July 23 town hall: the transcript

What Monolith and Crusoe said, in their own words, at the public town hall of July 23, 2026, at the Hallam Auditorium — transcribed from an audio recording made openly by attendees. Over 200 people were in the room. This page exists so nobody has to take our word for what was promised.

Opening remarks

Russ Webb, CEO, Monolith: [Recording begins mid-sentence] …you know, a lot of the community members about the project and what's going on, you know, just a lot of different things I think you'll be interested in. Uh, and then we'll, uh, we'll go from there. I'm Russ Webb. I'm the CEO of Monolith. I've been the CEO for since May 1st, but I joined Monolith about, uh, 2.5 years ago. Uh, prior to Monolith, I've got about 36 years of, uh, experience in the carbon black industry as well as the chemical industry, uh, as head of operations, and I started up as an engineer, kind of worked my way up to the industries through refining, and then spent most of my time in the carbon black, uh, world. Um, which you'll—we'll talk more about, you know, what carbon black is, but just for—I think you guys have seen that before, but very important material in the, in the things we do every day in our lives, from tires to, you know, to electronics to, uh, rubber to, yeah, just about anything you see that's black. Including this shirt has carbon black in it. So, it's a very important material, and we want to share more about it with you and just what our plans are to try to expand the carbon black manufacturing base in the US. Uh, so we'll talk more about that in a minute.

But, uh, welcome, everybody. We know there's been a lot of, uh, interest in what's happening at our site and what our plans are. I know with the air—the activity in the area, there's been a lot of concerns and maybe information that, you know, may—maybe you, uh, need to hear about or just, you know, understand what the facts are about—around our project and what our plans are. So, we really are excited that you're here tonight and really want to hear from you. And I've talked to a lot of you individually already, but, uh, hopefully this will be, you know, informative to you. I know we have a commitment to do this again in the—in a—in a few weeks in August, just to give you a chance to kind of digest what we're sharing with you and come back with more questions. So, anyway, welcome. Thanks for being here. And with that, I'm going to let, uh, uh, Anna talk a little bit, and then I'll jump back on and talk about some of the specifics around the plant.

Anna Wishart, Chief Development Officer, Monolith: Well, hi, everybody. My name's Anna Wishart. I'm the Chief Development Officer at Monolith. Have been with the company, uh, about five years. Nebraskan, born and raised, and, um, grew up in Lincoln and and still live there and love the Hallam community and loved meeting everyone here and enjoyed working here.

So, we're going to walk through, uh, an overview, um, first of all, carbon black. I know we're talking a lot about data centers, and we'll spend a lot of time talking about modular data centers today. Um, but we do want to talk with you about why we're here and and what we care about in in terms of carbon black. We're going to talk with you about the change in our expansion plans, walk you through that, um, our community engagement and and next steps, and then, like Russ said, we'll go through some FAQs as well.

The—the first thing I wanted to share out is, it is very important for us to be a company that leads in terms of transparency. That's very, very important to us, to be a good, good neighbor. So, I do want to walk you through the—the steps that we've taken in in terms of when we determined that we would need, uh, to change our expansion plans, um, was in early February. So, we had a town hall where we announced the plan to co-locate with a data center and did a press release in the Journal Star. Um, we've attended most of the village board meetings as well. We—we go there as a company to listen, but also to present what's going on. Uh, we also have been at the Hallam Fest. We have a booth there every year. We—we sponsor that, and so next year when you're there, please do stop by.

Um, and then we've also had some public open houses at Monolith. So, we're excited to see people here. We just want to tell you that we will continue—this isn't a one-off. We will continue to have open public meetings with you. Our next one will be in August, but we will, uh, be attending the village board meeting as well. Um, and then there'll be a planning commission meeting that we're, uh, we will be attending. Um, we'll have another town hall in August, and then, and then we'll continue to go from there. So, just know, you can reach out to us anytime. But I think the key takeaway is that this decision isn't—hasn't been made. We're—we're not coming to you already having put everything in place. We are coming to you now, asking, um, to be able to move forward, and so all of that work of approvals is in—in front of us, and it will be up to all of you who live in the community to decide whether this is something you'd like to see or not.

The carbon black business and the pivot

Anna Wishart: Okay, so let me just tell you a little bit about our technology. I know a lot of you who do come to the town halls have already heard this, but we have some new faces here. Um, so, Monolith, Monolith is the first company in the world, only one of its kind, um, that has commercialized, uh, the carbon black process where we electrify it instead of burning, uh, the feedstock to produce the product. So, what we do is we take electricity, and we can either take natural gas, or we can take a liquid feedstock, uh, basically any hydrocarbon, and we superheat it instead of burning it. And that produces both carbon black—that splits that molecule into carbon black and into hydrogen, so we actually make two products, uh, at our plant.

Again, there's nowhere else in the world that has figured out how to do this. And what's so exciting about it is that because we're not burning that feedstock, we have significantly reduced emissions compared to the traditional way of producing this product, which is one of the important things for us, um, is being able to produce the products we care about, but doing it with less emissions. The other thing is, we use significantly less water in producing our product as well. Our process uses about 40% less water than the traditional carbon black production process, um, so that's been very important to us as well, in terms of being good stewards of our resources.

And then the last thing I'll—I'll share out, and we're happy as a team when—when we're done to talk more carbon black with you, but I know most people want to talk about the expansion, so I'm kind of rushing through this. But the other thing I'll say is, we also utilize our feedstock resources very conservatively. So, the traditional way of making carbon black, you utilize about 60—50%, 60% of that natural gas or oil feedstock, and the rest goes up into waste emissions. We use 95% of that molecule. So, when we talk about American resources, we have a—a technology here that fully utilizes that resource to be able to produce two products that we—that we rely on every day as Americans.

I didn't know anything about carbon—carbon black before I started working at Monolith, but it's in our everyday life. Um, it's in all of the applications in terms of your office, your home, but it's most notably known for making up a third of every vehicle tire, uh, in the world. Um, so you're—the reason your tire goes as long as it does is because of carbon black. It's a reinforcing agent. We have lost this industry overseas for years. We used to dominate in this industry. In fact, the traditional way of making carbon black was invented in the United States. Um, but typical to all manufacturing in the US, we've lost that overseas, and mainly our competitors is—is China, but also you see India, Russia, some of those other countries that are dominating in it. We're the first facility in 50 years, carbon black facility, to be permitted in the United States—the first.

