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 29th semester in fall 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 |
---|---|---|
10/21/2025 | James K. Galbraith | Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government / Business Relations, LBJ School of Public Affairs, and Professor of Government, The 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 |
10/28/2025 | Xi Chen | Associate Professor CUNY Advanced Science Research Center Department of Chemical Engineering, The City College of New York | Water-Responsive Materials for Evaporation Energy Harvesting |
11/4/2025 | Michael Howland | Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Powering Decarbonization With Modeling and Optimization of Renewables in the Changing Environment |
11/11/2025 | Chris Kennedy | Professor, Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada | Energy and Economic Regimes |
11/18/2025 | Leah Ellis | CEO and Co-founder, Sublime Systems | Energy-Efficient Cement Manufacturing |
12/2/2025 | Andrew Fix | Assistant Professor, Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin | TBD |
UT Energy Symposium Talks
October 25, 2018
Addressing Energy Poverty in Texas
Dana Harmon, Director, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute
October 18, 2018
Shale: The Revolution That Wasn’t
Richard Chuchla, Director, Energy and Earth Resources program, Jackson School of Geosciences
October 11, 2018
Renewables and electricity market design
Peter Cramton, Professor of Economics, University of Cologne and University of Maryland
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
September 27, 2018
What We Measure Matters – US Electricity in the Future
Robert Hebner, Director, Center for Electromechanics, The University of Texas at Austin
September 20, 2018
Creative Destruction and the Electric Utility of the Future
David Hurlbut, Senior Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
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
September 6, 2018
How Energy Fits into the History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
Raj Patel, Research Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs
April 26, 2018
Planet Texas 2050: A UT Austin Grand Challenge
Jay Banner, ESI | Richard Corsi, CAEE | Michael Young, BEG | Heather Houser, English
April 19, 2018
Adapting from grid to cloud
Bill Cannon, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Environment & Infrastructure Group Sumitomo Corporation of Americas
April 12, 2018
Will the internet of things change the electric business?
Robert J. King, President, Good Company Associates
April 5, 2018
Global Energy Impact of a Developing China; and India?
Fred Beach, Assistant Director for Policy Studies, Energy Institute, The University of Texas at Austin
March 29, 2018
To Uber or Not to Uber: Economic and Energetic Tradeoffs
Todd Davidson, Research Associate, Energy Institute and Webber Energy Group, The University of Texas at Austin
March 22, 2018
A Proposed Framework for Rebooting the Study of Economics
Garvin Boyle, principal designer and programmer, Orrery Software
March 8, 2018
Personal Reflections on California’s Leadership in Environmental Policy
Alan Lloyd, Research Fellow, Energy Institute, UT Austin; Former Secretary, California EPA; Former Chair, California Air Resources Board
March 1, 2018
Global gas demand and US LNG exports
Gürcan Gülen, Research Scientist, Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences
February 22, 2018
Coal in India: History and Persistence
Rohit Chandra, PhD Student, Kennedy School at Harvard
February 15, 2018
The Evolution of Building Energy Code Adoption and Compliance in Texas 2001-2018: How Outreach, Education and Collaboration Changed the Texas Building Industry
Richard Morgan, Sr. Energy Codes Manager, South-central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as a Resource (SPEER)
February 8, 2018
Aramco and Saudi Arabia – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
David Kultgen, General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Arabian American Oil Company (retired)
January 25, 2018
Food Security: Thermodynamics, Ecology, and Economics
John R Schramski, Associate Professor, College of Engineering, University of Georgia
November 30, 2017
Drivers of technological improvement in clean energy
Jessika Trancik, Professor in Energy Studies, Institute for Data, Systems and Society at MIT
November 16, 2017
Notes on 100% Renewable Cities in Texas
Neil McAndrews, Economist with Austin Chapter of US Association for Energy Economics
November 9, 2017
From Theory to Econometrics to Energy Policy: Cautionary Tales for Policymaking Using Aggregate Production Functions
Matthew Heun, Professor of Engineering at Calvin College