Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment (I-SEE)
I-SEE Seminar Series
1 OCTOBER 2013 Ken Webster, Head of Innovation, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Isle of Wight. 'The size of the prize: implications of a circular economy. Doing 'good' not 'less harm'
Abstract: The limits of a take-make-dispose economy have been evident especially since the upturn in resource pricing since 2001. So what kind of economy would work long term while allowing us to be 'at home in the modern world' Is it time to look forward to a regenerative economy, rebuilding natural and social capital and not merely trying to reduce the harm caused by the existing system.. Recent work on progress towards a circular economy is discussed.
Speaker: Ken Webster is Head of Innovation at the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, a think tank seeking to hasten the emergence of a circular economy at scale, he is co-author of Sense and Sustainability - a primer on education in the context of going beyond conventional sustainability. He is also Honorary Teaching Fellow at the University of Bradford School of Management. www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org
15 OCTOBER 2013 - Professor Michael Walls, CREST, School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering, Loughborough University Title tbc
29 OCTOBER 2013 - Professor Annie Linley, UK Energy Research Centre / Natural Environment Reserach Council Title: tbc
12 NOVEMBER 2013 - Sarah Best, Senior Researcher, Sustainable Markets Group, International Institute for Environment and Development ‘Sustainable Energy for All? Linking poor communities to modern energy services’
Abstract: Energy is fundamental for the well-being and the development of society, yet access to modern forms of energy is highly unequal. Today, 2.7 billion people rely on inefficient and polluting cooking fuels and technologies, 1.3 billion lack access to electricity and 1 billion more only have power intermittently. After decades of neglect, energy is now high on the development agenda. Last year, the UN Secretary General launched the 'Sustainable Energy for All' initiative and energy is near the top of the list for a new set of UN poverty goals (to replace the Millennium Development Goals after 2015). This upswing in political will is crucial, but will need to be accompanied by enormous shifts in policy, finance and capacity-building if it is to make any real dent on energy poverty. This session will look at what's happening in the global debates - key issues, challenges and controversies - and share insights from the local-level work of IIED and its partners in countries as diverse as Argentina, South Africa and Nepal. What type of new business models to deliver access for the poorest are emerging? Where on earth is the $48 billion per year needed to deliver universal access going to come from? What's the experience in using renewable energy to light households and power smallholder agriculture? How could we make these highly technical debates more accessible to citizens and civil society movements, so they can make informed choices about their energy futures and hold decision-makers to account? The session will attempt to shine a small light on these mega questions.
Speaker: Sarah Best is a Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), one of the world's leading policy research organisations on sustainable development. Based in IIED's Sustainable Markets Group, Sarah's work is focused on energy poverty, artisanal and small-scale mining, the impacts of large-scale extractives projects. She has worked for more than a decade in policy, research and advocacy, focusing in the areas of pro-poor business, climate change, energy, civil society engagement and labour rights. Prior to joining IIED in early 2013, Sarah worked for a range of organisations including Oxfam, the International Labour Organisation, Shell International, the Confederation of British Industry and Sustainable Development Advisors, in the UK, Brussels and Latin America. http://www.iied.org/users/sarah-best
26 NOVEMBER 2013 - Speaker tbc
10 DECEMBER 2013 - Professor Rod Scott, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath http://www.bath.ac.uk/bio-sci/contacts/academics/rod_scott/ Title: tbc
4 FEBRUARY 2014 - Speaker tbc
18 FEBRUARY 2014 - Speaker tbc
4 MARCH 2014 - Speaker tbc
18 MARCH 2014 - Speaker tbc
1 APRIL 2014 - Speaker tbc
15 APRIL 2014 - Dame Sue Ion ‘Generating for the future: last gasp or second wind for the various technology options’
Abstract: The talk will outline the challenges in replacing and enhancing the UK’s energy infrastructure over the coming decade. It will include the position of nuclear fission in the global marketplace and highlight the different attitudes of different countries. It will describe the various energy technologies being pursued and those likely to reach commercialisation in the next two decades. It will highlight the engineering challenges still being faced right across the energy sector and the hard choices which have to be made, some of which require significant behavioural changes in the way we all treat access to energy.
Speaker: Dame Sue Ion is a non-Executive Director on the Board of the Laboratory of the UK Health and Safety Executive and sits on the Scientific Advisory Group of the Department for Energy and Climate Change. She was a member of the UK Council for Science and Technology from 2004-2011. She was a member of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council from 1994-2001, a member of Council for EPSRC between 2005 and 2010 and Chaired the Fusion Advisory Board for the Research Councils between 2006 and 2012. Sue's background is in materials science/metallurgy. She gained a first class honours from Imperial College in 1976 and a PhD in 1979 before joining BNFL where she was Group Director of Technology 1992-2006. She was appointed Visiting Professor at Imperial College in 2006 and of London South Bank University in 2011 and has been a member of the Board of Governors at the University of Manchester since 2004. She has held an Honorary Professorship at the University of Central Lancashire since the beginning of 2007. Dame Sue represents the UK on a number of international review and oversight committees for the nuclear sector including the Euratom Science and Technology Committee, which she Chairs, and the US Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Advisory committee. She was the UK’s representative on the IAEA Standing Advisory Group on Nuclear Energy 2000-2006. Dame Sue was Vice President and Member of Council of the Royal Academy of Engineering between 2002 and 2008. She is the Royal Academy of Engineering’s representative on the UK Government’s Energy Research Partnership. http://www.energyresearchpartnership.org.uk/tiki-index.php?page=profile131
Date in March / April 2014 tbc: The Rt Hon The Lord Nigel Lawson