When you look at the carbon black industry as a whole in the United States, there's about 15 or 16 plants in the United States left that make carbon black. Their average age is over 70 years old, and 75% of those are foreign-owned. We are one of the only American-made carbon black facilities and companies in the United States, and our goal is to try to grow and produce that product here and reshore manufacturing here in the US.

I think the important thing I want to share is that we are still a startup. So, we started at a lab scale in 2016, and we—we have grown to a commercial demonstration facility here in Nebraska, but it's important to point out that we're still commercial demonstration. We do not produce enough product—we produce about 15,000 tons of carbon black out of this existing facility—we do not produce enough product to be a forever company. We have to grow. And so our goal is to grow here in Nebraska. That's what we would like to do.

But that's not to say that our product isn't making it in to products today. Our carbon black isn't making it into products today. So, we have made it in—in 2023, we made it into our first tire. Getting into a tire is like getting a drug through the FDA. It is one of the hardest things to do because tires are one of your most important safety elements, but in 2023, we got into a Goodyear tire. And then in 2024, we were in millions of tires across North America with one of the largest tire manufacturers in the world. And then we've broken into General Motors, so, um, we are in their, um, supply chain in the 2026, like Chevy Silverado, when you go under the hood, the black—the black plastic brackets, that has Monolith's carbon black in it. So, we opened that supply chain as well. So, customers do want our product, and that's what—one of the reasons why we need to grow.

So, what were we planning? What we were planning on doing, and what we had permitted out for this site, was expanding our carbon black facility—you can see here, that kind of one, one unit, this is our existing Olive Creek facility—we were planning on expanding that by 12 more units. And then we would be producing about 190,000 tons of carbon black. And then we would be utilizing the hydrogen co-product that we produce to to do about 300,000 tons of ammonia. So, um, we worked for years, um, on that project. We got it permitted out. We got the substation built that you see out there, the switchyard built out for for that entire expansion. We went out to the market, uh, to raise the money for it, and, unfortunately, we were told it was too big. That we needed—the investors, they supported our technology, that we've—we've got a breakthrough technology that's proven. They said we've got good customer traction, but we need to go figure out how to make it smaller and less capital intensive.

So, 2025 was one of the worst years we've had as a company. It was a really tough year. We had to go back to the drawing board and figure out, how are we going to be able to grow, but grow in a way that is in the hundreds of millions, not the billions of dollars. And so, I'm surrounded by a lot of smart engineers. It wasn't me that figured it out, um, but we went back to sort of our first principles and looked at changing our feedstock. So, instead of natural gas, uh, we instead went to a liquid feedstock where you can get a lot more carbon black out of that, um, than you can out of natural gas. And I'm going to turn it over to Russ, who's the engineer, who can kind of take you through the next science part of this.

Russ Webb: Yeah, for now, thanks, Anna. Let me grab a little sip here real quick.

Yeah, uh, basically, what we ended up doing is, um, started looking at the feedstocks available. You know, this process we have is very feed flexible flexible. It can crack anything and make carbon black and hydrogen out of it. But we wanted to look for one that would be more efficient for us to utilize as a feedstock, you know, and make the overall operation more efficient and make the overall size of the project more cost effective and smaller. And so we started looking at, uh, you know, different oils out there. There's an oil called carbon black oil, which is really a heavy oil, comes out of the bottom of a refinery, basically.

And the thing about it is, if you kind of look at this picture of molecules, you know, natural gas, methane, that's up on the top. You can see it's a one carbon atom, four hydrogen atoms. It doesn't have a lot of carbon in the overall molecule to, you know, produce carbon black, but it does produce a lot of hydrogen. But if you want to make more carbon black, you know, you look for a source that has more carbon in it, and that's what CBO is. It's a very carbon-rich, uh, product that if you crack it the same way you crack the methane, you get a lot of carbon black. And then, yeah, not as much hydrogen, but you—you generate a significantly more amount of carbon black than you would with methane.

The other interesting thing is, it's very difficult to to crack or or, or, you know, crack that molecule of methane. Takes a lot of energy. But if you use an oil, it takes a lot less energy to do that. And so it's basically more carbon black with a lot less energy to produce that carbon black. So that that graph that was on the, uh, other side there kind of shows that.

So, that was the the big pivot. We kind of went back, you know, re-evaluated things, decided we're going to look at trying to crack oil instead of gas, and, you know, that's that's kind of where we're at today. Um, one of the things that, you know, is very important, requires a lot less, a lot less power. It requires, uh, a lot less water to do this because the equipment we're using using to make to crack the, uh, the hydrocarbon or the or the oil to make the carbon black, it's it's a lot less equipment to do that with oil versus gas. So the overall footprint of the of the new plant versus the old plant—Anna was talking about this, but, you know, when we were going to use gas as the feedstock, we were we were going to add 12 new reactors, 12 new trains to what we have out there right now, OC1 or Olive Creek. On oil, we're only going to add three, you know, to get to the same amount, actually a little bit more, carbon black production.

Uh, so we make more carbon black, so it's a smaller footprint plant, less, uh, capital to build it because you don't have as much equipment, so it's more effective from a cost-effective from a capital, uh, standpoint. But you also have a lot of electricity left over, uh, that that's available to do something with. Um, when we were doing the big expansion on gas, you know, we paid and had the big substation built up there, uh, north of the plant. Uh, with the pivot to oil, we're not going to use all that capacity, and so we started looking for ways to be able to utilize that capacity. Um, and that's really when we started looking at, you know, what can we do, uh, to, you know, look at the synergy to use that extra electricity we have and and use it to help generate some money, help support our expansion, help us move forward with carbon black expansion, uh, and also do it in a way that's very energy efficient and a way that doesn't, um, you know, require more resources or utilities to to do that.

