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 27th semester in fall 2024. 

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 (Spring 2024): 60540 (graduate students) / 60245 (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
1/21/2025Wei Peng 
Assistant Professor, School of Public and International Affairs &
Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment
TBD
1/28/2025Reid Calhoon
CEO, ClimateWells
Energy Companies and Environmentalists: The Voluntary Carbon Market
2/4/2025Melinda Taylor
Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin
TBD
2/11/2025Hector Pollitt
Senior Economist, World Bank
The Real-World Economics of the Energy Transition: Finding Policy That Works
2/18/2025Chris Lamb
Cybersecurity Researcher, Energy Security, Sandia National Laboratory
TBD
2/25/2025Daniel Roesler
Founder & CIO, UtilityAPI
Utility Data and Connectivity - How Climate Changes Everything
3/4/2025Matthew Heun and Paul Brockway
Professor, Department of Engineering, Calvin University; Associate Professor, Sustainability Research Institute (SRI), School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
A Country-level Primary, Final, Useful Energy and Exergy Database to Improve Understanding of Energy and the Economy
3/11/2025Kent Zheng
Assistant Professor, McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin
Reimagining Battery Chemistries for Sustainable Energy Storage
3/25/2025Adam Birchfield 
Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University
Electric Grid Dynamic Simulation: Open Synthetic Datasets and Stability Assessment Frameworks
4/1/2025TBDTBD
4/8/2025Yonghong Chen
Chief Scientist, Grid Planning and Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Interregional Transmission Operational Coordination
4/15/2025Lee 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
TBD
4/22/2025Sam Porter
Co-Founder & CEO, NeuVentus
Texas Reliability Underground: How Salt Cavern Storage Enables the Energy Expansion & Transition

UT Energy Symposium Talks

Displaying 1 - 25 of 327

December 4, 2024

Influencing a Culture of Safety While Designing Energy Transition Solutions

Murtaza I. Gandhi, Manager of Qualitative Risk and Sustainability, BakerRisk

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November 19, 2024

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

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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

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October 29, 2024

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

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October 15, 2024

Reckoning with Social Policy in Utility Regulation

Alexandra Klass, James G. Degnan Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School

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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

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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

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September 24, 2024

Carbon Capture and Storage in the Global Climate Scene

Tim Dixon, Director and General Manager, IEAGHG

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September 17, 2024

Lowering the Risk of Commercialization of CO2 Capture With Amine Solvents

Fred Closmann, Research Associate, McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering 

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September 10, 2024

Book Talk: The Conservative Environmentalist

Founder and Executive Chairman, American Conservation Coalition; Author, The Conservative Environmentalist  

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September 3, 2024

Electric Paradigms

Beth Garza, Senior Fellow, R Street Institute

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April 16, 2024

The Politics of the Energy Transition

David Spence, Professor of Energy Law, The University of Texas at Austin

Joshua Busby, Professor of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin

Sheila Olmstead, Professor of Public Affairs and Dean Rusk Chair, The University of Texas at Austin

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April 9, 2024

What Can Biology and Ecology Teach Us About Energy and the Economy?

James H. Brown Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Biology, University of New Mexico 

Charles A. S. Hall Professor Emeritus, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

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April 2, 2024

The Economics of Decarbonizing the Electricity Sector

Jackson Dorsey, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Texas at Austin.

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March 19, 2024

Linking Zero Net Energy Housing with Affordable Housing

Michael Garrison,  Professor of Architecture, Cass Gilbert Teaching Fellow, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin.

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March 5, 2024

Planning and Operational Challenges on the Path to a Cleaner Future

Mark G. Lauby, Senior Vice President and Chief Engineer, NERC.

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February 13, 2024

Incorporating Nuclear in the Energy Mix to Achieve Net Zero

Jhansi Kandasamy, Executive Director for Net-Zero at Idaho National Laboratory.

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February 6, 2024

Reducing Grid Emissions with a Software Upgrade

Dr. Kyri Baker, Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Boulder.

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January 30, 2024

The Coal Trap: How West Virginia Was Left Behind in the Clean Energy Revolution

James Van Nostrand,  Former Charles M. Love, Jr. Endowed Professor West Virginia University College of Law.

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January 23, 2024

The HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub Project & the US Model for Energy Innovation

Brian Korgel and Andy Uhler, Rashid Engineering Regents Chair Professor of Chemical Engineering & Director of the Energy Institute and UT Energy Journalism Fellow.

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January 16, 2024

Changing Energy Geopolitics with Notes on the Eurasia Crises

Tatiana Mitrova, Research Fellow, Center on Global Energy Policy and Independent Director

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