Energy literally powers our lives. Without it, we cannot cook our food, heat our homes, or light up dark spaces to keep us safe. This roundtable brings together five energy historians to explore the latest developments in energy history and provides insight into both best practices and practical applications of the field. Each panelist will give a brief presentation of their current research to set the stage for a moderated discussion. Julie Cohn, a research historian in the Center for Public History at the University of Houston, highlights the benefits historical case studies bring to contemporary energy decisions. Based on her work on a collaborative project with economists and policy scholars at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, Cohn will describe the collaborative process and comment on the extent to which it gives energy history currency in contemporary debates about climate change, technological shifts, and future access to essential energy services. Tyler Priest, associate professor of History at the University of Iowa, similarly focuses on the ways historical analysis can benefit other endeavors. Priest discusses the emerging fields of “energy humanities” and “petro-criticism” and their tendencies to present teleological versions of the past. To remedy this, Priest argues for the inclusion of histories of labor, business, technology, science, and policy within these developing fields to present a fuller and more effective understanding of oil in human history. Keeping our attention on fossil fuels, Germán Vergara, assistant professor of History at Georgia Tech, changes our spatial focus to Mexico. Vergara examines the pervasive effects that Mexico’s adoption of fossil fuels had on its society, ranging from changes in gender expectations and the division of labor, to facilitating the nation’s transformation from a rural, agrarian society to an urban, industrial one. Sarah Robey, historian of energy at Idaho State University, brings us back to an analysis of energy history itself and the promise of nuclear history to broaden our range of who—or what—we consider agents of history. She will discuss her work on the intersections between high science and everyday lives, exploring how individuals outside of the lab and the halls of government understood, supported, debated, or resisted nuclear energy in the United States in the twentieth century. Rounding out the panel, Ian Miller of Harvard University will both serve as moderator of the session and present his own work on energy history in Japan. Miller challenges the concept of “energy transitions” in the case of Japan, and suggests, “The political, economic, technical, and cultural dynamics that fueled the creation of the nation’s modern political-economy were called ‘miraculous’ by Cold War modernization theorists; seen through the haze of emissions, they look more like an eco-technical revolution whose undoing demands a commensurate response.” This panel was organized and accepted as a program committee session for Seattle; the panelists are eager to share their work in New Orleans, a city with important energy history connections.