508: Toby Rice—Got Gas?

What do you get when you combine labor, energy, and intelligence? According to Toby Rice https://www.eqt.com/about/board/toby-z-rice, you get the ingredients for abundance—and a better standard of living for all Americans. The CEO of EQT Corporation https://www.eqt.com/ and co-founder of Rice Energy, Rice began his career as a chimney sweep before working his way into the energy business. On this episode, he joins Mike to make the case for American energy abundance, explain why affordable, reliable energy is essential to human progress, and discuss Energy Corps, his nonprofit dedicated to addressing energy poverty around the world. He also shares three harrowing near-misses on the job that nearly cost him his life—and how those experiences helped drive efforts to make the industry safer. Because for Rice, the real goal isn't simply producing more energy. It's empowering people to do more with their lives. Tip o' the hat to our excellent sponsors BuildFreedom.us https://bit.ly/TWIHIxBuildFreedom—The best place to find a six-figure, AI-proof job. Build your future. Rebuild America. CamelCityMill.com https://bit.ly/TWIHICamelCityMill—The last work sock you'll ever need. 100% American made with a 10-year warranty. Use code ROWE for 10% off Mike's favorite work sock. Click https://manly.link/mike-rowe-3 to save even more. Meta has partnered with the National Urban League, Associated Building Contractors and CBRE to create a nationwide, paid, fast-track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. Go to Meta.com/AmericasWorkforceAcademy https://bit.ly/TWIHIxMetaAWA to learn more. Chapter.com/MikeRowe https://bit.ly/TWIHIxChapter—Chapter compares every Medicare plan nationwide to recommend the right coverage for you. Call them at 804-CHAPTER or visit chapter.com/mikerowe https://bit.ly/TWIHIxChapter to get free, unbiased Medicare help. Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and standalone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan's contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don't directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Mike Rowe?

  Hey guys, it's Mike Rowe. This is The Way I Heard It. And it's always a pleasure to talk to people on this podcast whose resume makes me sit up a little straighter. You know what I mean? People who have paid their dues, who have been there and done that. Well, that is Toby Rice. Toby started his career as a chimney sweep, interestingly, which was the first dirty job I ever filmed outside of Indianapolis. And man, if you're looking for a vocation where you can pay your dues, let me just say chimneys still need to be swept and doing it is dirty and difficult and exhausting and important. That's where Toby started. Today, he's the CEO of EQT,

• 0:48Mike Rowe?

  which has very little to do with sweeping chimneys, but an awful lot to do with keeping us warm in the winter and cool in the summer. EQT is the largest producer of natural gas in the United States. And the fact that he's running it, I just love it. Because after the whole chimney sweeping thing, he and his brothers got into the energy business. This was at the height of the shale revolution. So he's working on rigs, roughnecking, roustabouts, all that stuff, still paying his dues. And then there was almost a tragic accident, followed by another near miss. And Toby started thinking differently about his industry

• 1:33Mike Rowe?

  and what he wanted to do in it. And long story short, he and his brothers take every penny they have. They throw it into the building of an energy company from the ground up. That's EQT. And they did a lot of stuff right. They talked constantly about the importance of energy independence. And even more importantly than that, energy abundance. He's a guy today who looks at our current landscape and doesn't see a reason to scarcity mindset our way into poverty. He has very strong opinions about the best way to use American innovation and skilled trades and practical engineering to lift billions of people

• 2:17Mike Rowe?

  all over the world out of poverty and secure a decent future for everybody. He's a straight shooter. He's a hard worker. He's a former chimney sweep. And he's a guy who is actively reshaping the entire planet's energy landscape. And I was thrilled to sit down and talk with him. Also, I neglected to thank him in this conversation for his generosity last night. We're at Brush Creek, by the way, for a summit. This is a ranch up in Saratoga, Wyoming, where I've had a chance to interview a number of luminaries who are just walking around here, taking it all in. Seeing Toby again last night, inviting him to chat was an obvious thing to do.

• 3:01Mike Rowe?

  But I did not expect him to purchase a significant chunk of a 68-year-old bottle of Macallum. 68 years old. We had a chance to sit down and enjoy it. And it was delicious and very generous of Toby Rice to do that. He's also been very generous with his time and with his opinions, both of which he will share with you right after this.

• 3:37Mike Rowe?

  So as some of you may have heard, I went to Congress 16 years ago to testify before a House Subcommittee. And then again, a year later, to testify before a Senate Subcommittee about the need to reinvigorate the skilled trades with some kind of national effort that would make a more persuasive case for a lot of good jobs out there that didn't require a four-year degree. Well, 15 years later, I finally heard back from the government. And I am delighted to tell you about a program called BuildFreedom.us. This is the national PR campaign that MicroWorks has been talking about for a decade and a half now.

• 4:20Mike Rowe?

  And it's focused on 300,000 or 400,000 excellent jobs in the defense industrial base. These are the electricians and the plumbers and the steam fillers and the pipe fitters and the CNC operators and the shipbuilders and so forth. But in this case, all of those trades are focused on building out our national infrastructure through the defense industrial base. So people who are building our autonomous weapons, our planes, our ships, it's only a matter of national security. And it's a very big deal. And on a personal level, it's really been very gratifying. Build Freedom donated $10 million to MicroWorks. The money's available right now for you if you want to pursue a skill that's in demand

• 5:03Mike Rowe?

  and work in the defense industrial base. I think it's an opportunity of a lifetime. Go to BuildFreedom.us, see what's available, and then apply for a scholarship from MicroWorks. The money's there, burning a hole in my pocket. Go get some. BuildFreedom.us.

• 5:24Mike Rowe?

  Man, I sure appreciate you doing this.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:26Mike Rowe?

  Really do. You having fun?

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Having a lot of fun. Yeah, absolutely.

• 5:30Mike Rowe?

  I mean, in general, not just here. I mean, I'm sure you're having fun here.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, first time being in Wyoming. This is a great country. But you know, in our role right now, I mean, we're getting exposed to some pretty big things. It's a really important time in energy. So there's lots to stay busy and a lot of exciting things to work on.

• 5:46Mike Rowe?

  You and I met, what was it, a year or so ago, maybe? At Alex's, Alex Hepstein's thing?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah, it was a meeting of thought leaders. I don't know what we were doing there.

• 5:55Mike Rowe?

  I don't either, man. I honestly don't know how. I feel like I snuck into a couple of these gigs and got at the grown-up table. But looking back, the number of things, good things, that have happened on the foundation side for me as a result of that first meeting, just being in the room with those guys. Rick Perry, you know, gave me a heck of an introduction. And ever since, like, the tentacles have spread out. And I've just found myself more and more fascinated by what's happening with the data centers and AI, and at the same time with electricity, energy, in your case, natural gas in general. And so I think the people who listen to this would be most interested in understanding,

• 6:40Mike Rowe?

  or at least learning something they don't know about the relationship between the promise of whatever software is coming and the reality of the energy that's going to drive it. Or not, if we don't get our poop in a group.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, what's happened in this world right now? We've got probably one of the most exciting times in energy. You know, as the CEO of EQT, where America's natural gas champion currently produces about eight BCF a day of natural gas. It's about a million barrels a day of energy in natural gas form.

• 7:09Mike Rowe?

  Explain what a BCF is.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Billion cubic feet. It's our, it's our unit. Gas units are kind of tricky, but divided by six, and that's sort of what you get. So it's about a million barrels a day worth of energy equivalent. But with energy security, Americans' energy bills being up, and also this data center revolution and the AI revolution that's taking place, it's spurring a tremendous amount of energy demand. We're looking at this as like a 20% to 40% increase in natural gas demand. And to meet these challenges, it's going to require that we build stuff, whether it's LNG facilities, more power generation, up lower energy bills for Americans, more power generation plants to meet this AI revolution. And it's one of those things where I think people are scratching their heads and saying,

• 7:53Speaker 01

  man, where is this workforce going to come from? And I'm looking at the tech companies, and I'm looking to learn from them. And they've always gotten their energy for their, for their needs. And now they're in a situation where maybe they took it for granted and they're scrambling to catch up. And we should look at that and say, you know, with our supply chains, you know, are there things that we take for granted? And I think for a long time, we've taken labor for granted it's been there. But now we're talking about building an amount of power generation that would be equivalent to powering 20 New York cities.

