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 30th semester in fall 2026.

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 2026): 66045 (graduate students) / 65750 (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	Job Title	Talk Title
October 27	Robert Paterson	Associate Professor, Graduate Program in Community and Regional Planning, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin	Zoning the AI and Cloud Data Center Boom: How Local Governments Are Regulating Data Centers
November 3	Heather Liddell	Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Sustainability Engineering & Environmental Engineering, Harrington Fellow	I, Widget: Why It’s Nearly Impossible to Trace Physical Flows Through the U.S. Economy, And What That Means for Industrial Energy Modeling
November 10	Charlotte De Cannière	Assistant Professor at the Toulouse School of Economics	Two Wrongs Can Sometimes Make a Right: The Environmental Benefits of Market Power in Oil
November 17	Jamie Nieto	Professor of Applied Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad de Valladolid	Exploring the Biophysical Limits of the Energy Transition: An Integrated Assessment Model Analysis Using MEDEAS
December 1	Rich Powell	CEO, Corporate Energy Buyers Association	TBA