TCU hosted its "Global Energy Symposium" on campus Wednesday as part of the Neeley School of Business "Innovation Week." The symposium included several energy industry leaders, professors, authors, and analysts.
Ann Bluntzer, executive director of the Ralph Lowe Energy Institute at TCU, said the conference can give industry leaders a place to come together to talk about ideas, policy, and how to plan for the future.
"It's important to have these moments where you are bringing thought leaders together from all over the world to come to Fort Worth, to come to TCU, to start to push each other on, 'you can say that, but...' and really come up with some solutions," Bluntzer said.
"How many of you have built an oil and gas pipeline?" author Robert Bryce asked those attending the conference.
Bryce compared building oil and gas pipelines to building additional high voltage power lines. To shift to 90% renewable energy, he said the U.S. would have to double its high voltage power lines.
"The grid we have is largely the grid we're going to have," he said, "The use of hydrocarbons has grown ten times faster than wind and solar over the past 35 years.
In addition, he said 320 communities in the United States have rejected wind power projects since 2015, and at least 40 have restricted solar projects since the beginning of last year.
"Solar has ten times the power density of wind. It doesn't mean people want it in their neighborhood," he said. "People everywhere care about what's in their neighborhood."
TCU's Bluntzer said the conference can also help students understand the causes and effects of different world events on the energy industry, beyond simply gas prices increasing because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"There's an in-depth story to be told," she said. "There's more to it. It's very layered. It's not as simple as 'this happened, and our gas prices went up,' or 'oil's bad' and 'we thought we were all going to be in electric cars and have solar panels.' It's not that. It is an 'and' conversation. I keep saying that. It's not 'either-or'. It is 'and'."
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