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 multidisciplinary 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 entered its 28th semester in spring 2025.
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. The course is taught in both the fall and spring semesters.
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 is recorded and posted on this page and on the Energy Institute YouTube channel.
Instructor: Carey King
Unique Number (Fall 2025): 65605 (graduate students) / 65310 (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.
UT Energy Symposium Talks
April 22, 2025
Texas Reliability Underground: How Salt Cavern Storage Enables the Energy Expansion & Transition
Sam Porter
Co-Founder & CEO, NeuVentus
View Talk Details
April 15, 2025
Cellulosic Biofuel 2.0
Lee Lynd, Paul E. and Joan H. Queneau Distinguished Professor of Engineering & Adjunct Professor of Biology, Dartmouth University; Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Terragia Corporation Renewable Energy Laboratory
View Talk Details
April 8, 2025
Interregional Transmission Operational Coordination
Yonghong Chen
Chief Scientist, Grid Planning and Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
April 1, 2025
March 27, 2025
Electric grid dynamic simulation: open synthetic datasets and stability assessment frameworks
Adam Birchfield
Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University
View Talk Details
March 11, 2025
Reimagining Battery Chemistries for Sustainable Energy Storage
Kent Zheng
Assistant Professor, McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering & Texas Materials Institute, The University of Texas at Austin
March 4, 2025
A Country-Level Primary, Final, Useful Energy and Exergy Database to Improve Understanding of Energy and the Economy
Matthew Heun, Professor, Department of Engineering, Calvin University; Virtual Visiting Research Fellow, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds; Extraordinary Professor, School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University
Paul Brockway, Associate Professor, Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
February 25, 2025
Utility Data and Connectivity—How Climate Changes Everything
Daniel Roesler
Founder & CIO, UtilityAPI
February 18, 2025
Cyberwarfare and Critical Infrastructure in the 21st Century
Chris Lamb
Cybersecurity Researcher, Energy Security, Sandia National Laboratory
February 11, 2025
The Real-World Economics of the Energy Transition: Finding Policy That Works
Hector Pollitt, Senior Economist, World Bank
February 4, 2025
Reducing Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Operations in the Permian Basin: A Common Sense Approach
Melinda Taylor, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin
January 28, 2025
Energy Companies and Environmentalists: The Voluntary Carbon Market
Reid Calhoon, CEO, ClimateWells
January 21, 2025
Making Climate Policy Models More Decision-Relevant
Wei Peng, Assistant Professor School of Public and International Affairs & Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Princeton University
December 4, 2024
Influencing a Culture of Safety While Designing Energy Transition Solutions
Murtaza I. Gandhi, Manager of Qualitative Risk and Sustainability, BakerRisk
November 19, 2024
Oil in the Crosshairs: Energy as an Enabler and a Target in Modern Military Strategy
Clay Seigle, Energy & Geopolitical Risk Strategist
November 12, 2024
Engineering and Social Justice: Using High-Resolution Residential Data To Identify Energy Poverty in Households
Destenie Nock, Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University; CEO, Peoples Energy Analytics
November 5, 2024
The State of Energy in Mexico
Ariel Ramos, Ramos Marcín Abogados - Founding Partner; International Board of Advisors (IBA) - The University of Texas at Austin; Mexican Academy of Energy Law - Coordinator of the Oil & Gas and Clean Hydrogen Committee / Former President
October 29, 2024
The Road to the Renewable Energy Transition Must Pass Through Crowded Lands
Joseph Kiesecker, Lead Scientist, The Nature Conservancy
October 22, 2024
Sustainability and Autonomy - The Interconnected Future of Modern Flight
Dan Dalton, Vice President, Global Partnerships, Wisk Aero; LLC Volunteer Chairman of the Texas Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Advisory Committee
October 15, 2024
Reckoning with Social Policy in Utility Regulation
Alexandra Klass, James G. Degnan Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
October 8, 2024
Hydrogen in the Energy Transition, Emergence From Research Interest to National Priority
Frank Wolak, President and CEO, Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association
October 1, 2024
Fusion on Earth: A Quintessentially Scientific Pursuit With an Important Commercial Goal
Swadesh Mitter Mahajan, Research Professor, Institute for Fusion Studies, Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin; Chief Scientific Advisor of Exofusion
September 24, 2024
Carbon Capture and Storage in the Global Climate Scene
Tim Dixon, Director and General Manager, IEAGHG
September 17, 2024
Lowering the Risk of Commercialization of CO2 Capture With Amine Solvents
Fred Closmann, Research Associate, McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering
September 10, 2024
Book Talk: The Conservative Environmentalist
Founder and Executive Chairman, American Conservation Coalition; Author, The Conservative Environmentalist