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.


Upcoming UT Energy Symposium Talks

Date
Speaker
Talk Title
9/2/2025Mark McClure | Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, ResFracTransformative Improvements in Hydraulic Fracture Design – Applications for Oil, Gas, and Geothermal
9/9/2025Sanya Carley | Mark Alan Hughes Faculty Director of the Kleinman Center, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of PennsylvaniaThe Energy Insecurity and Utility Disconnection Crisis in America
9/16/2025Sheldon Landsberger | Robert B. Trull Chair in Engineering Professor, Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at AustinNaturally Occurring Radioactive Material in the Oil and Gas Exploration Field
9/23/2025Adam Grosser | Chairman & Managing Partner, UP PartnersTBD
9/30/2025Wil Burns | Co-Director, Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal, American University, & Associate Director, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern UniversityThe Role of Carbon Dioxide Removal in Combating Climate Change
10/7/2025Santiago Grijalva | Georgia Power Distinguished Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Georgia Institute of TechnologyEmerging Electricity Grids: Business-Cyber-Physical Integration, Decentralization and Intelligence
10/14/2025Julia Black | Energy Development Program Manager-Resiliency as a Service, Austin EnergyTBD
10/21/2025

James K. Galbraith | Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin

Jing Chen | Assistant Professor, Finance, University of Northern British Columbia

Book Talk – Entropy Economics: The Living Basis of Value and Production
10/28/2025Xi Chen | Associate Professor CUNY Advanced Science Research Center Department of Chemical Engineering, The City College of New YorkWater-Responsive Materials for Evaporation Energy Harvesting
11/4/2025Michael Howlan | Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPowering Decarbonization With Modeling and Optimization of Renewables in the Changing Environment
11/18/2025Leah Ellis | CEO and Co-founder, Sublime SystemsEnergy-Efficient Cement Manufacturing
12/2/2025Andrew Fix | Assistant Professor, Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at AustinTBD

UT Energy Symposium Talks

Displaying 151 - 175 of 340

September 12, 2019

A Discussion on the State of Energy Policy and the Role of Energy Markets

Brent Bennett, Policy Analyst, Texas Public Policy Foundation

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April 18, 2019

Human Right to Energy

Monika Ehrman, Faculty Director, Oil & Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Center (ONE C), The University of Oklahoma College of Law

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April 11, 2019

April 4, 2019

March 14, 2019

Economic models need biophysical principles: Otherwise we can’t explain our energy past or future

Carey King, Assistant Director and Research Scientist, UT Austin Energy Institute

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March 7, 2019

Hawaii, a Postcard from the Future

Adam Warren, Director, Integrated Applications Center, NREL

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February 28, 2019

Revisiting business-as-usual: why our worst-case climate scenarios aren’t as bad as we thought and 2˚ is more readily achievable

Justin Ritchie, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia

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February 21, 2019

Getting to zero: what will it take to decarbonize electricity and will the Green New Deal help?

Jesse Jenkins, Postdoctoral Environmental Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School | Harvard University Center for the Environment

February 7, 2019

California Energy Policy in Crisis

Michael Wara, Director, Climate and Energy Policy Program, Senior Research Scholar, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University

January 31, 2019

Non-Renewable Resources, Extraction Technology, and Economic Growth

Martin Stuermer, Sr. Research Economist, Research Dept., Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

November 29, 2018

Geopolitical and energy trade affected by China’s rise

David Firestein, Executive Director, China Public Policy Center; Clinical Professor of Public Affairs, LBJ School, UT Austin

November 15, 2018

Book talk: Great American Outpost: Dreamers, Mavericks and the Making of an Oil Frontier

Maya Rao, Washington correspondent for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune writer and author of Great American Outpost: Dreamers, Mavericks and the Making of an Oil Frontier

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November 8, 2018

Innovating for a Clean Energy Future

Kate Zerrenner, Senior Manager, Energy-Water Initiatives, Environmental Defense Fund

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October 25, 2018

Addressing Energy Poverty in Texas

Dana Harmon, Director, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute

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October 18, 2018

Shale: The Revolution That Wasn’t

Richard Chuchla, Director, Energy and Earth Resources program, Jackson School of Geosciences

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October 11, 2018

Renewables and electricity market design

Peter Cramton, Professor of Economics, University of Cologne and University of Maryland

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October 4, 2018

Transitioning to electricity as a fuel: challenges and opportunities for remaking our refueling infrastructure

Mike Nicholas, Senior Researcher, The International Council on Clean Transportation

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September 27, 2018

What We Measure Matters – US Electricity in the Future

Robert Hebner, Director, Center for Electromechanics, The University of Texas at Austin

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September 20, 2018

Creative Destruction and the Electric Utility of the Future

David Hurlbut, Senior Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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September 13, 2018

Fuel Taxation, Emissions Policy, and Competitive Advantage in the Diffusion of European Diesel Automobiles

Eugenio J. Miravete, Professor, Department of Economics, The University of Texas at Austin

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