Why Crusoe, and what's proposed

Russ Webb: And so we started looking at the, uh, you know, this this option with with a data center. Um, one of the key things that we were looking at is looking for a way to put those in. I know I know data centers in general, if you throw them all into the same class, have a bad name because they, you know, some of them use a lot of water, uh, you know, they create a lot of, use a lot of electricity, they create a lot of noise, you know, there's a lot of issues or concerns, and you guys have raised those to us as well. But we want to look for a technology that doesn't do that, that's very efficient from a cooling standpoint, doesn't use a lot of water, uh, doesn't require, you know, uh, the same type of system that the the other, uh, data centers require. So, it makes it a lot more efficient system, and really kind of fits our synergy of of the power we have available to us.

So, our current configuration, um, you know, allows that for us to make carbon black, smaller footprint, less water usage, uh, less, uh, electricity usage for the carbon black process, so it allows us to look at other uses for that. So, when we started looking at the data center option, we wanted to try to pick a partner that does those type of things, that's very efficient, that's right-sized, that's not like a mega partner that builds these humongous data centers, but like something that's really right-sized and kind of fits within the, uh, you know, window that we're looking at from from our standpoint. And we we probably talked to 50 different companies out there to try to see who the right one was, and then we zeroed in on Crusoe, who's who's here with us tonight, and you'll get a you got a lot of you got a chance to meet them at the booth, you'll get a chance to meet them afterwards.

But, you know, the key thing about, uh, Crusoe is what we're looking at to put in into our existing footprint, uh, on the, uh, uh, plant that we're expanding, the the 10-acre plant, the phase one data center, is to use a modular approach. So, instead of building a humongous building with that uses a lot of water in the old type data center technology, these are actually modular units. They're either liquid or air-cooled, which means a closed-loop system. Either, you know, on on the liquid side, it's a closed-loop water cooling system with, you know, some antifreeze in there like propylene glycol, uh, but it helps cool the system, and and it's not like, uh, you know, some of the other data centers you see use a lot of water because they have cooling towers that exhaust a lot of water to the atmosphere. These don't do that. You fill them up, and then they circulate just like, you know, a cooling system on your car, like a radiator. It it operates in a similar way. Another way they look at cooling is just using straight air, uh, air cooling. So, this technology is a very low water usage technology, and, uh, it's a modular, uh, approach, uh, you know, compared to some of the other technologies you hear about out there, you know. So, that's how we decided to partner with, uh, Crusoe, really a right-sized company for us to look at putting in kind of a right-sized dat- data center that's synergistic with our plant. So...

Anna Wishart: I think the one other thing about—the one other thing about Crusoe that's very important, um, is that they're American-made. So, Monolith, we take pride in the fact that we're reshoring American manufacturing and helping our country compete, uh, in this industry, and Crusoe, when you look at their entire supply chain, it is American made all the way. In fact, the Spark units, um, that they're, uh, building are built in Brighton, Colorado, out of a factory, a Spark unit factory there. And so when you get a chance after, stop by and they can walk you through their entire supply chain, um, but once again, it's helping to to reshore a lot of the upstream manufacturing that goes into building these modular units as well.

Russ Webb: This is kind of an air—an aerial shot of of the, uh, you know, the expansion we're talking about. So, up on this side up there, you can see the carbon black, uh, phase one expansion, phase two. Basically, that gets us up to 220,000 tons per year of carbon black using oil with a very small footprint, the three three-reactor footprint versus the original plan on gas, which was the 12-reactor footprint. And then it also shows you where we're talking about, you know, putting the, uh, data center with with, uh, Crusoe using the modular Spark units on our existing property that we, uh, we we currently sit on, uh, up on the map there, so kind of shows you that. And then you can see the, uh, substation that we paid to build, uh, when we were looking at the big expansion, so we'll be using our power out of that.

Anna Wishart: And this is a good rendering to show you. This is the 10 acres that originally was going to have the ammonia facility on it, and instead, this is a rendering of what the modular compute units would be, about 36, up to 36 compute units, again, about 35 megawatts of power on 10 acres of land that would replace what what had been the ammonia facility.

The commitments

Anna Wishart: So, one thing we want to commit to is continuing to be a good community partner. And so, you know, in terms of Monolith, we have been with this community for for quite a long time. Um, we have invested quite a bit in terms of being a good neighbor. Uh, in the past, everything from supporting veterans, um, to our parks and our water systems, um, our road infrastructure and and volunteering. Um, what we commit to in the present is that we will be fully open and transparent with you. We will continue to have these public meetings, but you don't need to wait for a public meeting. We have a Main Street office we've opened. Please stop in anytime, uh, and meet with us, or we're happy to come and and sit down and meet with you as well and talk about any concerns you have.

Another big thing we've committed to is, we have heard feedback on noise, wanting to have assurances, um, on noise, and so, um, Crusoe is doing a sound study that they've committed to, um, to be able to test on their existing modular units. They have some in Nevada, um, to be able to provide the community with feedback on that, um, so you can—you can understand, uh, how we're going to be able to meet the current noise ordinances, but we figure we'll—we'll give you proof on that instead of just saying it.

And then, in terms of the future, uh, I know that I'm hearing a lot tonight, and we've heard it in the past, that that one of the biggest concerns is, um, future growth beyond the first phase. We were very transparent at the beginning, we always want to be as a company, um, that the infrastructure built out for the site could handle another phase in terms of the power at the substation. Um, and so we did look at a piece of land across the street as an option, as a potential, but that is very potential. And what we can commit to, and I've had discussions with community members today about how to make that much more clear, is that, um, we will treat that separately and come and ask for that separately. And so the village has every right to say no to both, or yes to one, and no to the other, or or yes to both. We feel like, um, being able to to grow the first phase of the 10 acres will give you kind of a a visual and and view and experience of what these modular data centers or a data center is like, and and then can decide. So, that's one of our big commitments is to ensure that they're evaluated separately and independently, and we're happy to work with the community on making sure there's confidence in saying yes to one today does not mean, um, moving the second one forward.

In terms of water stewardship, uh, we can commit 100% to closed-loop systems. Water is important to us. Monolith uses a closed-loop system as well, and for us and for our customers, being low emissions and low water use is very vital. Um, a lot of customers around the world want to see that, and that's the expectation, especially as water becomes more and more of a precious resource. And Nebraska does a great job of stewarding it, and we want to be a good steward, too.

Um, we'll commit, and Crusoe has, to a community benefit agreement, um, so sitting down with the village, understanding what are the key things that need to be invested in and agreeing to that before before approvals.

