Massena, NY, is on the St. Lawrence River at the Canadian border

From an Article by Lucy Grindon, America Corps, October 18, 2022

Air Products, a company that makes industrial gases and chemicals, has announced plans to open a new liquid hydrogen manufacturing facility in Massena. The facility will require an investment of about $500 million.

Patrick Kelly, CEO of the St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency, said the project reaffirms Massena’s status as an important regional manufacturing center. Multiple plants for companies like General Motors, Reynolds, and Alcoa have closed or downsized there over the past few decades. “It’s a major milestone in establishing New York State as a hydrogen energy leader,” Kelly said.

NASA calls liquid hydrogen “the fuel of choice for space exploration.” It’s often used to power rockets. It’s also seen as a key green energy source that can reduce carbon emissions and slow the effects of climate change. Liquid hydrogen is becoming more common in the shipping and manufacturing industries. In the future, it may be used for more cars.

Earlier this year, Governor Kathy Hochul said she wants New York to become a “regional clean energy hydrogen hub.”

To make liquid hydrogen, water and electricity are required. Kelly said the area around Massena is rich in those resources. “We have low-cost renewable energy, we have an abundance of water,” he said. The New York Power Authority (NYPA) has made a deal to provide Air Products with low-cost electricity. Some of that electricity will come from NYPA’s hydropower dam on the St. Lawrence River.

Kelly said the area also has plenty of workers with manufacturing skills because of its history of aluminum production, mining, paper mills, and food production. Those workers will be another important resource that Air Products will need, he said. The facility still has yet to be built. Commercial operations are scheduled to begin in the 2026-27 fiscal year.

NYPA spokesperson Paul DeMichele said that after Air Products starts using NYPA’s low-cost electricity, the company will have three years to create at least 90 new full-time jobs, per its deal with the state. “There’s a hundred-year history or better history in Massena of being a world-class manufacturing community,” Kelly said. “There’s a specific and someone unique skill set in running these kinds of facilities.”

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SEE ALSO: Ammonia might just be the ticket for a more sustainable future, Christopher McFadden, Interesting Engineering, October 19, 2022

Largely used to make fertilizer, ammonia might have another trick up its sleeve. It could, some claim, be the “green” holy grail of alternatives fuels. This is because it uses the same existing transportation and distribution methods that industries are already using without requiring any infrastructure changes. In the past ten years, attempts to employ ammonia in gas turbines and internal combustion engines have significantly increased.

As a potential fuel source, ammonia has some significant advantages:

>> It is both carbon-free and relatively safe for the environment (excluding carbon costs for its production).
>> It has three hydrogen atoms and could perhaps be employed as a hydrogen carrier.
>> Compared to many other fuels, their manufacturing, storage, transportation, and distribution are significantly simpler.
>> It is practical and affordable for use in applications.
>> It could serve as a substitute for kerosene, diesel, and gasoline.
>> It can be considered for all combustion systems, including gas turbines and engines.
>> It might be a viable fuel for renewable energy production in remote places.

Salt production in West Virginia

WVGES: History of West Virginia Mineral Industries – Salt

From WV Geological & Economic Survey (WVGES)

Salt was the first West Virginia mineral industry to be developed. The State’s salt was being utilized long before the arrival of man. Deer and buffalo would travel to a salt spring along the Kanawha River where they could lick the salt they needed. This spot, near the town of Malden, became known as the Great Buffalo Lick, of the Kanawha Licks. Native Americans later followed the animal trails to the springs where they too could obtain their salt supply.

In 1755, a Shawnee Indian raiding party stopped at the springs with some captive pioneers from Virginia. The Shawnees boiled brines in a kettle in order to obtain salt to carry back to Ohio with them. A captive later escaped to tell the story, and in 1774, members of Andrew Lewis’ army stopped here on their way to fight Indians in Ohio at the Battle of Point Pleasant. The pioneers’ victory at the Battle of Point Pleasant began the settlement of the Kanawha Valley and an increase in the importance of the Kanawha salt springs.

In 1797, Elisha Brooks erected the first salt furnace in the Kanawha Valley at the mouth of Campbell’s Creek. He produced as much as 150 bushels of salt a day and sold it to settlers to be used for curing butter and meats. By 1808, David and Joseph Ruffner succeeded in drilling to 59 feet, where they secured a good flow of strong brine. Also in that year, the first salt was shipped west, by river, on a log raft.

 A younger Ruffner brother, Tobias, suspected that a vast saline reservoir existed under the Kanawha Valley and, drilling to a depth of 410 feet, tapped an even richer brine. This discovery set off a veritable frenzy of drilling and by 1815 there were 52 furnaces in operation in the “Kanawha Salines.” In 1817, David Ruffner experimented with the use of coal in his furnaces, and soon all saltmakers had switched from wood to coal. The saltmakers formed a “trust,” the Kanawha Salt Company, in order to regulate the quality and price of salt and to discourage foreign competition. This was the first “trust” in the United States.

 This cooperative helped the salt industry grow until it reached its peak in 1846, producing 3,224,786 bushels that year. At that time, the Kanawha Valley was one of the largest salt manufacturing centers in the United States. In 1861, the Kanawha Valley was flooded. By the late 1800s, because of the 1861 flood and because of Civil War destruction, the Dickinson furnace at Malden was the only survivor of the Great Kanawha River salt industry.

Although the Kanawha salt industry declined in importance after 1861, the advent of World War I brought a demand for chemical products such as chlorine and caustic acid, which could be obtained from salt brine. In 1914, the Warner-Klipstein Chemical Company opened a plant in South Charleston to produce these products. The plant is now the Westvaco Chlorine Products Corporation, and is the largest chlorine producer in the world. Other chemical industries, also based on this salt brine, have grown up in the Kanawha Valley since then.

Until World War II, only salt brine (entrapped sea water) was used for salt production. However in 1942, the Defense Plant Corporation built an electrolytic caustic soda plant at Natrium in Marshall County to extract rock salt. Water is sent down the wells to the rock salt, at depths of about 7,000 feet, where the water dissolves the salt. The salt-saturated water is then forced back to the surface where it is evaporated and the salt removed.

Today there are three principal salt-producing companies in the State, two in Marshall County and one in Tyler County. All three companies extract rock salt, most of which is sent to chemical companies along the Kanawha River. West Virginia has large reserves of rock salt at depth, providing great potentials for future use.

(Adapted from an article by Jane R. Eggleston, updated September 1996)