Past events

This lecture will reflect on changes in UK energy policy since the early 2000s, when the first long term emissions target was proposed in the 2003 Energy White Paper. The UK is already well on the way to meeting that target, which required a 60% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. In the meantime, many changes have affected the energy sector: climate science has highlighted [...]

The presentation will review how and why energy demand has changed in the UK domestic stock over the last 50 years. What can we do to better predict energy use in buildings in the future? Based on this review, what rolemay domestic energy efficiency play in helping the UK achieve net zero in the next three decades? Speaker Tadj Oreszczyn FCIBSE MInstE, [...]

Review by Jose-Luis Ramirez Mendiola Flexibility of electricity demand is often seen as critical for balancing the grid when consumption is high and when there are drops in supply from renewables. The benefits of demand side flexibility include improving balancing with renewables; reducing the costs of electricity generation; and making the most of smart systems and battery storage. But is flexibility [...]

Climate change has advanced to the point where we are already triggering damaging environmental tipping points – how can we stop this? Tipping points exist in social, ecological and climate systems and those systems are increasingly causally intertwined in the Anthropocene. Climate change and biosphere degradation haveadvanced to the point where we are already triggering damaging environmental tipping points, and to [...]

Renewable technologies are inherently seen as “good”. Nevertheless, they are not without impact. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool used to help us outline where impacts occur and how we can minimise these. It is often applied to individual technologies, but can be applied to whole systems and also be used to help anticipate impacts from novel technologies and [...]

Even in the face of catastrophic climate and health damage, why is it so hard for us to break our energy consumption habits? To better understand why it is so hard to reduce energy consumption, this talk explores how the demand for energy services has grown and changed over time. Charting the transitions in energy consumption to meet our needs [...]

Economists tend to see the establishment of marketing – whether for water, pollution emissions, or the right to harvest fish or other resources – as unambiguously superior to other forms ofregulation. Some non-economists see marketing as inherently objectionable.Both views are simplistic. They overlook the legal, political and social factors that – together with economic considerations – determine how well something [...]

This talk examines lessons that can be learnt from nature in the development of catalytic processes for some of the key challenges in energy chemistry. Microorganisms have developed specialised metal-containing enzymes for oxidation of hydrogen, production of hydrogen as a fuel, fixing carbon dioxide into useful chemical building blocks, and converting nitrogen into ammonia under ambient conditions. Nature’s catalysts are [...]

It is now widely accepted that renewable energy is, and will continue to be a major contributor to delivering the huge reductions in emissions needed to achieve a NetZero world. The costs of wind and solar have fallen significantly, and are now cheaper than fossil fuels, and there is widespread support forthese technologies from the public. But challenges remain in [...]

Nick Eyre is Professor of Energy and Climate Policy in the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the University of Oxford, and Director of the Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS). Nick isDirector of Energy Research for the University of Oxford, and a Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Integrating Renewable Energy. Previously, he was leader of the Lower [...]