• 8:25Mike Rowe?

  Jeez.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  And we got to do it in the next five years. We're talking about building an amount of liquefaction that is going to power, you know, continents. It's going to require a tremendous amount of labor, hundreds of thousands of jobs. And I think that's why you're getting such a strong reception for MicroWorks is because, you know, we can only ignore a problem for so long until it becomes a real problem. And this is the time for us to start addressing that.

• 8:51Mike Rowe?

  I mean, it's not new in the energy space. For as long as I've been under this particular net, I've been talking to people in fossil fuels. Their recruiting challenges have always been...

• 9:06Mike Rowe?

  Real and and practical. It just feels like now it's spread out. And this, I keep using the analogy. It's like a, it's like a memo went out to some C suites that that normally aren't involved in these conversations at all. And to some governors who until very recently have been really, really silent about this thing. It's like an alarm got rung and it's getting a little louder every day. And I'm wondering what you think it will take for for the country like collectively to say, okay, Atlas shrugged, new sheriff in town.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:46Mike Rowe?

  Whatever your metaphor is, what needs to happen to galvanize public opinion?

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's just open our eyes and look at this world. We see Americans' energy bills are up forty percent. This is despite US producing record amounts of energy.

• 10:00Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  You know, Mike, and in thanks to the shale revolution, we're producing over thirty million barrels a day of energy. Yet despite that, if you added up the oil and gas together, yet despite that, Americans' energy bills are up over forty percent over the last five years. You look at the energy security of the world crippled. Whether you're talking about what's happening in in Europe or what's happening in the Middle East, global energy security is compromised. And what we're seeing in America is recognizing that global energy security is our energy security. Every country in this world is impacted by energy security threats. We see that now in the in the rising price of of oil and gasoline. And we live in a world where we've got petro dictators that have taken their energy sales

• 10:44Speaker 01

  and translated them into terror, tyranny, and bombs. Whether you're looking at what's going on in Venezuela, what's happening right now in Iran, or how Russia has weaponized energy with Europe. And we have the need to replace that energy and influence with the energy influence of America. That's an opportunity. That's going to lead to more peaceful, prosperous world. And then on top of that, you've got, we've got to win the AI race. And I think the the implications of not winning that are significant and severe. You listen to the way defense is is changing with drones and all the intelligence that's gonna that's gonna be used to keep our our citizens safe. And people need to realize like this is our world. And this AI race is going to happen. We don't have a choice. We've got to build. We've got to win.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  And I think when America's been put in tough spots, we have stepped up. And it's important people realize we can still do amazing things. You know, twenty years ago, we were in a very dark place when it comes to energy. We were energy dependent. We were producing five million barrels a day, consuming eighteen million barrels a day. Over seven hundred billion dollars a year was being exported so that we can import our oil. We were talking about importing natural gas. What were we gonna do? Well, thankfully, this industry stepped up. We cracked the code on shale with amazing technologies like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. We cracked the code on shale and transformed America into an energy powerhouse, the world's largest energy producer.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  So we have the capabilities to do amazing things, but we've got to move forward collectively. And there's a lot of of debate now really on that's gonna guide the enthusiasm with which we move. And there's no better sign of that right now than what's the the debate that's taking place with the whole data center issues, which has certainly become a very popular topic and and politically very unfavorable right now.

• 12:33Mike Rowe?

  Do you think it's really the data center debate that's on the tip of the spear? Or people just so existentially freaked out about the uncertainty of an AI future that they're looking for some tangent? But it's like data centers are brick and mortar. AI exists in in our imaginations like it's a cloud thing. It's hard to, it's like blockchain. I can't point to it.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 13:01Mike Rowe?

  You know? And so I agree with you, but I'm just amazed that people don't seem to understand that there are four thousand data centers in the country already. They've been here, what, thirty years?

• 13:14Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 13:15Mike Rowe?

  I mean, every, every download, every song I've ever streamed, every movie I've watched in the last ten years, every fantasy football, every email I've opened, every text I sent, that that's an A, that's a data center. But suddenly, for some reason, they are the sum of all fears. And look, I I know a lot of people listening to this are fearful of them. And so from your perspective, what's driving the fear? Is there a legitimate cause for concern? And what ought to be done to level things out, if anything?

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, the the intangibility-ness of artificial intelligence, I think, doesn't doesn't help us diagnose. I think the root cause is still, people are still trying to pin that down. But, you know, it's not helpful when we have tech leaders saying that my technology is so amazing, it's gonna take fifty percent of the of the jobs away. Now, fortunately, that's been proven to to not have happened. But I think just the the threat of technological changes is gonna be, the fear of the unknown is driving this. I tell you, you know, the questions about water consumption, electricity uses driving prices up, night noise and light pollution. I think these are all issues that in any industrial push, we have to address these issues.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  And I think looking at this from the energy, from the energy side of things, this is the, this is a very similar playbook to what we went through. And no industry, no industrial revolution is going to happen by ignoring the concerns of the public.

• 14:51Mike Rowe?

  Can you imagine trying to build the highway system today?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:55Mike Rowe?

  How would that happen?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  It'd be very difficult. It'd be very difficult. I mean, we live in a, we live in a world where it takes an act of Congress to get a pipeline built. But, you know, there, there are a lot of similarities to what we dealt with with the shale revolution. And, you know, twenty years ago, it was a conversation about hydraulic fracturing. And there were a lot of people that were very concerned. Now, fortunately, we had leaders in in states that, like in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, that looked at the data and understood that this was a risk worth taking. And the industry was serious about mitigating these impacts. And because of that, we've created and discovered one of the largest natural gas fields in the world where we operate in the Marcellus Shale. Some states and and in those states, they've got a lot of jobs.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  We pay billions in royalties, enriching the communities. And we've got relatively affordable energy bills. But then you look at states right next door like New York, and they've blocked and canceled technologies. And they're in a much more challenging situation. You know, now in New England, places that have blocked technologies or blocked energy infrastructure, they're paying the highest energy bills in the world. You know, what's remarkable, people, what people are surprised to hear is the highest natural gas prices in the world, Mike, they're not gonna be paid in Germany, they're not gonna be paid in Japan, they're gonna be paid in this winter, they're gonna be paid in New England. Think about that. And that's the result of what happens when we cancel, try and cancel industry, try and

• 16:24Speaker 01

  cancel infrastructure, and allow political force to overwhelm market forces. And so I think at the end of this, we need to embrace these criticisms, address it, and show people that, guess what? There's two things, there's really three things that that I think get us really excited about the future. And that future is creating abundance for the world. I mean, if you say make the world a better place, to me, that's creating abundance. And there's three things you need. You need labor, you need energy, you need intelligence. And when we put these three things together, we're going to improve the standard of living, not just for Americans, but I believe for billions around the world. And it's really important that we get this right in the developed world because our success is gonna cascade and overflow to the world.

• 17:08Mike Rowe?

  Labor, energy, and intelligence?

• 17:11Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 17:12Mike Rowe?

  Those are three things. Man, I I'm glad you said that. If you take energy out of it for a moment, what you're left with is work and smarts. And if you think about part of what we've been preaching to the next generation, for the last couple of generations, it really is about working smarter, right? Not harder, smarter. So less of an emphasis on the labor and more of an emphasis on the intellectual component of it, presumably so we can get to a point where there's no work at all. It's just intelligence somehow or another.

• 17:52Mike Rowe?

  And in this case, maybe it's, it's the artificial intelligence that people are looking at. And perhaps some are attracted to it because it feels like, okay, I have to do less work. But the reason I love that triumvirate, those are the three legs on the stool.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 18:10Mike Rowe?

  And I don't think you can ever get away, I don't think you can shorten any of those legs, much less remove one without the whole thing toppling over.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:23Mike Rowe?

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• 19:05Mike Rowe?

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• 19:45Mike Rowe?

  In other words, I agree with you, but, boy, I think you listed them in the right order. And I think practically speaking, it's the other order, at least in terms of what we value.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 19:57Mike Rowe?

  We value intelligence way more than anything, at least on paper, at least that's where the money seems to flow, not labor. And that's madness.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I think also, I mean, when people are looking about getting into the workforce and the type of jobs they're looking at, you know, what you start out doing is not where you're going to end up. I mean, I started in this industry as a floorhand on a workover rig, making $9 an hour.

