The Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University was ostensibly, as the name implied, about energy and innovation.
In reality, it was about money and jobs.
The event provided an opportunity for investors and politicians to get a moment in the sun as they announced a roster of investments in projects in the Keystone State. The bottom line of the list totaled more than $90 billion. Not every company attached specific employment numbers, but those that did totaled more than 40,000 between construction and permanent jobs.
It was a lot. Of the 15 companies making announcements, the smallest investment was $1 billion.
For context, when U.S. Steel announced a $1 billion investment in the Mon Valley Works, it was massive news. It was a lifeline. It was a promise for the future.
At the summit, the $1 billion announcements were footnotes. They could barely hold a candle to the $25 billion that Jon Gray, president and chief operating officer of alternative investment firm Blackstone, said the company will plow into data centers and natural gas plants in Northeast Pennsylvania.
And that was just the marquee announcement.
Locally, Westinghouse is promising $6 billion to create 10 nuclear reactors and 15,000 jobs. The Homer City Redevelopment Group will buy $15 billion of Pennsylvania-produced natural gas. That’s on top of a $10 billion plant redevelopment at the Indiana County generating station to support enhanced computing needs.
The event was complete with big names, chief among them President Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick and Gov. Josh Shapiro. It had all the components of a movie studio’s splashy announcement of upcoming blockbusters, but from the political and investment world.
Now, we sit back and wait to see whether these promises are fulfilled.
Let’s not forget that $1 billion announcement from U.S. Steel in 2019. A year later, there was another announcement. The upgrades wouldn’t happen.
It is easy to say something will happen. It is easy to promise big. But corporate investments can change with market winds. Think about closed big box stores and shuttered malls.
That isn’t to say the billions announced Tuesday were not great to hear. But they were, as said, less about energy and innovation than money and political capital.
Yes, money and political capital are what greases the machine.
However, Pennsylvania is a state that was built by energy — coal and oil, gas and nuclear — and the innovation of industry. Those aspects of the announcements need to be the focus, because that is what will keep the money flowing and the people employed.
Energy can’t take a back seat to power.
