.

One-third of Conservative Policy Action’s total donations came from BC Holdings and Aumon Corp., making up more than 43% of the $230,990 spent supporting Warner and opposing Skaff.

“I want the best people in the right seats, and I don’t see how it could be self-serving to support Kris when he’s running for secretary of state,” Cole said Tuesday. “He’s a good man, and I want to keep him. … I don’t make any apologies for supporting people that I think are good, and I believe he’s one of them.”

In a statement released Wednesday, Conservative Policy Action Executive Director Matthew Parker defended Cole’s donations to the super PAC, though he did not address questions about Smith’s donation.

“Bill Cole is a conservative hero who has always been at the forefront of funding conservative causes to help West Virginia move beyond the dark years when it was held captive by liberal special interests,” Parker said. “These contributions were used to support freedom-loving conservative patriots like Kris Warner and expose Doug Skaff, a liberal Democrat, who registered Republican in a cynical attempt to dupe West Virginians.”

Conservative Policy Action appointed Mark Scott, the cabinet secretary for the state Department of Administration until July 31, as its chairman in February. The group went on to endorse Warner for secretary of state in March. It was revealed last week that Scott had resigned effective the end of June after Justice confirmed that Scott was confronted by the governor’s staff over allegedly raising money for the super PAC and other candidates on state time.

Republican secretary of state candidate Ken Reed, a former Republican county commissioner in Morgan County and a former state lawmaker, filed an election law complaint with the office of current Secretary of State Mac Warner, Kris Warner’s brother, seeking a campaign finance investigation over the issues with Conservative Policy Action and its support of Kris Warner. Reed declined to comment further, and the Secretary of State’s Office is prohibited by law from confirming or denying the existence of an elections complaint or active investigation.

In prepared comments sent on Wednesday, Warner declined to comment on specifics about Conservative Policy Action, donations to the super PAC from Cole and Smith or Reed’s elections complaint. Instead, Warner pointed to the accomplishments of the EDA under his tenure and the success of his secretary of state campaign.

“I am extremely proud of the work the entire WVEDA team has accomplished, from the chairman to our volunteer board of directors and our highly efficient 13-member staff,” Warner said. “We have helped create literally hundreds and hundreds of new careers for West Virginians working with private enterprise and have helped save well in excess of one thousand existing jobs in the Mountain State.

“As it relates to campaign finance, I have been told my campaign for secretary of state has received more contributions from more contributors in West Virginia for a higher total contribution amount than all of my opponents combined in the primary election (minus their self-funding contributions to their own campaigns),” Warner continued.

A company spokesperson denied that Omnis Fuel Technologies was involved with donations made toward Conservative Policy Action by Cole or Smith to benefit Warner. According to campaign finance filings, Hodson’s two sons did donate $2,800 each towards Warner’s primary campaign.

“The company cannot speak for Mr. Smith or Mr. Cole as individuals,” the spokesperson said.