X Close

Events

Home

UCL events news and reviews

Menu

Sustainable Energy for All: this year, next year, sometime – or never?

By Lara J Carim, on 27 November 2012

West Yorkshire wind turbines (by
nulabugeye on Flickr)

Liberal Democrat Energy Minister Ed Davey’s clash with his Conservative deputy John Hayes over the future of wind turbines earlier this month demonstrates how topical and divisive the sustainable energy agenda can be.

Despite the issue’s current high media profile, a quick show of hands at the start of Professor Paul Ekins’ Lunch Hour Lecture on 20 November illustrated that there is little public awareness of 2012 as UN International Year of Sustainable Energy for All – even among an audience with an interest in the topic.

Undeterred, Ekins, who is Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy and Director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, immediately set out in stark terms why sustainable energy is “a huge issue”: 1.3 billion people globally in 2012 have no access to electricity, and 2.7 billion – more than one-third of the world’s population – lack clean cooking facilities.

(more…)

The Third Industrial Revolution?

By ucyow3c, on 14 November 2011

Jeremy Rifkin. Photo by Hardeep Bharj

If Jeremy Rifkin isn’t a big picture thinker, I can’t think who is.

His lecture on the third industrial revolution encompassed the full sweep of human history, stopping in on macroeconomics, ecology, thermodynamics and education policy, with asides on the origins of monotheism, and a conclusion demanding no less than a transformation of global consciousness.

Will McDowall, Research Associate, UCL Energy Institute reports on the event.

(more…)

Is it possible to solve climate change here and now and make money in the process?

By news editor, on 20 September 2011

The answer is “Yes”, according to the organisers of the Creating Climate Wealth Summit that took place at UCL on 13 and 14 September, writes Javier de Cendra de Larragan, Senior Research Associate in Energy and Law at the UCL Energy Institute.

Private entrepreneurs, consultants, policymakers and academics came together, under UCL’s roof, to devise ‘gigaton-scale’, market-driven, solutions to climate change that should do just that.

Creating Climate Wealth logoAnd yet, the International Energy Agency has recently reported that 2010 won the dubious award of being the year with the highest greenhouse gas emissions on record.

While China and India accounted for most of the rise, emissions have also grown in developing countries. What are we going to make of this discrepancy? Of course, a cynic would say that it might be possible after all to make money with climate change, regardless of what emissions are doing.

Less cynically, one can argue that, while many firms are devising innovative solutions to mitigate climate change, none of these solutions have yet demonstrated a gigaton-scale potential. This is the nut that the Creating Climate Wealth Summit was intent on cracking. (more…)

How to do public engagement on energy and privacy

By ucft509, on 8 June 2011

I forgot to pack my socks. Given that this is Cheltenham Science Festival, as I walked to the sock shop I envisioned a long queue of professors and graduate students who had also forgotten to pack their socks. Alas, I was the sole. The scientists at this festival are far too cool for that. Directed by UCL’s own Mark Lythgoe, who appears to be the height of cool, the aim of this festival is to get current science, and its associated issues, out into the public sphere.

An event worth highlighting for its excellent quality is ‘Energy – the smart way?’. In essence, it was an introduction to the need for, possible design of and social implications of ‘smart grids’ and ‘smart meters’ to monitor and control our energy use. Former UCL PhD student Tony Rooke, now working a short walk along Euston Road at Logica, was one of the three panelists.  All agreed that the ‘smart grid’, broadly meaning a grid in which there is multi-directional information and power flow, is absolutely essential if we are to meet our carbon targets, but it was pointed out that rolling out smart meters without knowing the architecture of the smart grid is possibly a mistake.

(more…)