Last week, the Philadelphia Business Journal published an interview with Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ CEO Phil Rinaldi, in which he talks about the future of the city’s energy industry, the Greater Philadelphia Energy Action Team and how more jobs can be created.

 

Here is an excerpt:

PBJ: If we’re already in some ways acting as hub, why is there all this talk about it now?

PR: The opportunity is to take advantage of this massive amount of [dry] gas, which is not being taken advantage of now. So right now, what gas is being produced is largely shipped out of Pennsylvania just as natural gas as lowest possible value. It’s shipped to the Gulf Coast, it’s shipped up to New England. And they take advantage of that resource there. And the simple question is, why does that make sense? Why is it more sensible to take that energy here, add value to it, and then instead of selling the cheapest possible thing, you sell the higher valuated thing that you make. And that’s the kind of goal, to try to trap that wealth in Pennsylvania and add to that wealth in Pennsylvania so that you’re creating exportable wealth in a formal kind of currency instead of having to kind of import those goods.

PBJ: Let’s talk about jobs.

PR: These manufacturing facilities to build every kind of plant that you could name would have a construction cycle that will last for a couple of years and will employ hundreds and maybe in some cases thousands of construction workers during construction. So you have multiple ones of those. A pipeline, a 100-mile pipeline, today, that’s a billion-dollar kind of project. That’s a lot of spending and a lot of activity. And then when you start moving through each of these factories that can get built, you know, they’ll employ a few hundred to thousands of people.

PBJ: Why would it attract business?

PR: It has to do with anything that requires significant expenditure for natural gas. So it could be for the energy content. So if you have a business that requires a lot of heat, or even a lot of electricity, because you can use gas and generate your own electricity, then it’s interesting to you.

To read the full interview, click here.  Rinalid is a member of the CEO Council for Growth.