The Drake Energy Security Conference wrapped up Friday at Drake Well Museum in Titusville with the “Drake Dialogues,” an invitation only event, that included hybrid interactive presentations ranging from energy production to climate.
This year’s conference was entitled “Back to the Future: Energy’s Past and its Lessons for Powering a Sustainable and Prosperous Tomorrow.”
“Last year the sessions were off the record, so that people would be free to speak their minds. However, conducting things off the record is not ideal for changing people’s minds about climate and energy,” conference organizer Andrew J. Tabler, an Oil City native, author and former U.S. official, said.
Tabler said the number of in-person attendees doubled from last year’s inaugural conference, and several additional guests attended via Zoom thanks to the new internet connection at Drake Well provided by the Friends of Drake Well and Nancy Cubbon.
This year, the conference had three main sponsors — the Commonwealth Foundation, the Heritage Foundation and Seneca Resources.
“It is very hard to tell people you are asking to be a sponsor that you won’t like all you hear or everyone we invite, trust us,” Tabler said. “I really appreciate the trust we have been shown.”
Friday’s events began at Drake Well Museum with a keynote address by Robert McNally, whose book “Crude Volatility — The History and the Future of Boom Bust Oil Prices”, took him on a deep dive into local oil history when he researched how the oil prices were set in Oil City from the 1860s to the 1890s.
McNally, the founder and president of Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House energy advisor who was joining by Zoom, spoke about how the volatility of oil prices has been tamed at different times through various means of supply control.
There has been greater volatility in oil prices over the past 20 years than occurred during the preceding 100 years, McNally said, adding that he believes OPEC lost control of oil prices in 2008, causing the volatility to return in force.
The rest of the day was comprised of five panel discussions on topics related to energy, climate and national security.
The consensus seemed to be that reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which the panelists said drives climate change, and having enough energy, including fossil fuels, to power the future are not mutually exclusive goals.
The panelists differed on how to balance the two.
Variations of Yogi Berra’s famous phrase “predictions are hard to make, especially about the future,” were echoed by the speakers at various points throughout the day.
The conference wrapped up with a cultural dinner at the Titusville Iron Works Tap House, an oil boom era factory recently converted to an event venue.