• 20:20Mike Rowe?

  Where?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  I broke out in West Texas, wrenching rods and pulling pipe. I will tell you, those lessons that I learned in the field have made me a better CEO today, you know, because at the end of the day, we learned a deep appreciation for the workers that are out there in the field. And a shout out to our crew, some of the best energy workers, and the pride they take and how important it is. You cannot have a successful business without operating at the front lines and creating a safe work environment, empowering those people. You only learn that in the field and really get that appreciation. So it's a mantra that we actually embrace at EQT. It's called "Respect the Wrench." And every decision that we make in the office is thinking about what's happening on the front line. Respect the wrench.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  And so I think it's really important for people to understand, like, how was I going to get into this industry? I was not going to start as a CEO. I was not going to start as a petroleum engineer, although I tried, but I dropped out of college. I started as a floorhand, and working hard and have the right ethic. This country is amazing, and opportunities fell online that allowed us to be in this position today. But it's a great opportunity to get out there, work with your hands, build something, learn appreciation. That's going to make you better for the later stages of your career.

• 21:33Mike Rowe?

  The CEO of the biggest gas provider in the company started on a rig.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah. I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, which, Mike, you know, there's 38 states in this country that produce natural gas. Massachusetts is not one of them. I thought I was going to be a professional baseball player, growing up.

• 21:55Mike Rowe?

  No, that worked out.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  It didn't work out. I'm 5'10". Who am I kidding? When draft day came, and I didn't get drafted, and I was completely shocked, like nobody in my family was. I had a chemistry degree and came back to Boston. I didn't want to put on a lab coat, so I got a job. I was sweeping chimneys. And I woke up every day for six months, wondering what the heck I'm going to do next in my life. I had an incident on a roof with a raccoon. I had a near-death experience, and that was the breaking point for me to seek help. So I went to my father. I said, "Yo, Dad, can you be a father and like, give me some advice, please? Because I'm kind of struggling here." And he puts down his paper, and he says, "What about doing the gas industry?" I said, "What's that?" He says, "Like Saudi Arabia?" He says, "No, we do it in the US." And the story was big risk, big reward. It was like modern-day treasure hunting.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  He told me to go to Texas A&M, get a master's degree, but school didn't start for six months, which meant another six months of sweeping chimneys. I wasn't doing that. So I hustled to get a job as a floorhand on a workover rig. And I did that, and then went to A&M, and the rest is there.

• 22:58Mike Rowe?

  Well, look, man, I have to assume you would never lose your appreciation or respect for that job. I mean, I know people who have that respect, but in an anecdotal way. But to actually do the work, to really do it, you know, you made me laugh. I want to circle back to the roof, the near-death experience and the raccoon, because that sounds interesting. But have you been to the National Institute of Chimney Sweeps?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  No, I have not. But you know who else does a chimney sweep?

• 23:29Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  You won't believe this. Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum, chimney sweep.

• 23:35Mike Rowe?

  I'm supposed to talk to Doug next month. That's hysterical, because that was the very first dirty jobs we filmed. I went to, I think it was Plainfield, Indiana, where they teach these guys how to sweep chimneys.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:49Mike Rowe?

  And who the hell knew? But it's a thing. It's a big deal. And it's an important rung on a ladder.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  That was a rung, for sure. But that was the first time I stuck tools down a hole, wondering what I was doing. And then, yeah, the oil fields, I'll tell you, I've done a lot of physical labor. Wrenching rods, you know, the pump jacks that go up and down? You got to replace those pumps, and there's rods that you need to do. I remember wrenching rods. It was the most difficult physical labor I've ever done, because it's a powerlifting contest to break the connection, and then it's the cardio of spinning the wrenches. I remember doing that the first day, and it was an 8,000-foot well, and I wrenched all those rods out. And then took a break, switched out the pump, wrenched them all the way in, and I was dead tired at the end. It was like 16 hours.

• 24:40Mike Rowe?

  Like rung out.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  And I go to my guys, I'm like, "Hey, you know, guys, how do you do this day in and day out?" Like, that was ridiculous. They say, "Tob, we usually switch after every 15 rods." You just kept going.

• 24:52Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  So, thanks, guys.

• 24:53Mike Rowe?

  I'll breathe.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:55Mike Rowe?

  Last month, I was up in Fairbanks at, sorry about these flies out here. It's part of what you get on a ranch, I guess, at the Pipeline Training Institute in Fairbanks, Alaska. And this is maybe one of the most important schools in the country, because they train the guys, and the women specifically, who are going on the North Slope. They've tried to create, you know, real-world conditions, because... Have you been up there before?

• 25:25Speaker 01

  No, no. I've been up there. Mike, one of the reasons I got into the gas industry is I thought I was going to travel the world. That's one of the perks. So far, I've been to Pittsburgh and St. Clair's of Ohio. I haven't made it out of Appalachia. Now I get to go to DC a little bit.

• 25:39Mike Rowe?

  Everything the brochure promised. Well, these people come from far and wide, you know, for the same reason people fly into Dutch Harbor to work on a crab boat. There's nothing glamorous about it, but it's a way to be weighed and measured, I think. And for a lot of people who are looking to be pushed, who want to see if they have it, right? I mean, it's really important. And you would love these guys up there, because they, of course, it's Alaska, so they've all seen Deadliest Catch, and they know me. And they're like, "Yeah, man, that's adorable. Those little crab fishermen out there on their little boats, right? With the waves." Come to the North Slope. And the truth is, I can't.

• 26:23Mike Rowe?

  I can't shoot there, because it's 40 below. It's pitch dark. You don't see anybody's face. It's the same kind of work you described in conditions that are almost unimaginable, with so much risk, right? So much risk. So maybe we just kind of riff on that for a minute. How inherently dangerous is your industry? And what are you guys doing to send people home in one piece?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. First thing I would say is, everything that we do can be done safely. I believe that totally. We prove that every day. Every day in this country, over 17 million barrels of liquids are moving safely, 100 BCF a day of natural gas, which is the energy equivalent of another 16 million barrels a day of energy. All that's moving safely. So I believe that to the core, that everything we do can be done safely. Um, for me, working the field actually really impacted on me just how important safety needs to be. I was, uh, when I started out, you know, I'm from Boston and now I'm on a workover rig in, in West Texas. Like, what am I doing here? I had a, I had a near miss

• 27:30Speaker 01

  the first, first week on the job. And I was like, well, that's okay. That must be the oil field. That must be the way it is. And then a week later, I had another near miss. This one hit a little bit closer to home. I almost, you know, had, had a, an arm injury. That's when I really stepped, stepped back and said, is this normal? And another week later, I had a, a third near miss and this one almost took my head off. And now this is, Mike, this is 20 years ago. This is a different oil field than what it is today.

• 27:57Mike Rowe?

  You're in the field, you're on a rig.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  I was on a, I was on a workover rig. And I remember stepping back and saying, man, this is not sustainable. This, I was worried for my safety. And I'll tell you, there's no more helpless feeling in this world than going to work scared for your safety. I'll never forget that feeling. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, if I ever get a chance to, to, to be a leader in this industry and have an organization, you know, safety is going to be number one. I don't want anybody ever feel like I'm feeling now. And, you know, I, I could tell you, leaders in this industry, we all feel the exact same way. There's only one thing that's going to stop us from these amazing energy opportunities that are in front of us today. Uh, it's EHS, Environmental Health and Safety. And, um,

• 28:39Speaker 01

  you know, this industry has, has done a really great job of putting people in, in safe working environments, but we are dealing with high pressure. We're dealing with high torque, heavy equipment. Um, you know, we're not making cupcakes. This is serious business and, and we need to make sure that safety is, is taken very seriously because it, it means, it means a lot. That's the ultimate.

• 28:59Mike Rowe?

  How do you articulate to your people, your company's commitment to that very thing without creating this idea that I've seen happen with a lot of safety first nomenclature, right? When you, when you look at, um, mandatory briefings, when you look at all the protocols, the lockout, tagout, confined space, whatever it is, they're all super important. But, you know, in my world, seeing that in so many different industries for over a decade and sitting through those things, people get complacent. They get bored.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:36Mike Rowe?