We will, um, commit to construction and noise management plans. Again, we'll do a sound study, but that doesn't stop there. After that, we will make sure that we're a good partner, and if there are any issues, we will address them.

We will fund all power infrastructure. Already, the substation has been built out, but if there's any additional needs in terms of connection, that will fully go on the cost of the project. We, uh, will make a commitment that this this does not fall on the community, and we'll write that into the, uh, the permit as well. Um, it's already written in, if you see the zoning language, as a commitment.

We'll bring new jobs. I mean, Monolith is a plant that could be around 50-plus years. These are generational jobs. These are the types of jobs where you don't see often anymore, but where one person can work in the family and support their growing family. You don't see that anymore in the United States, and I'm proud to be working for a company that does a lot for that, and we have a lot of people that work at Monolith who have big families, and they're able to support them on on one salary, and that's a big deal to us. So, this data center will bring jobs, but what it helps do is unlock a manufacturing company being able to bring more. And so we expect to have, if we're able to do the two phases of the carbon black expansion, at least 150. Those are good-paying jobs and, again, type of job where you could work in the facility, and your kid could grow up and work in there, too.

In terms of site protection and design, you know, we do have a piece of land that we made a very early commitment to, it's right here, all of this. Um, we made an early commitment to, we own that land, um, to keep that buffer, and we are happy to put that in writing, either through a majority of it in conservation easement, um, we'd also happily donate a portion to the community in the cemetery area. We understand that there is need for more land in that space. So, again, conversations we're happy to have with all of you, but we will—our word is our bond on this, but we understand that people would like to see sometimes things more in writing, and so we're happy to to do that as part of the community benefits plan.

And then, of course, in terms of safety and emergency readiness, we will continue to work very closely with the Hallam Fire Department. Um, we spend a lot of time with them, frankly, a lot of Monolith employees volunteer there, um, take time away from their families to support this community in in terms of emergency response, and we will continue to encourage that as a company, that they have the time to continue to support the community, but we will also ensure we have emergency response plans, and Crusoe is is a wonderful company that will work with us on that.

The FAQ portion

Anna Wishart: So, now we're going to move into, these are the questions that we've heard over the last, um, about four four months as we've been talking about this, that we want to run through with you, and then we'll open it up to other questions.

I think we can kind of go through this pretty quickly in terms of, what is a data center? Um, we, uh, had posters on on that and are happy to, um, to share more of that, and the Crusoe team can as well, um, but one thing that is really clear is that what this is, in terms of the Spark modular modular units, is very different than a hyperscale data center that you're you're seeing where it's a gigawatt or 1,000 acres.

I encourage you to to meet with Crusoe. Um, they're here today when when we're done with this, um, but an example of their cloud platform, so one of the cool things is, in their modular units, it will also be their own cloud platform, so when you're working with them as a company, you're not working with a data center that leases it out to a tenant, or you don't know who that tenant is, and you're having to deal then with another third party. They're vertically integrated, so when Crusoe's coming to the site, the entire project is is their project, and they can talk with you more about that. But an example of who their customers are is, they work with, for example, a company called Roboflow, um, who works with Pella Windows, General Electric, and American Woodmark Cabinets, and so they can talk to you a little bit about their customers. The thing I like about Crusoe is, kind of similar to Monolith, they're doing things in a different way, and so they're actually kind of competing against the Googles of the world, um, and, uh, and being able to support some of the, in terms of their platforms, some of the more smaller businesses, uh, medium-sized businesses that may not be able to afford, um, some of the other, um, cloud platforms.

I think one of the questions we've gotten is, why can't Monolith just build a data center? We are a carbon black company. That's what we specialize in. Um, we've had that question come, uh, quite a bit, um, and so we spent a lot of time choosing a partner that we think is the best one that has the experience and the expertise in building modular data centers.

Okay, I'll turn this over to Russ to talk on water.

Russ Webb: Yeah, so, you know, one of the biggest concerns people have raised, and and rightly so based on the reputation out there of some of the big data centers, is water usage. And as we were talking about earlier, you know, this technology uses a closed-loop cooling system where you you do have to fill it with water once, but then it circulates it just like in a radiator in your car, a cooling system in your car, and you're not evaporating a lot of water, so the overall usage of this system is very low. And, you know, we put an estimate up here with the, uh, current design of our, um, you know, 35-megawatt data center using the Spark technology, that the annual usage would be, you know, upwards of, uh, or or 770,000 gallons or less per year. But, you know, there's a some comparison over there on that on that, uh, easel back there on the picture that says that's equal to like 16 hours of a pivot running period, you know, so for a full-year usage of this full-year's water usage is equivalent to one pivot running 16 hours, you know, so that's very, very low.

Anna Wishart: Or it's like only one or two runs, Russ. Equivalent to...

Russ Webb: ...restaurants, yeah. But very, very low water usage, so that, you know, that's a a critical thing, um, that we want to point out. As far as carbon black plant groundwater monitoring, we do have to do that with our current permit with NDEE. We do monitor the, uh, level of the water, the usage, we have to report that every year, that will continue as we go into, you know, um, you know, the phase of expansion and, uh, you working with with Crusoe on their partnership there and putting the data data center in. All that has to go through the permitting with the NDEE, and the monitoring and reporting requirements are are still there, so...

Anna Wishart: And we have five monitoring wells on our site, um, we put those up, and we monitor, u- utilizing Olsson, um, they take readings of that, not only on, um, water levels, but also water quality, and so we're always happy to to share that information. It's important to us that we're also a resource for the community, since we do have such a robust monitoring program.

Audience member: So, you don't have a problem getting information from Olsson?

Anna Wishart: No, and it's shared with the low—with Lower Platte South NRD as well. So, it...

