BELLE, W.Va. — A new facility in Kanawha County is expected to eventually produce clean energy of the future.
State and local leaders took part in the groundbreaking ceremony for Clean-Seas Monday.
Located at the former 84 Lumber building in Belle, the company says they are on track to becoming the United State’s first Plastic Conversion Network Facility.
President of Clean-Seas West Virginia John Yonce told MetroNews that while they have been in development for a while now, they recently hit some significant milestones they wanted to share with the community, as well as simply get acquainted with them.
“We really wanted to make sure we’re introducing ourselves to the community and thanking all the support we’ve gotten from the state, the county, and the local community to get to this point,” Yonce said.
Yonce said the developing Clean-Seas facility in Belle recently received their first deliveries of core technology for their plastic conversion mission. 
Clean-Seas, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Clean Vision, a sustainable clean technology and green energy corporation.
Clean-Seas is expected to divert post-use plastics from landfills and convert it into clean feedstock for the eventual goal of what is called AquaHTM Hydrogen.
Yonce said for this process, they utilize a technology called pyrolysis, or simply high heat without oxygen.
“What that does is it breaks the plastic down into solid, liquid and gas,” he said. “The gas is a synthetic gas that we use to power the process, we can use that to heat our plastic feedstock, and the liquid is what we call Plastic Pyrolysis Oil, or PPO, and PPO is an excellent precursor to new plastics.”
He said other clean fuels or lubricants can also be produced from PPO.
Yonce said, eventually, their aim is to maximize hydrogen production out of the same process, but they must continue to develop it into commercial production before the hydrogen production process can begin.
He said this whole process is converting these plastics into green, usable products instead of just having them go into a landfill or an incinerator.
Yonce said we are currently in the midst of a global plastic crisis as plastics are not being managed well with less than 10% ever even being recycled.
He said a lot of this is due to a large portion of plastic not being suitable for traditional, mechanical recycling, and their aim is to address this.
“So, our goal is to take the plastic that is not being recycled now and finding a good outcome for it,” Yonce said. “You know, again, we look at ourselves as a solutions provider, today’s technology is pyrolysis, but down the road, maybe that technology evolves to be something even better.”
Yonce said initially, they will be processing about 50 tons of post-use plastic per day and will create about 40 jobs at the Belle facility. He said as the size and productions of the facility continues to grow, with their goal of 200 tons of plastic per day, they hope to create more jobs.
Yonce said Monday was really about breaking ground for a new future of energy production in West Virginia.
“We like to say that we know West Virginia was a pioneer in leading energy production for the industrial era for the last one hundred and fifty years, and with us, we really think we can help West Virginia do that for another hundred and fifty years.”
The facility is set to begin operations at the end of this year.