  And they start to, they start to think that maybe their boss cares more about their wellbeing than they do. And it seems like the minute that happens, the, like, that's the unintended consequence, like, of really leaning into compliance.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:55Mike Rowe?

  Right? So how do you, how do you keep your people frosty?

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Number, number one, it's the, people need to understand your safety starts with you. That, that's your priority. Like, this is, uh, we're going to create a great working environment for you, but, uh, nothing replaces your, your self responsibility and the responsibility for looking out for the teams. Um, I'll tell you the challenge though, because I started, when I started Rice Energy, I mean, it was, it was three brothers and an apartment in Pittsburgh. And, and there's been an evolution of just the scale of our operations going from drilling one or two wells a year to what we're doing now where we're, you know, spending a few billion dollars, uh, operating assets. And one thing that has, is, is shown is we scale up. You know, when you're small, when you're a small organization, you know, you manage risks to the one out of a thousand times. You put a control in place on that.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  That's fine if you're only turning that wrench one time, guys, very small chance. But as you get bigger, you're going to turn that wrench a hundred times.

• 30:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  And so you need to continually expand your level of detail and scope and controls. Now, when you do that, the papers start getting bigger, the regulations, the policies you put in place, that's how you fall into that trap of compliance. One of the things that we're really excited about leveraging AI is really making sure we have that information front and center for when people are doing the work. So it's not just a, look, what do you guys want to talk about? It's focused on the operation and, and the specific controls we have in place. Um, but at the end of the day, you know what our, our biggest safeguard is? If you see something, say something. Stop Work Authority has been, um, totally

• 31:35Speaker 01

  important. And listen, like I tell everybody, there's only one thing that's going, that's going to stop us. Uh, you know, we're going to put safety number one. If we ever feel like we're not taking advantage of that, we're going to shut it down.

• 31:45Mike Rowe?

  The other interesting thing about this conversation, and I've had a lot of different versions of it, but the thing that got your attention were the near misses. One, two, and three. Same thing happened to me. I, I, I want to go home in one piece and I, I got very comfortable with all the, all the orthodoxies and, you know, all the OSHA stuff. And then a crab boat captain said to me in rough seas, and we were working and what sure struck me is an inhospitable environment. He ultimately wound up telling me, he said, look, son, my, my job is to get you home rich. You want to go home in one piece? That's on you. Now, you would never say that in the lower 48. I'm not even sure you say it

• 32:29Mike Rowe?

  in Alaska anymore. But it, it had a, um, had a clarifying effect, right?

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:37Mike Rowe?

  It's like when you look down and you realize the safety net's not there. Well, one foot in front of the other, three points of contact.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 32:45Mike Rowe?

  Keeps you frosty.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 32:47Mike Rowe?

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• 33:32Mike Rowe?

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• 34:13Speaker 01

  I do want to stress the different oil field nature of things. I think one of the great examples that we've seen from the oil field today compared to what it was 20 years ago, just the massive efficiency gains that we've seen, you know, 20 years ago, we were running over 2,000 rigs in this country and producing about half the energy. Today, we're producing record amounts of energy with only 500 rigs, five to 600 rigs. When you step back and you look at the productivity per rig, we've seen a 25-fold increase in that efficiency. And what that does, that reduces the man hours to get the, on a per energy basis. Um, and that efficiency that we see that's actually leading to, to productivity gains, that same innovation is being applied on the EHS side of things as well. So this

• 34:57Speaker 01

  industry is, is, if, they've, they've done one thing, I think remarkably well. It's, it's from a safety perspective and making sure that that's a, a culture and industry that's bred on EHS excellence.

• 35:08Mike Rowe?

  What a shame that that same level of care, that same duty hasn't, uh, migrated into the surrounding PR for your industry. What a shame. So I mean, I think, going back to where we started, like, the, there's a war for public opinion.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:30Mike Rowe?

  And it's raging around fossil fuels. It's raging around data centers and AI. It's raging around mining. It's raging around timber, for God's sakes. We, we, we import so much timber and we grow more than anyone.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:44Mike Rowe?

  And it just seems like... There's a very noisy contingent, maybe it's NGOs, I'm not quite sure who it is. But the conversation is not being controlled by the companies that have the most skin in the game, and I wonder why.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's not because we don't have the facts on our side or the stories. I'll just give you an example in energy, because I tell you, coming back, when I, when we started from 2007 to 2017, you know, that's when America claimed its energy independence. When I came back in 2019 as the CEO of EQT, I realized we're in a different world, like something clearly changed. You can see this on the production chart, what was, you know, unfettered growth now suddenly hit the wall. And it was pipeline cancellation movements and the war against fossil fuels that was driving this. This was the debate on energy and it ran, and the debate on energy was really about climate.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  And despite what the industry's efforts, you know, if you look at the, just the amount of resources that were being put into this debate, pro-fossil advocates like American Petroleum Institute is our biggest one.

• 36:56Mike Rowe?

  That's a big lobbying group in DC, whose primary job is to make a persuasive case for the existence of companies like yours.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so those pro-fossil groups together, about $400 million a year, okay, is what was advocating for, for energy. Anti-fossil groups, $1.6 billion a year. Now, you know, you know, the, the big names like the Sierra Club, and when you look at the list of, of donors, Sierra Club is on top of the list, they're, they're like number three. And so there's just a tremendous amount of volume and resources, and at the root of it, I think at the end of the day, climate change was a very scary concept for people. And I, I, I traveled the world talking to people about energy and climate. We go to COP, a big climate conference.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  We go to climate weeks and we, we meet with these people, talk, talking to frontline activists, we talk with world leaders. And I will tell you, the debate is changing perspectives of, of big climate advocates, particularly the most intelligent ones, are recalibrating. And I think Bill Gates is a really great example of this.

• 38:07Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I know.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  You know, Bill Gates, this is the author of the book, How to Avoid a Climate Catastrophe.

• 38:12Mike Rowe?

  In what, 21?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  February of 21 is when he released that. Last year, he came, he made quite a stir with a new essay, Three Truths About Climate, and I thought this was profound, where he made three points. Number one, climate change is an issue, but it's not going to end humanity. Like, that was his attempt to stop the fear, very noble, very important for him to say that, that's something that we can all, we all need to share that message. The second point he made was that our progress in energy is not going to be measured in degrees. And the third point is the most impactful. And that third point is, if you want to protect people against the impacts of climate, find ways to make them more prosperous.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Now, that is the most important point, because when you ask yourself, what is the fastest, most impactful way to make this world more prosperous, you know what it is? Get people access to more energy, because energy consumption correlates with wealth creation, and that's prosperity. And so this is a great opportunity for us to find common ground with people that really, at the root of it, care about making the world a better place. Energy is going to be that foundation that we can build on, and when you step back and you look at the challenges that a lot of people in this world are facing, whether you're in the developed world, because these restrictions have led to a situation where energy demand has grown 50% for natural gas over the last 15 years, but the infrastructure

• 39:38Speaker 01

  to service that demand has only grown 25%, that's the pipelines, and the storage infrastructure to buffer the supply and demand has only grown 5%? That is a symptom of what happens when people just cancel energy infrastructure. We've maxed out, maxed out our, our energy ecosystem, and as a result, we see this crazy volatility, and this is why Americans' energy bills are up 40%. So it's an issue in the developed world, so we need to get back to bringing abundance here to lower energy bills, and that abundance is going to allow us to do things like export our energy, to bring up the energy access for the billions in this world that are living on less electricity than it takes to run a fridge. And that's where the prosperity is going to be.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  And Mike, the, the, the, the big question is, well, how much energy do we need to produce in this world? And I think this is probably the, the most important thing for people to wrap their heads around when they're saying, cancel coal, cancel nuclear, cancel this pipeline. People don't really understand how much energy consumption there is in this world, and I don't blame them, it's a big thing to get your head wrapped around. But think about this, for us to get everybody up to a suitable level access of energy, we would need to triple the amount of energy that's produced and consumed in this world. The developing, emerging markets, they're averaging about 15 megawatt hours equivalent per year in the US, we're about 90, 70 to 90. Your house in America is about 20 megawatt hours equivalent per year, just for perspective. So if we can, if we can triple the amount of energy that's produced in this world, we

• 41:06Speaker 01

  can triple the amount of energy access, and if we do that, the amount of wealth we're going to create is going to increase our global GDP five times over, in addition to lifting billions out of poverty. So whether you care about energy, you care about business, or you care about making the world a better place, you care about bringing energy abundance into this world.

