The UT Energy Symposium kicks off the semester by welcoming Professor Raj Patel of the LBJ School of Public Affairs to give a talk titled "How Energy Fits into the History of the World in Seven Cheap Things."

Driven by the commercial availability of wide bandgap (WBG) power devices, this is an exciting time for power electronics community. Future power electronics systems will not only be much more efficient, but also smaller and lighter than before. This will have huge impacts to a whole array of industries from mobile computing, to data center to electric transportations. The increased voltage and speed in these power devices are also making it possible now to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the power grid with advanced medium voltage power electronics technology.

This week's UT Energy Symposium presentation is titled "Planet Texas 2050: A UT Austin Grand Challenge."

This week at the UT Energy Symposium, Robert King will give a talk titled "Will the internet of things change the electric business?"

Robert J. King is the President of Good Company Associates in Austin, Texas.

This week at the UT Energy Symposium, Dr. Fred Beach will give a talk titled "Global Energy Impact of a Developing China; and India?"

This week at the UT Energy Symposium, Todd Davidson will give a talk titled "To Uber or Not to Uber: Economic and Energetic Tradeoffs."

This week at the UT Energy Symposium, Garvin Boyle will give a talk titled "A Proposed Framework for Rebooting the Study of Economics."

This week at the UT Energy Symposium, Alan Lloyd will give a talk titled "Personal Reflections on California’s Leadership in Environmental Policy."

Alan C. Lloyd is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Energy Institute, University of Texas at Austin. The focus of his research is the role of hydrogen in a sustainable society, fuel cells, electric drive vehicles, renewable energy and policies to promote zero emissions vehicles. He earned both his B.S. in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Gas Kinetics at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, U.K.

This week at the UT Energy Symposium, Gürcan Gülen will give a talk titled "Global gas demand and US LNG exports."