When it comes to our wellbeing, energy plays a big part in it. It enables us to have food, use transportation and heat our homes on cold winter nights. However, how society has been producing and using energy has taken its toll on Earth, since carbon dioxide (CO2) production has highly contributed to climate change. It is important to optimize how nations produce, transport, and use energy. But how?
With that in mind, the Texas Engineering Executive Education of the Cockrell School of Engineering (TxEEE) and the UT Austin Portugal Program partnered, for the second time this year, to provide researchers, entrepreneurs and industry professionals based in Portugal another opportunity to attend online advanced executive training in the energy field in November.
Due to the success and demand of April’s course on hydrogen, the Program was able to increase its offer to approximately 100 seats and two short courses this time: one, a novelty in Program’s training catalogue, “Too Big to Excel: Energy Data Analytics” and a new edition of the well-received “Hydrogen – Why the hype? Opportunities, Challenges and Recent Trends” course.
Dr. Joshua Rhodes, Research Scientist at the Webber Energy Group at UT Austin, introduced the Energy Data Analytic’s audience to Python, teaching them to use it to analyze geospatial data, including relative to Portugal, through a “hands-on approach”.
During the Hydrogen course, invited speakers dove into the “Hydrogen Rainbow”, which represents the various ways of hydrogen production, with different feedstocks and sources. Emily Beagle (research associate), Michael Lewis (senior engineering scientist) and Michael Webber (Group Leader), all from UT Austin’s Webber Energy Group, also discussed recent policy, commercial and research developments that are contributing to a global hydrogen economy.
This initiative reinforces the Program’s commitment to providing training opportunities and empowering researchers affiliated with Portuguese institutions with tools to help solve pressing challenges, such as climate change and the energy crisis. It also results from the ongoing discussions the Program’s Leadership has been conducting about potential strategic areas to look into if this FCT’s Partnership happens to be renewed in the future.