Russ Webb: Yeah, so, you know, the the other consumer of water is is our carbon black plant, and we are planning on expanding it, you know, to bring it up to a 220,000 tons per year. But the overall usage of that expanded plant is about, uh, 250 gallons per minute, or it's, you know, about a third of typical flow of a last center pivot irrigation system, so it's it's very low also, and and we designed it that way on purpose, you know. Our cooling systems in the carbon black plant are also closed loop. If you look at the traditional carbon black process, they actually cool by spraying water into their process, so they use a tremendous amount of water. This technology we're using does not do that, we don't use water for for cooling the process, you know, we have a closed-loop cooling system. Our main use of water is, when you make carbon black, if you think of a, you know, a toner cartridge and you pull it out of your printer, it's, you know, very, very powdery, that's what carbon black looks like when we make it. And, you know, so we have to put it into a pellet to be able to ship it in a in a rail car or truck and get it to the customer. Now, there's some customers that take it in powder, but most of them take it as a pellet, so you have to use water in in kind of an agent to make this stuff stick together and make, you know, little pellets, and so that's what we use the water primarily for. And, of course, we have drinking water and, you know, domestic water use for the employees, but, uh, most of it's used to make those pellets.

Anna Wishart: And then we have gotten quite a bit of questions about whether our expansion will impact Hallam's water pressure, and no, it will not. We are we are on a separate system, we we have our own well, so it is not connected to the village.

In terms of size, um, there are two versions of the Crusoe modular units, there's a Version 1 and Version 2, so this site, there'll be up to 36, and it'll be a combination of those, and I encourage you to talk to the Crusoe team, um, but these are similar to about a a shipping container, or a little bit larger than that, um, and so it is significantly lower profile than the ammonia facility that we had planned, which would have been about a 140-foot tank, um, facility and and so, um, that's another reason why we we decided to go with Crusoe. Um, and then in terms of lighting, um, lighting is important for security, um, we have gotten feedback on lighting, not only for the modular units, but also for the carbon black, and we are happy to work on, um, types of, uh, exterior lighting that reduces any type of light pollution.

Russ Webb: Yeah, as far as, you know, the the the carbon black and the new data center, it's basically utilizing the the power that was, you know, so we have the new substation I talked about earlier that was designed for the large expansion on gas, has a lot of capacity in that substation, and with our pivot to oil, we're not going to use as much electricity, but we are going to use, you know, that balance of that electricity to help, you know, potentially power the data center, but that anything we would do in expansion would be limited to the capacity of that substation. So, we're we're kind of working within that capacity that we already had designed in and allocated to us with with NPPD, uh, so that's, you know, just one one point to note.

Anna Wishart: And Crusoe has signed the, uh, Ratepayer Protection Pledge, so I encourage you to talk with them about that, um, and so there is a commitment that the infrastructure, um, would not go, would be covered by the project, and it would protect consumers from from any higher rates.

And then, you know, the agreement is for 35 megawatts that we have with utility and interconnection, and so, you know, people have asked, um, would that increase? No, it's it's a 10-acre site with 35 megawatts used for power.

I'm going to move through this one pretty quickly because it's on your FAQ as well, the handout, and so I want to be mindful of of people's time. Um, the noise is also on the handout, but, Russ, if you wanted to talk about...

Russ Webb: Yeah, I'll just say, you know, there are requirements for for noise that are in the ordinance, so we have to make sure that all of our systems are designed to, but in addition to that, um, you know, Crusoe's committed to doing a sound study as as Anna mentioned earlier on their existing, uh, modular data centers to to find out what those noise levels are, and then, you know, we're going to be able to review that and look at that, we'll provide that back to the village, and then, you know, after we start up and run, um, there'll be another noise survey and monitoring being done on the on the one that we put in, just to make sure that it's meeting those requirements and if there's any nuisance noises or things that come up, uh, after we're up and running, you know, we'll work on mitigation, uh, action, trying to, you know, address any sound issues, but sound is a big issue that we're we're all concerned about.

Anna Wishart: And the fire safety and traffic is on your handout, and, um, so I'll go through this quickly, but the the one thing I want to point out is, the ammonia facility was planned for thousands of trucks coming through at a certain time of year where you're filling up with ammonia, um, to go and and distribute, uh, as fertilizer, this will be significantly reduced traffic. Um, aside from construction, which won't have in terms of the modular units significant traffic, um, there will be much less truck traffic coming through. It'll mainly be employee vehicles, um, for the data center, and and that's it. And then on the carbon black side, we'll ship by rail and and max on truck.

Russ Webb: Yeah, as far as air air quality, you know, everything we do out there has to be permitted with a regulatory agency, in this case, it's Lincoln-Lancaster, uh, County of Health, we have to get a permit through, so we're actually, you know, any kind of expansion work or new equipment that we do, uh, we do have to go through them to get air quality permit, so that's, you know, the the we have to meet all the requirements around air quality permits when we put in the new, um, you know, equipment. One of the things I'll also mention is, you know, with the carbon black, even with the expansion, we're putting in the right type of control systems and things in place to make sure that, you know, any, um, air quality issues are minimized and that we're actually going to continue to maintain what we call a minor emitter status for the plant, that's what we've had so far, we're going to continue that as we go forward, so we're committed to maintaining, you know, good air quality for the community.

Yeah, and then, you know, there was a question about, you know, chemicals in the cooling closed-loop cooling water systems that I was talking about before, and, you know, based on our understanding, they'll be utilizing propylene glycol, which is really a a, you know, that's a it's a type of glycol, but it's used in food additives, foodstuffs, it's in food contact surface, so it's not like antifreeze like you have in your radiator, which is poisonous, this stuff is actually, uh, not hazardous, and it's actually, uh, you know, can can be used in food and stuff like that, so it's not a not a hazardous chemical that they use in these cooling systems.

Anna Wishart: In terms of economic impact, I I talked a little bit about this, but to date, you know, we've invested approximately 280 million in into this facility, um, with additional investments into our headquarters, warehouse, and our rubber laboratory, which is on West O Street. Beyond that, I discussed we've done significant investments into the village and plan on continuing to do that, we have people who live and work here and and we want to be good neighbors. Looking ahead, we expect from the Spark unit, um, the 10 acres will be bring about 15 high-paying jobs, and then the two-phase carbon black expansion will be about a 150 jobs. And there will also be property tax revenue that comes in to the county, um, as well as additional investments to the community benefits plan.

So, in terms of in terms of location, I think this is what we've heard the most about from everybody today. Um, what we are asking for today in terms of zoning, permitting is on a first phase, which is 10 acres on our on our existing industrial, um, facility land, but we are a company that wants to be very transparent, that with the infrastructure built out for the original site, there would allow to be for an additional growth on the data center side, but our commitment is that we will ask for those separately, and, um, the community has the ability to say, uh, yes or or no to either, and we'll be completely transparent on that, Russ, if you wanted to add anything...

