Monolith Materials Breaks Ground at Nebraska Manufacturing Headquarters

Monolith Materials (www.monolithmaterials.com), a next-generation manufacturer of natural gas-based carbon black, officially broke ground on its U.S. manufacturing headquarters on Thursday, October 20, 2016 in Hallam, Nebraska. The facility will bring 600 jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars in new capital investment in the state of Nebraska, and a clean energy source to the area.

Monolith founders, Bill Brady, Rob Hanson, and Pete Johnson, were joined by Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts and Pat Pope, CEO of the Nebraska Public Power District, to give remarks before a ceremonial groundbreaking event. Local dignitaries, additional representatives from both Monolith and NPPD, and other partners in the project were also present.

Headquartered with their R&D facility in the San Francisco Bay Area, Monolith is bringing manufacturing back to America with innovative carbon black technology that uses natural gas as feedstock instead of oil, as does the conventional process, reducing emissions significantly. Carbon black is a safe, common material found in thousands of products Americans use every day – including tires, rubber and plastics, printing inks, and batteries. A co-product of its innovative manufacturing technology is hydrogen, a fuel that produces zero greenhouse gas emissions when burned.

Monolith (www.monolithmaterials.com) has partnered with Nebraska’s largest electric utility, NPPD, whereby they will replace an existing coal-fired boiler with a hydrogen-fired boiler at their Sheldon Station plant in Hallam, Neb. The new boiler will generate 125 mw of electricity – enough to supply power to 150,000 homes. The boiler conversion is also expected to result in a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gasses and other types of emissions.