• 41:24Mike Rowe?

  Where's the morality? Where's the moral case for producing less energy? Last I read, we're talking about 3 billion souls on the planet who are currently relying on wood and dung as their primary source of energy. These people need their energy revolution, they need an industrial revolution, whatever it looks like. There must be some hierarchy, and if there is, where is it going? Are, are you guys going to be able to create enough gas to create enough electricity to run the $10 trillion infrastructure that BlackRock says is inevitable?

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I mean, let's talk about what are the energy abundant solutions that we have available to us in this world, and let's take a minute, let's take a break from looking at all, at all these innovative technologies that may be viable in 10, 20 years from now, let's look at what we have today. Let's start with shale. You know, we've, with shale, we've translated our energy dependence to energy independence. And now, the Trump administration famously is calling for us, hey, independence is not good enough, we need to translate our independence into dominance. And that means four things. That means we need to protect America's energy advantage, make sure Americans continue to have access to the most affordable, reliable energy. Right now, as I mentioned, energy bills are up 40%. This is before Iran, this is before the impact of AI, this has been happening since 2020,

• 42:52Speaker 01

  need to do work there. The second thing, on the benefit of abundance, is we need to extend our technological leadership. That means we win the race for AI. That means we win advanced manufacturing in defense. The third thing is providing energy security to our allies. As I mentioned, global energy security is national security, and there are plenty of bad actors that influence needs to be replaced with American energy that will lead to more peaceful world and also less volatility on prices. And the last point is, energy abundance is going to allow us to empower humanity by eliminating poverty. When you look at these abundant solutions that we have in the US, thanks to the shale revolution, we've already discovered, we know it's there.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  We have the ability to create a natural gas surplus of over 60 BCF a day, and we can do that with a $4 gas price for natural gas. Now, these are abstract numbers, let me give you some context.

• 43:44Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, where's the price now?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  So, price of natural gas for next year is, is going to average around $3.30. For the last 20 years, before the shale revolution, people were paying $8 for their natural gas. $4 natural gas, just for perspective, is the energy equivalent of 50 cent per gallon of gasoline. So super four was a great deal for Americans. With that price signal, operators like EQT can lift this energy out of the ground and create the surplus, and we can produce at these levels for over 30 years. There's the reliability. Now, how big, we can put this natural gas on the doorstep of the world with LNG, we put it on the doorstep of the world for a price of $10. Now, would the world be excited about $10 natural gas?

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Currently, prices are $20 for natural gas internationally. Now, that's because of the Iran conflict, before that, it was, it was between $8 and $12. But $10 natural gas is the energy equivalent of a $60 barrel of oil, and you can build some pretty kick-ass economies with a steady, reliable stream of $60 oil. So the world would be thrilled about this, and just to give you perspective on the scale of this, 60 BCF a day is the energy equivalent of adding over 10 million barrels a day of clean energy to the world stage. It's going to lift billions up, it's like adding another Saudi Arabia. That's just one country, that's the US with just one resource. Now, when you step back and, and look at what we've done here in the US, the success

• 45:09Speaker 01

  we've had in shale, it's improbable to think that this can only work in the United States. Shale is everywhere, and you're going to start seeing, so, we have these abundance opportunities exist around the world, and that's just one type of energy on the hydrocarbon side. So I think it's really important people understand, energy abundance is, is going to be available, but it's only going to come with an attitude of abundance, and people need to start demanding lower bills, more security, and, and also cleaner energy as well.

• 45:39Mike Rowe?

  That's why the Bill Gates thing matters. Because I I hate to throw people under the bus and name names, but I'm I'm gonna ask you to talk about the opponents of abundance in your view, whether it's an NGO, an individual, a country, whatever it is, because Bill Gates matters. He's consequential in every way. And for him to, I don't know if it was a 180, but it was certainly a Louis. I feel like with that essay, and I read it too, and I called Alex right away because I just thought, look, this is really positive. Because I, in my mind, if you say the world's gonna

• 46:22Mike Rowe?

  end in 12 years, you're just a doomsday. And I feel like I've seen this play before. I feel like I'm trapped. Like I'm like I'm old enough now to look back and go, you know something, man, I'm, what's next? You you worked really hard to scare the hell out of me in grade school with the coming ice age. And then you worked real hard to scare the hell out of me with Y2K. And then you scare Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and Fukushima. You know, you worked real hard to scare me about nuclear. And then that at 5G, whatever, what, two years ago, we were losing our minds over 5G. Radio waves

• 47:02Mike Rowe?

  are gonna, and now, now it's the data center thing. And, look, I'll get a lot of grief for saying it out loud. And I'm not trying to be glib. And I'm not trying to soft pedal real concerns. But it's just so boring to be told, we're all gonna die real soon if we don't this, this, this, and that. Who are the enemies of abundance? And is that their primary weapon? Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn, instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who want to work in the skilled

• 47:46Mike Rowe?

  trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training, like travel and food and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately. I'm talking about AI-proof, six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending

• 48:25Mike Rowe?

  on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago. And I have been watching the response ever since. It's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you or your spouse or your kid or your grandkid are looking for a straight path into a career with no cost at all, check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com slash America's

• 49:08Mike Rowe?

  Workforce Academy. That's meta.com slash America's Workforce Academy.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  I'll tell you this, from these conversations I've had with people that are genuinely concerned or over climate, for the reasons you mentioned, I mean, people are scared. We're not getting that genie back in the bottle. And I think it's foolish for us just to slap that away and ignore it. We've got to address it. But when I have these conversations with these individuals, they really don't understand, a lot of them don't really understand climate, to put these levels of CO2 into perspective in a geological timeframe, don't really understand climate. They really don't understand energy. If you think we can run this whole world on just one type of energy, whether it's solar or renewables, you don't understand

• 49:56Speaker 01

  energy. And so I've always reflected this, and what's really driving their their passion for climate and this opposition that that they're launching against energy, which is making all of our lives more difficult. And I think it's actually a good thing. I think the thing that's driving this is they want to make the world a better place. And that's the fire. And I think that is a beautiful thing. I want to keep that fire burning. But can we try and move that fire away from fear onto hope? And we are at a unique period of time where we've cracked the code on shale. We've shown you in America how we can go from dependence to independence. Now we're gonna go to to to energy abundance. We've shown that playbook can can happen. Now we've got AI. And I think what AI is really going

• 50:39Speaker 01

  to help us do is expand our reach. So we can deploy proven solutions in a in a in a scalable way. And also, make sure that we tighten those controls that we provide energy, that is going to translate to wealth. Because getting people energy is not the end solution. It's making sure they have the industrial demand to turn that energy into industry, into jobs, and into economic progress, into education, all the things that lift the standard of living. I mean, this is such, I feel like with with AI, so what makes me so disappointed about the way the conversation is shifting with with data centers is, this is the tool that we've been looking at to realize the full potential of all the amazing abilities that we've created. And I think, at the end of the day, that's

• 51:23Speaker 01

  gonna be something that that we're rallying behind. And I I've never been more optimistic about our future, but we got to stay on the ball, because right now, it's slipping away from us.

• 51:31Mike Rowe?

  Did you read Harold Hamm's book, Game Changer?

• 51:34Speaker 01

  No, have not read that. But he's a legend.

• 51:36Mike Rowe?

  Dude, he was the youngest of 13. Dirt floor. Grew up Continental Energy. We've been working together for a couple of years now. And I, it was, for me, when I really started to think about rhetoric and persuasion, as it pertains to your industry, it was around horizontal drilling. And he was a pioneer in that, you know, he was one of a handful of guys who brought fracking to this country, to the world. And when you think about the confusion and the misperceptions and the outright nonsense surrounding that term, you know, that that's what people should think about. Like, if if you doubt

• 52:21Mike Rowe?

  the impact of $1.6 billion being spent against pipelines, think of the connotations of just that, of the F word. Like, it has such a bad rap. And it's probably done more to improve the lives of more people. Tell me if I'm wrong, but has there been a breakthrough in your industry more consequential than that?