Russ Webb: No, I I think that's right, you know, and overall, you know, the, um, you know, what what we're looking at right now is is asking for, you know, approval on the phase one, the 35-megawatt data center, which really supports a, you know, giving us funding to support our expansion on the carbon black side as well, and then, you know, if we did do or wanted to do a phase two, we would come back separately, like I said, Anna, and, you know, ask for approval separately, so...

Anna Wishart: I've talked about the buffer land, um, and the commitment, um, for that buffer land, and then in terms of decommissioning, um, the data center will be responsible for all decommissioning costs, that's actually state law, and it's something we've written into the zoning and permitting application.

So, the the other thing that I've gotten quite a bit of questions about today is, um, concern around the way that our existing application is submitted, kind of opening the door to a lot of different data center growth because we're asking for, um, a zoning amendments, um, to Hallam's ordinance that would allow for data center growth. Um, so we've had some good conversations, look, our intention is, um, to ask for the 10 acres of site on Monolith's existing industrial facility, that's what we're coming before you today to ask for, and so we are happy to work with the village leadership and the community, um, to submit an application that makes the community feel confident that that is exactly what we're asking for, um, is for those 10 acres. Um, so we are committed to going back, I've already talked with some of the community members, um, and looking at potentially an alternative route than doing the zoning amendment, uh, looking more at a special use permit, um, so we'll be back in touch with everyone. I want to tell you, we've heard you on that, um, and we will be back with, uh, an alternative approach to to see if if that is something, um, that the community is would would prefer. Russ, did you want to add anything?

Russ Webb: No, thank you, covered it well.

Anna Wishart: I think the main thing just to understand is, our goal, whether we do the zoning text amendment or we look at a special use, um, is to put in place some clear community commitments in terms of closed-loop water systems and all the details that we've talked through, um, to ensure that, um, if the community decides to approve it, um, that it comes with quite a bit of, um, performance-based metrics to it.

And then the last thing is, again, we want to continue being transparent. Um, we've committed since we announced in February, we've had monthly public meetings, um, every month since then, and we will continue to have those and have conversations with you, get your feedback. We're willing to, uh, work with you and and be flexible to to find a way forward that works best for this community.

So, with that, um, we're happy to take any additional questions that we have.

Questions from the floor

Audience member: Russ, can you clarify something for me? In your presentation, you said that the venture capital people said that you needed to reduce the size of your 10 10...

Russ Webb: Yeah, 12 12 reactors.

Audience member: ...to a smaller number. Well, you've just said you found a way to reduce it to three. How much smaller do you have to be before venture capital says you're small enough?

Russ Webb: That that that's kind of the right size where we're we're at. You know, the it it generates the the same amount of carbon black production, but at a lower lower footprint, and it gives us a good path forward to make sure we're profitable going into the future, so...

Audience member: Then what are venture capital's opposition to investing in your facility now that you've found a way to make it smaller?

Russ Webb: It was it was just the magnitude of the of the original project. Now it is very attractive, and, uh, you know, that's something that we are getting interest from investors into from from the capital market. Before it was, you know, very, very large footprint, uh, cost price tags, so that made it very difficult for us.

Audience member: So, since it's very attractive from the capital venture, what's the deal with the data centers built to offset the cost of expanding the the plant when you're already getting the capital through a different fund?

Russ Webb: It it helps, uh, provide part of the capital we need. So, we are getting interest from the, you know, venture capitalists, but not enough to cover the full expansion, so that provides us additional money to support us, so it's kind of a package, we need the the revenue from the data center coming in, you know, to help us, as well as money from from equity to help support the expansion, so, you know, it's not enough, probably not enough just from the equity side, we're needing we're needing both to move forward.

Anna Wishart: I mean, the most challenging dynamic right now for building manufacturing in the United States is that it is a lot cheap cheaper to build it overseas, especially in China, India, and other countries. It's tough to reshore it back here in the United States, and a lot of the development winds are to go and and build this overseas, and we're trying to build it here, but it we are still a startup, and and so that means, um, we do need to be as flexible and scrappy as we can be to continue to move forward.

Audience member: I'm curious, where do you two office?

Anna Wishart: So, I'm... go ahead.

Russ Webb: I...

Anna Wishart: So, I'm officed in Lincoln, and then I spend some time out at the Hallam office in Olive Creek.

Russ Webb: And I have an office here at Olive Creek.

Audience member: So, do you feel it's unsafe to be close to the plant?

Russ Webb: No. I'm I'm there every day.

Audience member: I often wonder, when we go to bed...

Russ Webb: Yeah, no, uh, I don't, and, you know, safety is critical to us, and our employees, we want to make sure people come to work, you know, safely, go home safely every day, as well as our neighbors, you know, so we we do want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to maintain a safe workplace, just like, you know, any kind of plant that's out there, you know, one of the key things is making sure people are safe coming and going, and also we want to be good neighbors and protect the safety of our neighbors, so, um, yeah, your safety is very important to us.

Audience member: On your decibels, what are your decibel readings going to be?

Russ Webb: That's a good question. I know they're doing a survey on that, we'll have to provide that, you know, back to you when we come back, but the...

Audience member: Okay, well, the reason I'm asking, you're out 82 decibels when you're running. Okay, that's pretty damn loud. Now, I know you shut it down evidently sometime after 4:00 in the morning, sometimes I get ready to leave about 4:00, and I can hear, now I haven't heard hardly this summer at all, you've been shut down. [Russ Webb: Yeah, we're we're actually not running right now.] But I've heard it, and I can hear it outside with my decibel meter out, and I've had 82 decibels I've heard at my house. And the light actually shines into our bedroom.

Audience member: 70 decibels causes hearing impairments.

Russ Webb: Yeah, I'd like to, yeah, let let's get your contact information, we'd like to come talk to you about this, see what we can do to address that concern, because we certainly don't want to create that kind of nuisance to you.

Audience member: I mean, it is, I'm only a mile and a half away, it's it's damn loud, it hurts my ears. Okay. And the other one I got, is there any way you could, instead of having daylight lights all the time at night, could you turn down to a like a softer light at night?

