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ESF Professor to Speak on Energy Issues in U.K.
ESF Professor Charles Hall will travel to the United Kingdom next week to discuss energy and economic issues with British business, education and government leaders, including members of Parliament.
Hall, a systems ecologist with an interest in biophysical economics and the relationship between energy and society, is scheduled to begin his visit Monday, March 26, in a meeting with representatives of Atkins, one of the largest engineering and design consultancies in the world. He is expected to discuss both the economic implications of a declining energy return on investment (EROI) and biophysical economics, which combines knowledge of economy and thermodynamics to analyze the economic process.
Also Monday, Hall will meet with the New Economics Foundation, which describes itself as "think-and-do tank" that inspires and demonstrates economic well-being. Later in the day, he will address the All Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil, which investigates peak oil production and studies its impacts and possible solutions.
On Tuesday, he will present a lunchtime talk at the U.K. Department for International Development and attend seminars with department members.
On Wednesday, he will present a lunchtime talk at Arup, a global firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists. Hall will meet with Dr. Simon Roberts of Arup who has done extensive work on developing a new model for national economies that factors in energy.
On Thursday, Hall will be at the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change for a seminar with the United Kingdom's chief economist, chief scientist and others. He will do a presentation focusing on implications of declining oil production and EROI for the nation's energy security.
On Friday, Hall will have breakfast at the University of Oxford with Jeremy Leggett, a geologist who is the founder of Solarcentury, the U.K.'s largest independent solar electric company. Leggett is a widely recognized writer and commentator. The final meeting in Hall's weeklong visit will be Oliver Inderwildi, head of the Low-Carbon Energy Centre at Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.