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
2/4/2025Melinda Taylor
Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin
Reducing Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Operations in the Permian Basin: A Common Sense Approach
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 176 - 200 of 329

February 15, 2018

February 8, 2018

Aramco and Saudi Arabia – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

David Kultgen,  General Counsel and Senior Vice President, Arabian American Oil Company (retired)

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January 25, 2018

Food Security: Thermodynamics, Ecology, and Economics

John R Schramski, Associate Professor, College of Engineering, University of Georgia

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November 30, 2017

Drivers of technological improvement in clean energy

Jessika Trancik, Professor in Energy Studies, Institute for Data, Systems and Society at MIT

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November 16, 2017

Notes on 100% Renewable Cities in Texas

Neil McAndrews, Economist with Austin Chapter of US Association for Energy Economics

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October 26, 2017

Grid Technology Trends and the Integration of Renewables

Juan Torres, Associate Laboratory Director, Energy Systems Integration, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

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October 19, 2017

Cutting Carbon in Maritime Cargo Shipping

Maria Gallucci, 2017-2018 UT Energy Journalism Fellow

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October 12, 2017

Coupling Heat Storage to Nuclear Reactors For Variable Electricity Output with Base-Load Reactor Operations

Charles Forsberg, Director and a Principle Investigator of the DOE Integrated Research Project on Fluoride-salt-cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs), MIT

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October 5, 2017

Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems

Kevan Weaver, Director of Technology Integration, TerraPower

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September 28, 2017

September 21, 2017

Electrolyte Choices for Rechargeable Batteries

John Goodenough, Virginia H. Cockrell Centennial Chair in Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin

September 14, 2017

U.S. Climate Policy: The Importance of Thinking and Acting Regionally

Dave Adelman, Professor, School of Law, The University of Texas at Austin

September 7, 2017

Keeping The Lights On As We Transition To Renewables

Gene Preston, CEO, Transmission Adequacy Consulting

April 27, 2017

Redesigning Civilization: And Other Small Things

Matt Grocoff, Principal, THRIVE Collaborative

April 20, 2017

ExxonMobil 2017 Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040

Robert Gardner, Manager, Economics and Energy Division, Corporate Strategic Planning at ExxonMobil

April 13, 2017

The Evolving Utility Business Models – The Electric Cooperative Story

Peter Muhoro, Director of Energy Research and Strategies, Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC)

April 6, 2017

Mexican Energy Reform in a time of Insecurity

Lorne Matalon, UT Energy Journalism Fellow and reporter for National Public Radio in West Texas

March 30, 2017

Energy and the Anthropocene

David Biello, Science Curator at TED Conferences

March 23, 2017

U.S. & World Nuclear Energy

Dale Klein, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research for the UT System and Professor of Mechanical Engineering

March 9, 2017

The Geopolitics of Oil: Western Hemisphere Scenarios

Jorge Piñon, Director of UT Austin’s Latin America and Caribbean Energy Program

March 2, 2017

The Art of Doing Good Science: Experiences in Interdisciplinary Energy Research

Varun Rai, Associate Professor at the UT Austin LBJ School of Public Affairs

February 23, 2017

Semester