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 26, 2017
Grid Technology Trends and the Integration of Renewables
Juan Torres, Associate Laboratory Director, Energy Systems Integration, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
October 19, 2017
Cutting Carbon in Maritime Cargo Shipping
Maria Gallucci, 2017-2018 UT Energy Journalism Fellow
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
October 5, 2017
Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems
Kevan Weaver, Director of Technology Integration, TerraPower
September 28, 2017
Low Energy Nuclear Reactions: Status and Prospects for Science and Business
Dave Nagel, Professor, George Washington University
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
Building a smart grid through smart decision-making and smart organizations
Michael Legatt, CEO and Founder at ResilientGrid
February 16, 2017
Decoupling energy consumption from GDP under induced technological change
Eric Kemp-Benedict, Senior Scientist, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)
February 2, 2017
Climate Change, Methane, and the Global Oil and Gas system
Daniel Zavala, post-doctoral-scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund
January 26, 2017
Beyond the Texas Restructured Electric Markets Giving Power and Value to Consumer Energy Resources
Jon Wellinghoff, Chief Policy Officer at SolarCity and former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (2009 – 2013)
November 17, 2016
Dust to Dust, with a stop at the Stars: The NRG Story
George Schaefer, retired senior financial executive with over 30 years’ experience in the independent power industry
November 10, 2016
EPRI’s Integrated Grid
Barbara Tyran, Executive Director, Government & External Relations, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
November 3, 2016
Power Markets, Regulation, and Utility Scale Solar in the U.S.
Colin Meehan, Director, Regulatory & Public Affairs, First Solar
October 27, 2016
Reforming the Energy Vision: An Electric System for Stormy Times
Elizabeth Stein, Senior Manager – New York Clean Energy Law & Policy, Environmental Defense Fund