Russ Webb: That's a good question, yeah, that's something we can look into.

Audience member: Because our land is a lot, brightly lit, you guys, you look like, uh, Gotham City.

Russ Webb: Yeah, that sounds pretty bright. No, um, yeah, we can look into that to see what we can do. There are different types of lighting technologies that are out there now that might, yeah, maybe we can adjust the, you know, intensity of it, but we do have to have lighting for the employees during from a safety standpoint, but we can we can take a look and see what we can do.

Audience member: 82 decibels is pretty damn loud, I'm telling you.

Russ Webb: Yeah. Yeah, that's loud, we'll have to, you know, work with you to try to resolve that.

Anna Wishart: Okay, I think we've got time for, yeah, another question here.

Audience member: Well, you know, when I worked out there, we never had to wear ear protection outside the facilities, so I don't know how it can be that many decibels. Federally, you got to have more than so many decibels when you go to work. Yeah. But anyway, back to my thing, how how much more pollution is this going to produce, I mean, scrubbers you're going to have to have on the plant?

Russ Webb: We will have a, um, a scrubber on the back end, you know, to control SO2 and and NOx, it's actually, uh, less than what the expanded plant was going to be, overall.

Audience member: I heard a number back when they were doing it, I was just wondering if you had a shooting number.

Russ Webb: Yeah, uh, my expert on the exact number is probably in the back of the room there, but...

Audience member: They said it wasn't much.

Russ Webb: But, yeah, it's not much, we're it's it's low enough to stay below the 100, um, you know, uh, um, threshold on on SOx and NOx.

Audience member: And then, what happened to...

Russ Webb: You know, there was some interest expressed by them, you know, last year, maybe trying to look at us, but they they backed out of it, they decided it wasn't something they wanted to do.

Audience member: That's what [name redacted] said. Okay, well...

Russ Webb: It didn't it didn't work out...

Audience member: Why should we why should we trust you now that this is going to work out and not everything...

Russ Webb: Well, I mean, we're doing everything we can to try to advance the business and try to expand, and that's why we're looking at the data center option to help us, you know, provide money to the business, and, you know, we're it's, you know, it's been a tough year, uh, last year was very difficult, but we with this new pivot, we feel, you know, more comfortable that we can we have a more feasible plan to go forward, and, you know, we're we're committed to coming and talking to you at the town halls and being transparent, and, uh, doing everything we can to make sure we're keeping you in the loop on what's happening.

Audience member: What is the price tag then?

Russ Webb: Uh, of the expansion?

Audience member: Uh-huh.

Russ Webb: The overall expansion of the, um, on the carbon black side is about 700 million. And before it was like over 2 billion, so significantly less.

Anna Wishart: Okay, the gentleman in in the blue...

Audience member: Are you guys are you guys still, uh, burning off hydrogen?

Russ Webb: Wh- When we're operating, yes, we were flaring it, yes.

Audience member: So, you guys don't have an an outlet for the hydrogen? I mean, that's not going to be something that NPPD is At one time, they had talked about doing something with the hydrogen from you guys's plant to power their generators over there, and it seems like if they've got a new plant going in across the road, now would be a perfect time to put hydrogen generators in that new plant, but we don't hear any talk about it at all.

Russ Webb: Yeah, as part of our expansion, we are going to put in, um, electrical generation capacity to use the hydrogen, so we are going to be do doing that as part of our expansion.

Audience member: So, that's going to be part of your expansion?

Russ Webb: Yeah.

Audience member: And you're not going to be selling it, you're actually going to be using it yourselves?

Russ Webb: Yeah, we'll we'll basically, we'll produce the power, it will have to go back, you know, to the grid, and then there'll be, you know, so it will supplement the usage on the grid, but there'll be some value we get out of that by, you know, generating power with, you know, by using it.

Audience member: That does seem a hell of a lot better, uh, idea than just burning it all along.

Russ Webb: Yeah, yeah, energy recovery is definitely...

Audience member: Isn't it very expensive to convert it back to get it so you can transfer it down the road? Isn't that the problem?

Russ Webb: Yeah, it's hard to compress it to to, you know, push it all the way to them, but, you know, if we do it on site, there's a way for us to be able to burn it and then generate, you know, uh, power with steam that we generate out of the waste heat recovery system.

Anna Wishart: Okay, we have time for about two more... Oh, we got a lot of questions here, so I want to keep moving, right here...

Reporter [self-identified, Lincoln Journal Star]: I just have a question, you mentioned the 250 gallons a minute on the carbon black. Is that 24/7 365?

Russ Webb: Uh, yeah, yeah, that's on average for the expansion, yes.

Reporter: And so that's, if I'm doing my math correctly, about 130 million gallons of water a year for the carbon black expansion?

Anna Wishart: I think our water guy is here, uh, [name redacted] is...

Reporter: And then the the 35 megawatts for Phase 1, is that per day, per year, per hour?

Russ Webb: Yeah, that's the that's the the rating of the of the, you know, megawatt usage, so it's a, you know, it's like a a instantaneous megawatt use. [To a Monolith engineer] Do you remember what the, um, standard the annual water usage is on the carbon black plant?

Monolith engineer: I don't I don't recall exactly what it is on an annual basis, but an instantaneous rate, the both after Phase 2 is completed on carbon black, we would use about 250 gallons per minute.

Reporter: So, that's about 130 million gallons a year?

Monolith engineer: I I'm not sure, I'd have to do the math.

Anna Wishart: Okay, her first, and then we've got time for one more, and then you guys, it's 8:30, so I want to be respectful, we're happy to break out after this and and do one-on-ones.

Audience member: Okay, you guys talked about the closed-loop system. Now, in our research, you still have to periodically wash that out or change out the system, so what's that look like for water usage? So, you're saying that you're just going to fill that once, but what about the clearing out of the of the system and flushing it? You're going to have to refill it, so that's not true.

Russ Webb: Yeah, it's it's not very frequent, I think, uh, maybe, [to a Crusoe representative] you could provide some insight on that, but how how often do you have to change the water in those in those search?

Audience member: And where does the waste go? Where does the waste go?

