ERIE, Pennsylvania — Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Bayfront Convention Center in northwest Pennsylvania was the perfect place to hold last week’s Shale Insight Conference, spotlighting manufacturing, energy, and technology in Pennsylvania.

The event showcased 81 exhibits from vendors worldwide to discuss and display their innovations.

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Burgum, who visited a shale platform here in the spring, told the Washington Examiner that Pennsylvania has become a national energy powerhouse, ranking only second in natural gas production after Texas. 

“Over 20% of the U.S. natural gas is now coming from Pennsylvania, and natural gas is the fastest-growing component of energy in the world,” Burgum said.

“It is a flexible, diverse, powerful tool. And of course it’s highly shippable with the LNG infrastructure that the U.S. is building,” he said of the liquefied natural gas exports that benefit the producers as well as their workers and the farmers who lease their properties to these companies.

Burgum said LNG exports have helped keep inflation down. 

“Whether it’s heating, electricity, the food you eat, the clothes on your back, or the gas in your car,” he noted.

For decades, geologists knew that shale existed in the western Pennsylvania region. But few imagined it had the potential to be a major source of natural gas, mainly because the supply was thought to be minimal.

That changed in 2003. Range Resources, a local energy company, experimented with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which flushes large volumes of high-pressure water, sand, and chemicals into the ground, forcing trapped gas to escape into a well. Within a year, the first commercially viable well was drilled. Soon, multiple oil and gas producers and suppliers rushed to the region.

A 2023 Marcellus Shale Coalition report estimated the Pennsylvania natural gas industry supported 123,000 jobs in 2022, with average wages of about $97,000. The report included direct jobs as well as those generated through the supply chain downstream of the industry.

“The shale revolution’s literally a revolution that has transformed the American economy, and it’s put us in a position where we can execute President Trump’s vision, which is prosperity at home and peace abroad,” Burgum said.

Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, said he was in Europe last week with Energy Secretary Chris Wright discussing the idea that displacing Russian and Iranian oil and gas on the world market could put a stop to terrorism.

He said, “One of the ways to stop wars is to stop having our allies buy energy from our adversaries. Because when they do that, they’re funding the other side of the conflicts that we’re in.

“Having energy abundance and energy dominance coming from Pennsylvania plays just an absolutely essential key role to that strategy.” 

Burgum said winning the artificial intelligence arms race is one of the highest priorities of this administration. 

“It’s absolutely essential to win the AI arms race. We’ve got the software, we have the technology, we have the chips, we have got a lead in all that, but it’s also a battle for who can produce the most electricity,” he said, adding China is our most formidable competitor.

“They added 93 gigawatts of coal last year. One gigawatt equals Denver, so they’re just going, charging ahead on all forms of electricity, whether it’s nuclear, hydro, or coal. They are adding more electricity more rapidly than any other country in the world,” he said.

Burgum said the fastest way to bring additional fresh electricity online is by converting natural gas to electricity and then turning that electricity into intelligence.

“Pennsylvania’s going to play a huge role in that, but so is the Permian or any place that we’ve got stranded gas or excess gas,” he said of the major sedimentary basin in the Southwestern U.S., known for producing significant amounts of oil and natural gas.

“We don’t have to wait to build a pipeline to get it out of those regions. We can convert it to electricity on the spot, and when we convert it to electricity, then right next door to that, you put an AI factory,” he said.

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Burgum said Pennsylvania is thriving because of its smart energy policies. Meanwhile, other states and regions, including right next door in New York and New England, are missing out on this next wave of capital investment because they don’t have an energy policy.

“No one’s going to put an artificial intelligence factory in a state that’s got electric prices that are two to three times higher than the neighboring state. That’s because electricity is the primary input to be able to create intelligence. One of the No. 1 costs associated with it is powering those plants and providing the cooling for them. So there’s going to be a divergence in our economy, and the capital flows are going to be massive toward states that have got smart, pro-energy power,” he said.