It was 3 o’clock on a quiet Friday afternoon when the phone rang. It was a friend from India we are working with. He sounded desperate. (It was 12:30 AM in India) “Greg, I didn’t know who else to call. We have a client who has a contractor moving in next week to start construction. He just found out he needs a permit from the city of Toledo, Ohio to proceed. Can you help?!” I don’t know anyone in Toledo except my daughter, Dannielle’s college roommate, a surgeon who runs half-marathon’s with us. “Let me think and I will call you right back.”

It took a few minutes to ponder who in our large Shale Crescent USA network could help. I thought of two friends, one in Pittsburgh and another in Columbus who might have possible connections in the Toledo area. After calling my friends, I called our friend in India back and connected him directly to both people. They both knew someone, who knew someone. The permit was issued on Tuesday and construction proceeded.

We have all heard, “It’s not what you know but who you know.” Maybe more important is, who knows you. We all need a third-party advocate at times. In high school the guys with older sisters who could be their advocate got more first dates. When I was doing corporate sales, I used our technical experts from Houston whenever possible who could confirm the success of new products on a national basis. In Christianity, Jesus Christ is our advocate with the Father. Personal relationships and a strong network can help us to assist others.

This week in South Pointe near Pittsburgh, Shale Crescent USA (SCUSA) had its annual in-person Board of Directors meeting. The SCUSA Board is made up of over 30 executives and high-level decision makers from the Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia state economic development organizations and from diverse industries in the region like energy, manufacturing, banking, petrochemicals, engineering, construction, insurance etc. Almost anything a prospect coming to the region needs is represented on the Board. It is a unique high-performance team. For this meeting, to expand the network, regional companies outside the Board are invited.

In addition, this year we had two special guests. The CEO of ESI from Houston, Texas spoke about energy, petrochemicals, markets and the opportunity for manufacturing and exporting products from the Shale Crescent USA region to the world. He explained the advantages this region has over Chinese manufacturing. The other guest was a Walmart high level procurement manager from Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart wants to have secure supply chains, lower costs, buy American made products, and be sustainable. Buying products made in the SCUSA meets all of those criteria.

Economically dependable energy is essential for manufacturing and job creation in the SCUSA region. A diverse panel of energy experts at the meeting discussed advantages of abundant natural gas and natural gas liquids in the SCUSA region. The Shale Crescent USA region

accounts for over one third of the USA’s natural gas supply. If SCUSA were a country it would be the 3rd largest natural gas producer in the world, behind only the rest of the USA and Russia. Natural gas prices in Europe and Asia are 7 times higher than SCUSA. Companies in Europe and Asia are coming to SCUSA because of economical dependable energy.

The energy panel discussed the challenge of increasing electric demand for data centers/AI, EVs and increased manufacturing. Every AI query we do requires 10 times more electricity than a Google search. The PJM power grid is the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware and half of Kentucky. Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are PJM’s primary power producers. The rest are power takers. PJM is the largest, most dependable power grid in the USA with 184.7 GW of installed capacity.

This is produced by; 46.7% natural gas, 23.9% coal, 17.7% nuclear, 4.4% hydro, 3.5% oil, 1.9% wind, 1.5% solar, and 0.4% waste. The reason PJM is so dependable and we all have electricity when needed is because 96.4% of this is 24/7/365 baseload power. The concern is the ability of PJM to meet future needs. PJM has 197.6 GW of queued (planned) capacity. This would meet future demand except, only 6.3 GW (3%) of this is baseload. (5.5 GW natural gas, .8 GW hydro). The other 191.3 GW is interruptible. (75% solar, 22% wind). Large scale storage is being worked on but years away. The big challenge with wind and solar is, they work worst when power needs are the greatest during weather extremes. We are headed for a possible disaster if this doesn’t change. Consumers can expect to pay more, for less dependable power. The SCUSA may be in better shape since this is where most of the power is produced. Modular nuclear reactors can be a solution but are still being developed.

The cleanest energy sources are hydro, geothermal and nuclear power. People in Africa, China and South America where lithium, cobalt, graphite, rare earths and other critical materials are mined and refined making wind, solar and EVs possible wouldn’t consider them “green”. Replacing forests (trees quietly turning carbon dioxide into oxygen) with solar panels, like what is being done in Virginia isn’t green. Roof top solar producing power close to the end user does make sense. The SCUSA energy panel showed the power situation is challenging but solvable.

The Shale Crescent USA region has the resources and ability to create high wage manufacturing jobs and sustainable products with stable supply chains and prices for U.S. consumers. Products manufactured here can be exported to the world. In the process lowering global emissions.

The attendees, all sharp leaders, at the SCUSA meeting this week agreed on the need to increase manufacturing and jobs in the Shale Crescent USA (OH, PA & WV). A team of all stars is good. An ALL-STAR TEAM with a DREAM is unstoppable. We are blessed to have one!