Crusoe representative: Um, yes, so with the closed-loop system, you're you're correct, there are times where we have to drain the system to refill it for maintenance purposes or if there's leaks, to fix leaks, things like that. Um, in an ideal world, you don't drain it at all, you fill it the first time, and if everything's working properly, you circulate the same water continuously over and over. Um, if we do ever have to drain the system for maintenance purposes, we have valves that we can close off the majority of the system and just isolate the specific part that needs to be fixed, drain that section, and then refill it. Um, I know that's not a direct answer because the answer is it depends, but there's no like scheduled periodic flush and fill, if that makes sense.

Audience member: So, when you flush it, where is this waste going?

Crusoe representative: So, when we flush it, we capture all the water, we containerize it on site, and we would truck it to a treatment facility to be treated, and it would be put back into circulation.

Audience member: Cuz we are not going to want it contaminating our farms.

Crusoe representative: No, and neither do we, um, so, yeah, it is a controlled release, it's captured on site, and then we we truck it in to take that water to a treatment facility.

Audience member: But you said there's nothing toxic in it?

Crusoe representative: No, there's nothing toxic in the water to start with.

Audience member: And how many gallons did you say that it takes to fill this thing?

Crusoe representative: It's about 500,000 gallons for the initial fill, and then the numbers presented earlier are kind of your ongoing make-up water on an annual basis.

Audience member: How will that affect our water table?

Anna Wishart: Um, so we've done water monitoring, and our team is happy to share with you, in terms of the water tables and and the levels on that, because we've been monitoring that, um, from our monitoring wells, so our team after, [name redacted], find him, and he can share that information with you. I think he has the number now on the water, um, for Monolith.

Monolith engineer: So, I was doing some rough math here, so we do have 24/7 operating, so it would be around 105 million. So, 80% utilization, basically, like 80% of the time, so the way the plant runs is, the reactors do not run just 24/7 365, we do have to shut them down periodically to do maintenance, like taking a car, you have to change oil, you have to...

Anna Wishart: So, we're a batch plant, so working at batches. Okay, I'm going to take two more questions, and then, there's a woman way in the back who's had her hand up forever, and then I'll take the woman here who's had her hand up, and then we're happy afterwards to meet with you one-on-one, and we'll we'll have another town hall in August as well, so way back...

Audience member: This regarding an obvious question for the business, but how are you generating revenue with the data center?

Anna Wishart: So, she asked, how are we generating revenue with...

Russ Webb: Yeah, basically, um, as a partner with this, it it would basically give it's it's kind of a structured power power land-type sale where we get some, you know, money back out of that transaction, but we're still kind of working out that that model, we don't really have that all finalized yet, so...

Anna Wishart: And then, yes, right there.

Audience member: So, we know that it's modular, and we know that its current water usage, um, can you address how it's, you know, we all have concerns because of our own private wells about that volume of water being used and the water quality and basically the lack of water, um, how the aquifer is draining out so fast, can you address what would happen to our private wells?

Russ Webb: So, we have monitoring wells that we, before we even, so like when we first were looking at setting out doing the OC2 project, we had to go through the permitting process to to put in deep water wells, we're going to be using basically less than half of what those were already permitted for, so this new plan is going to be a substantial reduction upon what our original plan was. We already do, we put monitoring devices on all of our wells, and we did about 3 years ago, and so we've been monitoring the aquifer in the area for 3 years now, and actually, it's actually gone up a few inches over that period of time, and so, and I can, we've got the data, we can show it to you, so right now, it hasn't, you know, really had any negative impact on based on that.

Audience member: How far are your wells from...

Russ Webb: There are, there's one located here close to town, there are three on our property, and then we have one about a about a mile north.

Audience member: How deep are they?

Russ Webb: They're they're drilled at different depths, so it it varies depending on which one you're talking about.

Audience member: Can we find out that?

Russ Webb: Yeah, yeah, we can give you that information.

Audience member: Well, as the drought keeps going, the water aquifer is dropping, not rising, I'm sorry to tell you that. And as the water's drawn out of the ground for all these things and we try to farm, the water's going to keep going down, all your wells that are 80 feet deep are going to go dry.

Russ Webb: For us to even get permitted, we had to do a whole bunch of modeling with NRD, um, to understand what the impacts would be on the aquifer, and so if there was any sort of native impacts where they thought it was going to dry it down, they wouldn't we wouldn't have been able to get those permits in the first place.

Audience member: Yeah, as people sit there and build out here, because we've been nothing but lied to out here... You know, like with the solar panels and everything? I don't believe a word you guys have to say. You know, because I watch the environment. I know where our water aquifer's going. I draw water. Ever since you guys came in, my well went down. The pressure. So, I had to have [a well drilling company] come over and put a bigger tank on to draw water out of there. And as the water goes down from our drought, it's going to keep dropping. And all the shallow wells are going to go dry. It happened out where I grew up, out in the western part of the state, where they came in and started doing all this crap out there, and there's a lot of wells that are dry up there, completely.

Audience member: So, I kind of hear what you're saying, and you might have stats from what you're saying, and you might have stats on what you're saying, but I think as a company, what I would like for you guys to consider is the cumulative stress of everything that whether it's our village out here or our county is allowing to be out here, so it's not just you guys, it's really is cumulative. I know a lot more studies that need to be done highlighting when you mix all of these things, and as you guys said, some of you live out here, some of you don't, well, we really do, we are truly the ones that have to live with this, if we're not coming to you guys for answers, and like [another resident] said, a lack of trust, I understand you're trying to be transparent and things like that, but there's a lot more in-depth answers that people are going to need out here, and it really is cumulative, I think is the word, because drive around here, and it's not just you guys doing work out here.

Audience member: If you, if you send me your email address, I talked to NRD today, and there is somebody from NRD here today, and I will send you the report they've sent me, and it shows that the average depth of the wells they've tested, not the 80-foot wells, but in this area it's around 146 feet, and yeah, they have dropped about a 10th of a foot, but that's because of the drought, it's not because of what Monolith has done. When they were running, it showed in the report. My question is, how much ground have you got that you're selling to them?

Anna Wishart: Okay, it's it's 8:30, and so we're going to break now, we're happy to take one-on-one questions with you, and we'll we'll be meeting— [recording ends]

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