• 52:46Speaker 01

  No, it's been an absolute game changer. And we're just starting to really deploy when you step back and you look at this technology on a world stage. I'll tell you, the one thing I think that's that's really, how did we find ourselves in this situation? To be honest with you, I think during the shale revolution, we were too good at our jobs. We made energy too affordable. It was too reliable. Gas, natural gas prices went from eight to two. And it's easy for people to take that for granted. There's so many things that we take for granted in this country. Some people have taken it even further and taken it for granted, now thinking they can live in a world without it. And one of the things I think with Harold is a really great example of this, is that this, and Chris Wright is another person of this. A lot of people think that we're cigar smoking, price

• 53:30Speaker 01

  gouging. Guess what? You know why we're in this business? We're in this business for people. Okay. And and we have a higher purpose. And we haven't spoken about that higher purpose. Our higher purpose is to is to empower humanity. And and we want to bring technology, we want to empower industry, to make the world a better place, to raise the standard of living. All these benefits that that Alex Epps writes in his book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, we believe that. Harold Hamm does not need to be doing this. Chris Wright does not need to be the Secretary of Energy and help steer this debate back to affordable, reliable energy, which are gonna be good for people.

• 54:01Mike Rowe?

  He's impressive, man. On every level.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And and there's thousands of leaders in this industry that have that higher purpose in mind. And we just need to make sure that we're balancing the purpose and the profits. Because businesses are what's gonna make this make this world spin. And, you know, we're, I think, for us, we've spent a lot of time not really talking too much about the higher purpose, and that's how we got there. But we're talking about it now. And I think we have a real opportunity to actually show major league benefits. And there's 7 billion people that are relying on us to figure this out. And there's no bigger impact you can make than what you're doing, sort of in these emerging markets.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  It's game changing stuff. And if people would understand, like, how some people are using energy, and it's changing their lives, like, with Energy Core, we just did an installation, very simple, Mike.

• 54:53Mike Rowe?

  What's Energy Core?

• 54:54Speaker 01

  So Energy Core is a nonprofit that I started with my wife. And so think about, at EQT, as America's natural gas champion, my my goal is to bring energy abundance to the developed world. But that's gonna leave out the, a lot of people, I mean, that that will overflow into LNG and get places. But emerging markets and bringing energy abundance to emerging markets, that's why we formed Energy Core. So, you know, we can steer a little bit more towards the purpose, what's gonna make the biggest impact on an energy access basis. And the things that we're doing there, I mean, it's, I wish people that were opponents on fossil fuels could look at some of these things that we're doing. Because this, there's a lot of struggle out there that can be fixed with with energy

• 55:37Speaker 01

  and the right and the right equipment. And so Energy Core is a vision for the world. It's let's bring energy abundance, let's get people to 50 megawatt hours equivalent. And that amount of energy use will translate to a GDP per capita of $50,000 per year, per person. And we want to do it in 50 years. So that's our vision, 50, 50, and 50. And Scott Tinker, amazing, he's a real thought leader, really framed that up for us. We're taking that, we're running with it. And so what we do is we find partners, people that are out there working on these energy access projects, there's lots of them out there. We're vetting the projects, and then we're creating portfolios. So that energy businesses

• 56:18Speaker 01

  can say, hey, I care about energy problems that deal with propane. Like, for us, indoor air pollution is a big one. 3 million people, mostly women and children die prematurely every year because they're hooking with wood and dung. Like, this is the amount of people that died during COVID. Like, this is completely unacceptable and completely preventable.

• 56:37Mike Rowe?

  And completely unknown.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  And completely unknown, yeah.

• 56:41Mike Rowe?

  Right? And people just, they just. Don't want to look at that.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, so many energy poverty issues. So what we're going to be able to do is establish these partnerships, identify these projects, and then energy businesses and all businesses with the equipment or tractors to help bring agriculture. Want to put all this together, both the energy and the industry part to convert that energy into demand and build portfolios. So if you care about this region of the world and this type of energy problem or solution, we can have those partnerships so you can craft their portfolio and then you can help steward and make sure that that 50 50 vision is achieved. So that's been a really awesome program that we've started. We've got a tremendous amount of support and we're really excited about it. And, you know, this to me is, this is our, this is our higher purpose.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  And this is a great reflection of what we're doing to make that happen.

• 57:32Mike Rowe?

  How substantial is Energy Corps? I don't want to pry, but as foundations go, how much money are you talking about employing, deploying? And, and will there be a strategy in the overall concept to address some of these persuasive rhetorical challenges?

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is relatively new. So to me, this is something that the industry has always been, I mean, you talk to people, this is what we talk about, making the world a better place with energy. But for me, the catalyst to do something was when I saw in 2023,

• 58:12Speaker 01

  the IEA puts out a report or the EIA, the international one.

• 58:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Puts out a report on the number of people living without access to electricity. And for 20 years, they've been studying this. And for 20 years, we've constantly been able to reduce the number of people that are living without access to electricity. Except in 23, 2023, the number of people living without access to electricity increased for the first time in 20 years. And that to me was, I mean, this is peak ESG movement. This is peak clean energy, focus on the clean aspects of energy. And that to me was a sign like what we're doing in the developed world is impacting people in the, in the emerging markets. And so that was like enough of enough talking about this, we're going to actually start taking action. So we started Energy Corps in 24, really 25 is when we, we got it to a place where we could

• 59:00Speaker 01

  actually look for support. So fundraising has been fantastic. We've already raised over $20 million. But I think the real unlock is going to come with some of the partnerships we create with some of these government entities, people that want to raise the quality of living, huge bang for the buck opportunities. We're going to be able to provide some of that energy expertise to make sure that we're, we're, we're executing the highest impact project. So this is early starting, but this is going to be, this is going to be a life work. And we're going to be really excited about continuing to, to, to publicize that.

• 59:30Mike Rowe?

  Well, good for you, man. If I can be of use.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Well, there's a, there's a collaboration on Mike Rowe Works and.

• 59:35Mike Rowe?

  Well, you know, you were in the audience last night. We're here at this Brush Creek Frontier Summit. A lot of luminaries are walking around, a lot of politicians, a lot of industry leaders. And they're talking about a lot of things that I think are important, obviously. But last night I had a chance to talk to the crowd and I, I think you were out there. And I talked about the Weeping Indian, remember?

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:01Mike Rowe?

  From the, the old Keep America Beautiful campaign, which is a very effective campaign, you know, by, by every measurement over the years, the, the impact of that iconography had a wildly positive impact on changing the way people think and feel. I use it as an example of, of the importance of PR with regard to my pet issue, which is reinvigorating trades. But the truth is, it's perfect for you. If you, if you think about, they used a weeping Indian to get people galvanized around the business of not polluting the planet.

• 1:00:43Mike Rowe?

  Where's the corollary that the energy industry can put forth to say, hey, just a year or two ago, more people went without electricity than the year before that. That's the opposite of progress. Those people are dying. What's the energy industry going to do to let the masses know that far more people freeze to death every year than, than die from warming? I mean, it's not even comparable. We just, it just sure feels like we have to do something persuasive and affirmative if, if we're going to win the war of public opinion, because that war is raging.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'll tell you, I think when, when people talk about shutting down hydrocarbons and, and only doing solar and wind, a lot of people act, I've heard it act like, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a no risk opportunity. And I mean, I was listening to, to Mark Cuban describe this and he said, you know, I think he was having a debate with Vivek. And he said, you know, Vivek, even if we're wrong, we spend all this money on, on completely overhauling our, our energy infrastructure, which is impossible to take place. But even if we do this and we're wrong and climate isn't an issue, then our energy bills would just be a little bit more expensive. No, Mark, when you do this, people die.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  And they're not dying here where you can see it. There's certainly going to be a lot more hardships for Americans struggling with, with crippling energy prices, which is what's happening right now. But how do we, how do we let people know that this is a global impact? And, and America is a leader in the world. And so I really think it's an important opportunity for us to shine a light on these opportunities and allies and alliances and, and partners. I mean, this is such an amazing opportunity for us to work with these countries, lift them up and create more allies that, that align with our, our principles to make a more, more free, prosperous society.

• 1:02:42Mike Rowe?

