UT Energy Symposium
A weekly guest lecture series that is both free and open to the public and available for course credit.
In an effort to provide a multi-disciplinary platform for UT faculty and students to interact on the most pressing energy issues facing our world, the Energy Institute sponsors the UT Energy Symposium (UTES), which will enter its 25th semester in fall 2023.
The UTES serves as a “convener” for the campus community, uniting students interested in energy issues with faculty and others working on sustainable energy security. Students who register for the symposium receive one credit hour for the 15-week seminar course, which is open to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Ongoing themes for UTES include climate change policy, innovation and diffusion of energy technologies, low-carbon technology options and status, and behavioral aspects of energy consumption.
Each UTES talk will be recorded and posted on this page and on the Energy Institute YouTube channel following the event.
Instructor: Carey King
Unique Number (Fall 2023): 61200 (graduate students) / 60925 (undergraduates)
Day & Time: Tuesday, 12:30 – 1:45 p.m.
If you need an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact Christa Hopkins, who can be reached at 512-475-8447 or christa@energy.utexas.edu, no later than five (5) business days prior to the event.
Upcoming UT Energy Symposium Talks
| Date | Speaker | Talk Title |
|---|---|---|
| August 29, 2023 | Michael Yamoah | Coherent implementation of Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies and Ongoing Implications for ESG Investing |
| September 5, 2023 | Scott Hughey & Shaun Boardman | Decarbonization - The New High-Tech Sector |
| September 12, 2023 | Art Berman | An Energy Transition to Renewables Condemns Civilization to its Status Quo Path of Growth & Biophysical destruction |
| September 19, 2023 | Julia SteinBerger | Living Well at Lower Energy Demand: Empirical Evidence and Future Research Directions |
| September 26, 2023 | Mike Legatt | When Situational Awareness, Mental Models, and Adaptive Capacity Meet Control Room Surprises |
| October 3, 2023 | Vida Asiegbu | Climate Investing x Diversity |
| October 10, 2023 | Kevin Book | Carbon Trade War and the Energy Transition |
| October 17, 2023 | Steve Kleen | Macroeconomics and Energy |
| October 24, 2023 | Neil Kem | Exploring the Role of Hydrogen & Low-Carbon Fuels in the Energy Sector |
| October 31, 2023 | Emily Grubert | Fossil Phaseout and the Just Energy Transition |
| November 7, 2023 | Michael Webber & Carey King | Steelman Discussion: Should ERCOT Interconnect (synchronize) with the Eastern or Western Interconnect? |
| November 14, 2023 | Melissa Lott | TBD |
| November 28, 2023 | Clay Sell | Small Nuclear Reactors |
UT Energy Symposium Talks
April 18, 2023
Job Creation Dynamics of Electric Vehicle Adoption
JR DeShazo, Dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin
April 11, 2023
Extreme Climate Risks and Financial Tipping Points
Gaël Giraud, Professor, McCourt School of Public Policy, Director of the Environmental Justice Program, Georgetown University
April 4, 2023
Energy and Evolution of Human Economic Order
Lisi Krall, Professor of Economics, State University of New York, Cortland
March 28, 2023
Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Transitions: the Geospatial Context of Global Change
Sarah Marie Jordaan, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Trottier Institute for Sustainability in Engineering and Design (TISED), McGill University
March 21, 2023
PyPSA Meets Earth: A Vibrant Open Energy System Model Initiative
Stuart Daniel James, Research Associate for Energy System Modeling at Deggendorf Institute of Technology (DIT)
March 7, 2023
Storing Hydrogen in the Subsurface: Challenges and Opportunities for Low-carbon Energy
Peter Eichhubl, Senior Research Scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin
February 28, 2023
CCS: The Swiss Army Knife of Climate Change Mitigation and a Key to the Energy Transition
Alex Bump, Research Geologist, Gulf Coast Carbon Center, Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin
February 21, 2023
Science and Engineering of Negative Emissions Technologies
Roger Aines, Chief Scientist, Energy and Homeland Security Program, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
February 14, 2023
Probing Electrochemical Phenomena in Electrochemical Hydrogen Technologies with Self-assembled Block Copolymer Templates
Christopher Arges, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, Penn State
February 7, 2023
Energy and the Impact of Incipient Shortages on Cities and Urbanization
William Rees, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Applied Science, School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia
January 31, 2023
General Motors' Path to Zero Emissions: A Wholistic View
Rob Threlkeld, Director of Global Energy Strategy for General Motors
January 24, 2023
Journalist Perspectives on Reporting on the Energy Industry
Andy Uhler, Energy Journalism Fellow, UT’s Energy Institute and Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy
Mose Buchele, Senior Correspondent, Energy & Environment, KUT (Austin's NPR Station)
January 17, 2023
Are Small-scale LNG Export Facilities Under-regulated in the US?
Jeremy Weber, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh
November 29, 2022
(Book Talk) America's Energy Gamble: People, Economy and Planet
Shanti Gamper-Rabindran, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh
November 15, 2022
Student Symposium with Guest Speakers Matthew Dean and Justin S. Davenport
Matthew Dean, NSF Graduate Research Fellow and PhD Candidate in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
Justin S. Davenport, JD Candidate, School of Law, The University of Texas at Austin
November 8, 2022
Lessons from the Real World (Science & Nature > Government Policies & Regulations)
Bill Flores, Vice-Chair and Independent Board Member, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT); Former Member of Congress—U.S. House of Representatives (2011-2021)
November 1, 2022
The Pros & Cons of Being a Municipal Utility in a Future With More Renewable Electricity
Erika Bierschbach, Vice President of Energy Market Operations & Resource Planning, Austin Energy
October 25, 2022
Energy Prices and the World Economy
James Hamilton, Professor, Economics, University of California San Diego
October 18, 2022
Loving the Alien: CO2 Deserves Our Affection but Save a Seat for Some Other Surprising Climate Change Allies
Jan Mertens, Chief Science Officer, ENGIE Research, Professor, Ghent University
October 11, 2022
An Oxford-Style Debate on University Fossil Fuel Divestment
Debate participants include: Cutler Cleveland, Dan Cohn, Bradford Cornell, and Brent Bennett
Moderated by: Carey King
October 4, 2022
Stranded Fossil-Fuel Assets Translate to Major Losses for Investors in Advanced Economics
Gregor Semieniuk, Assistant Research Professor, Political Economy Research Institute and Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst
September 27, 2022
Building a Molten Salt Research Reactor in Texas by 2025
Derek Haas, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
Kevin Clarno, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering (NEXTRA), The University of Texas at Austin
September 20, 2022
Constraints and Opportunities for Human Futures - A Systems Overview
Nathan Hagens, Director, The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future (ISEOF)
September 13, 2022
Generating Hydrogen in the Sub-surface
Ian Duncan, GeoH2 Industrial Affiliate Program, State of Texas Advanced Resource Recovery Group, Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin
September 6, 2022
Findings from the Micro-to-Macro Scale Energy and Economic Systems Modeling Initiative of UT Austin
Balasubramanian Sambasivam and Suman Saurabh, Post-doctoral Fellows, Energy Institute, The University of Texas at Austin
These presentations are part of the effort of the Micro-to-Macro Initiative funded via the Energy Institute. Click here to read more.