AI Is Transforming Appalachia
The spotlight is on Western Pennsylvania—and EQT Corp.’s Toby Rice (The Washington Post, subscription).
What’s going on: The region’s plentiful natural gas is making it a crucial location as energy demand surges thanks to artificial intelligence. At the center of things is Toby Rice, president and CEO of energy company EQT Corp., the largest natural gas producer in the Appalachian Basin.
- “The size of [AI’s energy appetite] … it’s crazy,” Rice told opinion writer Salena Zito. “We are hearing estimates for power demand for AI that’s anywhere [from] 50 to 75 gigawatts of power, which is the equivalent of the power needed to power 10 to 15 New York Cities.”
- EQT is expected to be among the few natural gas providers in contention to support the switchover of the Homer City Generating Station, formerly Pennsylvania’s largest coal-fired power plant, “to natural gas to power an adjacent AI data center.”
From baseball to energy: Massachusetts native Rice wanted to make his career in professional baseball, but after he was passed over by Major League Baseball in college, his father suggested he go into the oil and gas industry.
- After moving to Texas, Rice started out working on an oil rig and eventually founded his own company, Rice Energy.
- “There was a lot of sweat along the way—he left Texas for Appalachia, and slowly grew Rice Energy from a no-name company to a top 10 producer of natural gas in the country.”
- It merged with EQT in 2017, creating America’s biggest independent producer of natural gas.
AI revolution—and opposition: “This is the biggest gas field in the world. This is the biggest energy source,” Rice told the Post. “Pittsburgh has powered, has been the ground zero, for the industrial revolutions that have taken place in this country. This AI revolution that’s taking place—no different.”
- However, AI growth has a sizable hurdle in its way in the form of opposition to natural gas.
- Said Rice: “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure they have all the energy they need to meet their AI aspirations. But we should still have the ability to build more infrastructure here.”