  Think of Live Aid, think of Farm Aid. Think of the people, big hearted people who come together to help suffering people in far off lands, because maybe they don't have access to food on account of a sudden famine. Maybe there's been a natural disaster, whatever it is. It just feels like, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but it just feels like the same people who were the first to organize and raise money in the wake of something like that are simply not paying attention to the wholesale destruction and suffering

• 1:03:22Mike Rowe?

  that is being wrought every single day because billions of people haven't had their energy revolution. I've said it to Harold Hamm, I've said it to everybody in the industry. No one disagrees, but I, I hope I live to see the day when the people who are providing the thing that I rely on more than anything else somehow convene to say, look, we're taking charge of this narrative. We're, we're going to take charge of this conversation. We can't spend 400 million when they're spending three, four times that and expect to win the war of public persuasion.

• 1:04:02Mike Rowe?

  Finally, I know we've talked about this before, but I, J D Vance, Scott Besson and Dave McCormick, Senator in Pennsylvania, who you know well, have all told me they've seen data that clearly indicates a massive effort on China's part to shape public opinion in this country around AI and data centers. Massive, to the point where the negatives are approaching 65, 70% in this country. The positives in China are at 85.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Mike Rowe?

  I can't prove it. I don't think it's a coincidence. What do you think?

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I definitely think that there are people that will benefit from America not being a technological leader. It's foolish to think that they would not want to influence this outcome. I'll, I'll give you an example of an experience we had. I mean, and this is a very similar playbook that we've seen take place in the anti fossil movement. We hosted a field trip with a European delegation and, and these were leaders from countries representing over 100 million people. And I remember in this field trip, and these were people that from places that have banned hydrograph fraction, are going complete net zero, bold, bold goals. But they wanted to come and see what hydrocarbons were all about. So we hosted them, we were happy to do it.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  And I remember when we were driving to the field, to our location, one of them said, we've been driving for 20 minutes and he said, when are we going to get there? I said, well, just so you know, you've been driving through the biggest natural gas field in the world for the last 20 minutes, you didn't even realize it. We get to locations, we get out of the bus and this, this gentleman. I was watching him and he was walking around location, looking at everything and I could tell he was getting really upset. And I went over to him and I said, hey, are you upset? You look upset. Is there something you see that that we should fix? He says, oh, I'm upset. I'm pissed because this is what we were scared of. This is what we were blocking. And I could tell at that point, that's when a lot of the propaganda, which in the climate

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  movement, Russia was big on shutting down shale and promoting and China also on use renewables because they have such a grip on the supply chain for those. So it's foolish to think that that's not, that's not gonna a part of the story. But that does not absolve our responsibility as industry to step up and address these concerns head on. Because I'll tell you, I mean, there were real concerns with our industry, concerns of our hydraulic fracturing were real. Like we did, we brought a lot of transparency to that, safeguarded our operations and in 2016, the EPA came out and said that was safe. Then the comment went to pipelines, concerns over that. Secretary Granholm says pipelines are a safe way of moving products. Then methane emissions were the next big thing. Guess what we did with those, Mike?

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  Knocked methane emissions out of the park. We need to continue that track record of hearing people's concerns. Noise light, water use for data centers, all these things I think will be debunked. But we need to move people towards this AI is going to allow us to achieve abundance for our country. So let's be selfish about that. But let's also have a big heart and know that this is gonna help people outside of this country as well.

• 1:07:17Mike Rowe?

  Well, not to belabor the point, but what you're saying is a guy from Europe who had basically been told that what you do is a blight on the land, came to see what you did and what you do. And there was no evidence to confirm anything he'd been told. And that, that kind of cognitive dissonance, I think, I mean, it's delicious. It's like when Yeltsin went into that Randall's, right? Years ago and saw all the food on the shelves, all the food. Pudding pops, right? Everything. And he wept because he knew that's it. The Soviet Union's finished because we don't have that abundance or anything approaching it in our grocery stores.

• 1:08:00Mike Rowe?

  He had to see it though, right? The guy had to see the pudding pops in the frozen food section and he had to see them in sufficient quantity to understand exactly what he was fighting. And what he was fighting was prosperity and abundance. And if you know that that's your enemy, good luck fighting it.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:23Mike Rowe?

  I think you're exactly right to frame the whole conversation that way. If the thing that is fundamentally for sale is abundance, well, you're either for it or against it.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And people need to understand, like, the pie is bigger. I mean, when people talk about losing jobs, corporate America, there's a lot of things that aren't fun. I mean, there's a lot of parts of my job that I am so thrilled to be able to hand that over to AI. But if people would think about the fact that as businesses, like, if we can bring abundance to the world, then we're gonna increase global GDP five times over, that's a massive growth opportunity. And how about instead of, you know, saving some GNA, how about we take those efficiency gains and we think about how we can grow this opportunity set that we have? And I think that's gonna be one of the most amazing opportunities that AI is gonna allow us to capture.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  And I'll tell you one thing that I've, I've seen, just going from a small organization to where we're at now is, you know, as companies get larger, they get less efficient. It's just naturally it happens. You know, AI is really gonna be a quality control to lock in efficiency gains and allow companies to get better as they got bigger. And that's a really amazing opportunity. And that is another, another opportunity for how we're gonna achieve abundance, as companies are gonna get better, but they're gonna be more efficient and that's gonna make goods and services more, more affordable and abundant for Americans.

• 1:09:47Mike Rowe?

  Landman, how important?

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  I think Landman is a great show. I haven't watched all the series, but I did watch the first, the first episode. And I'll tell you, it was a good depiction. I mean, that was my experience. You know, white boy from out east coming to work and we had a Mexican crew. And it's exactly what happened with me. And I had, I had some of my, my working mates, they took me in, fed you, made you a part of the family. And I thought that was a really great representation. But, you know, like anything on TV, it's embellished a little bit, but it is a great, I think, anything that, that we can do to communicate this industry is here and it's, we're doing some pretty amazing work, I think is a positive.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Because when I go back to Boston, still to this day, people are like, wait, Toby, what are you doing? You do oil and gas? I said, yeah, it's just a big deal. You know, we, not a lot of people are aware of just the great work that the, you know, hundreds of thousands of energy workers in this country do every day. So I'm a big fan of that. And it, and it shows you, you know, it's a, it's a really exciting industry to be a part of.

• 1:10:52Mike Rowe?

  What, if, if you could, with a flick of your fingers, dispel one misconception around oil and natural gas that would just land with meaning with every American, what, what would it be? What would be on the refrigerator if Toby Rice were writing it?

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Two things, what drives us is purpose and profits. And I think those two things, we don't get enough credit for the, what really drives us, I'm not bringing it higher purpose. That means every day I wake up and my 1,600 employees and our 20, 29,000 contractors are waking up thinking about how we can make the energy we produce more affordable, more reliable and cleaner to reduce pollution in this world. That is a big, that is a big part that, that drives us. And also the profitability part, I think is something that's really important. I mean, we're, we're talking about delivering sustainable solutions. You know, the ESG movement was all about sustainability. Well, if you ask me, the one thing that's, that's critical to any sustainable solution

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  is profitable, profitability. And we wanna stand on our own two feet and give the most affordable, reliable products. So I think people knowing that we're driven by purpose and we're driven by profits, I think is something that, that we want people to understand.

• 1:12:11Mike Rowe?

  You know, this whole ESG thing, is it, is it kinda done? I mean, this is environmental, social governance, I think.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Mike Rowe?

  Right? And like, three years ago, every, every major company I, I knew had an ESG officer.

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:28Mike Rowe?

  I think there might even be one here at this thing. But they don't seem to be as prolific as they were.

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot quieter, but I'll tell you this, ESG is dormant, ESG, the, the climate movement, it's dormant, it's not, it's not dead. And it's showing its head in different forms. I think this data center pushback is an example of that. And so it's something that we just need to continue to be great corporate citizens and continue to communicate on the benefits that we're doing. But, you know, it, for me, when I was at Sarah Week this year, which is probably one of the, the best industry conferences in the US, held in Houston, I remember thinking to myself, man, this is really awesome that we're talking about pipeline projects that are gonna be filled with the most affordable energy solution with natural gas and, and

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  not just talking about pie in the sky hydrogen. Uh, cause, and I was thinking about, man, it's only been two years and it's shifted like that. But then I thought to myself, it's only been two years and we've seen that shift.

• 1:13:32Mike Rowe?

  Bill Gates.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Mike Rowe?

