Why Western Pennsylvania is built for the AI economy |
HOMER CITY, Pennsylvania — A couple of days after the iconic towers of a coal fired power plant were flattened and seemingly all hope was lost after all of the jobs were gone in the rubble, Shawn Steffee, a local labor leader and agent for the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 154 whispered in my ear, “This isn’t the end, this is beginning.”
Steffee wasn’t wrong. A year ago, he stood with his family and neighbors on a hill overlooking the Homer City Generating Station, the community where he grew up gathered around him, and watched the demolition of Pennsylvania’s largest coal-fired power plant shake the ground as Unit 3’s tower collapsed into rubble.
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Within days, he was on the phone delivering big news: Homer City Redevelopment would build a $10 billion natural gas power plant on the former coal site, transforming it into a major source of electricity for the surging demand from new data centers.
It took me less than an hour to get to the site and see that work was already underway. Construction trucks were........