  Three years.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, you know, I think that, that the mantra is this, I think we need to have a balanced approach when we talk about energy. I mean, certainly the Biden administration was really amplifying the clean aspects of energy. And the, the Trump administration is really hammering the affordable and reliable parts of the energy system. I think we always need to keep all of those in balance. And the great thing is with energy, the energy solutions we have available, like natural gas, we can do both. You know, people are surprised, if I've said it a million times over the last five years, I need to say it another million times, the reason why the United States is the world leader in lowering emissions is because of one thing. Majority of emissions came from replacing coal with natural gas. Okay?

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  That's an example of a more affordable energy solution that happens to be cleaner and equally as reliable, evolving our energy ecosystem. And we have tremendous amount of opportunities. And I think that's gonna be something that when we wanna create a fair and equitable society, not just for us in the developed world, but for the billions around the world, a balanced approach on affordable, reliable and clean is gonna be the winning recipe. And I, I hope that that's the right, it's a, it's a balanced approach is what, what I think the lesson we need to learn from this is.

• 1:14:43Mike Rowe?

  Is it accurate still that China and India combined are opening a coal-fired plant every week for the next 30 years?

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah, it's, it should, you know, when people think about the race for AI and how important it is for us to win this, I mean, this race is happening, we, with or without us, like, we need to be in this. And a lot of people talk about the race, it's not gonna be about the apps or the chips or the models that put out, it's gonna come down to power generation. And when you look at what's happening in China, just the reliable forms of power generation last year, they added 60 gigawatts of reliable power gen, that's coal, natural gas and, and nuclear. In the United States, we added six. That's, that's a problem.

• 1:15:29Mike Rowe?

  They built and delivered 982 ships. We built and delivered seven.

• 1:15:40Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, man. Well, we're not going to solve it here. It's a beautiful ranch. I shot about a thousand rounds last night. Go down to the range if you haven't.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:48Mike Rowe?

  It's amazing.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:50Mike Rowe?

  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a raccoon on a roof really led to your demise. I'd be a fool if I didn't ask for at least some detail.

• 1:16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, in the chimney sweep game, a lot of people think the biggest

• 1:16:08Mike Rowe?

  Sorry.

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  You think you're going out there to like sweep a chimney and clean it out and that's it. But like the number one call out we're getting out there is animals nesting. And so I got called out on this roof in South Shore, Massachusetts. We had some pretty steep pitches. And I'm up there with a harpoon, you know, a 12 foot harpoon slamming it down. And I looked down and I see this ball of fur and this this flu was about six inches in diameter.

• 1:16:31Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  And I see this ball of fur coming up. I'm like, man, that's a big squirrel because it's squirrels.

• 1:16:36Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  This thing got a little bit closer. It got even bigger and out popped the six inch flu was a raccoon the size of a bear. Now I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here with a 12 foot harpoon. That's a long distance weapon in hand hand combat and it got the best of me and I almost fell off the roof. So yeah, that was my butter. That was the, you know, the butterfly effect.

• 1:16:54Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  That was it. And that's set us here. Think about that.

• 1:16:58Mike Rowe?

  Right. Well, look, man, I think about it as there's, there's a long list of things you can try to control and maybe control. And there are plenty of things you can anticipate. Obviously in business, you got to be smart in a thousand different ways. But nobody, nobody anticipates the raccoon coming up at him through the chimney and the chaos that might follow.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I want to do a great job in this, in this role, not just for our, our communities, our country and the world. I don't want to go back on that roof and sweep those chimneys, which is a nice motivator too.

• 1:17:34Mike Rowe?

  Uh, I guess final, final is what's pending right now that you think is really consequential? Uh, what can people do if they want to just get a little, maybe more educated? Maybe through Energy Corps or maybe through your own company?

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Mike Rowe?

  Like what's the next? Is there a keystone that's out there that's in the balance that you're worried about that needs to be blessed or approved that is going to have an impact if it, if it doesn't work?

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Listen, we cannot be silent about these issues. We got to be vocal. Um, so what can, what can all of us do to help bring abundance into this world? Number one, uh, if we demand it, we'll supply it and then we can achieve it. Demand energy abundance. Demand that your energy bills get lower. It's absolutely ridiculous that our energy bills are up 40% despite historic amounts of production. Demand your energy bills get lower. Demand that uh, policies that are put in place that promote energy scarcity are replaced with policies that promote energy abundance.

• 1:18:35Mike Rowe?

  To whom?

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  To your, to your politician, to your, to your politicians, because right now, one of the biggest uh, opportunities that we have in this country is getting permit reform done because we live in a country that takes an act of Congress to get a pipeline built. We own that pipeline, Mountain Valley Pipeline. Um, it has gotten so difficult to get things built. You have situations where China can build 10 times the amount of energy infrastructure than we can. Uh, so demand that those policies get put in place. And then the other thing I'd say is demand that your leaders embrace an attitude of abundance. We are not lambs waiting to be slaughtered. We have control over this. All these energy issues that we're dealing with completely self inflicted. Demand that your, that your leaders embrace an attitude of abundance. And for the people,

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  that's all of us. And for the people that actually have resources, time, treasure, talent, demand, like help us supply abundance. Invest in energy infrastructure, invest in energy production, invest in energy innovation, invest in developed world, invest in emerging markets. Uh, alongside us at Energy Corps is a great place. And if we demand it, we will supply it and we will achieve this. And I think the, the key thing that people need to know is like this world is going to change and there are forces that are shaping our world. Uh, we cannot sit, sit aside and, and let these conversations take place. We've got to start being vocal about this. And there's no better place than to complain about your energy bills. And, and I think this is the, the really important moment of time now that, as I mentioned, it's been too affordable.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  It's been too reliable. It's not the case anymore. This is an amazing catalyst where with Iran, with AI, these are just catalysts to wake people up and realize you've been a frog in a pot of water on the stove and that temperature's been increasing. Your energy bills have been going up. Not before Iran, before data centers, that this is the time to act. And the same thing as it, as it relates to, you know, labor and making sure we have the workforce that's going to build the infrastructure that gets us out of there. But uh, it's not going to be easy, but I will promise you it will be worth it and brighter days are ahead for us.

• 1:20:37Mike Rowe?

  I'm glad you're on the case. I know you're friends with Joe Manchin. I'm going to try and grab him and have a conversation. What, what should I ask him?

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Well, don't ask him about frogs.

• 1:20:47Mike Rowe?

  No frogs?

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Maybe that, that's one, do that one off camera.

• 1:20:50Mike Rowe?

  Okay.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  Uh, Joe Manchin has been a fantastic energy leader for us. He, he understands the human side of energy and he's just got a tremendous grip and, and uh, you know, like I said, Mountain Valley Pipeline would not have got built without his support. And I'll tell you the importance of that pipeline because the whole time for eight years, I mean, just so people, your, your users understand, Mountain Valley Pipeline was probably one of the most controversial energy infrastructure built in this country over the last, call it 10 years. And in the wake of the pipeline cancellation movement that began in 2018, we saw over seven BCF a day. So over almost 10% of the country's natural gas supply, energy infrastructure was blocked, canceled or opposed, except for one,

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Mountain Valley Pipeline. And Mountain Valley Pipeline was a $3 billion pipeline project that was going to take three years to get built from West Virginia and take gas to Virginia and North Carolina, the southeastern part of the US. And that pipeline took eight years and over $8 billion to get built. And, um, you know, fortunately, Joe Manchin was able to, to uh, get some legislation passed because this project had their permits issued and revoked three times. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a broken permit system and it's not just hard to get pipeline infrastructure built. If you think it's hard to get a pipeline built, try building a transmission line. If you think it's hard to get a 10 acre oil and gas site permitted, try building a 10,000

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  acre wind farm or solar facility. It's hard for all industry to get built. And this is one thing that is an issue that we've been waiting for permit reform, meaningful permit reform to take place. And I think over the next few months, this is our, our opportunity. So if you want to get vocal in DC, that's, that's the number one issue. Let's get back to a place where political force takes the backseat and market forces can drive affordable, reliable, clean energy solutions to consumers.

• 1:22:43Mike Rowe?

  Couldn't have said better. Really appreciate your time.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  All right. Thanks, Mike.

• 1:22:47Mike Rowe?

  Toby Rice. Appreciate it.

• 1:22:49Speaker 02

  This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile, then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go online and leave us a review.

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

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