Event type:
Hybrid, Lecture
Organised by:
Geological Society Events, Public Lectures 2025
Venue:
Hybrid In person at Burlington House and Virtual via Zoom
Event details
Climate change is upon us. Profligate exploitation of biomass spawned the Industrial Revolution and with it first coal then crude oil and onto natural gas. These energy-dense, easy to transport, fuels changed the world, wealth grew, health and longevity improved, population boomed. But, as we say in Lancashire, 'you don't get owt for nowt', and we didn't. Combustion of fossil fuels added greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to the atmosphere around 100,000 times faster than nature could remove it, acidifying the ocean 'to boot'.
Fuelling 8 billion people and more without adding to the atmospheric carbon dioxide overload is the biggest challenge to human existence for almost 1 million years. What will it take to deliver sustainable low carbon energy for generations to come? The talk will examine both the options and imperatives of fuelling all of the people all of the time – 'one world is enough for all of us'.
Speaker
Prof Jon Gluyas (President of the Geological Society, & Durham University, UK)
Jon Gluyas is a geoscientist. He holds the chair in Geoenergy, Carbon Capture & Storage at Durham University and his research has been on geothermal energy, carbon geostorage, natural hydrogen and helium exploration as well as on human induced seismicity since arriving in Durham in 2009. Prior to being an academic, Jon worked in the petroleum industry.
It is possible to describe Jon's career in two parts – getting carbon out of the ground initially, followed by trying to shove it back in again or at least not take more out. He has served as Director of Durham Energy Institute, Dean of Knowledge Exchange and Head of Earth Sciences whilst at Durham as well as being a past president or chairperson of the Earth Science Teachers Association, British Geological Survey board, Geoscience Exploration Society of Great Britain and founder of the UK National Geothermal Centre. He is a past winner of the Geological Society's Aberconway Medal for applied geoscience and is their current president.
Programme
17:45–18:00: Guests arrive for the Public Lecture
18:00–19:00: Talk takes place (including Q&A)
19:00: Event ends
Date, time and location
This Public Lecture will take place on Tuesday 14 January at 18:00 (GMT).
This is a hybrid event, which can be attended in person at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, or online via Zoom.
Registration
This lecture is free to attend. However, we are a registered charity (number: 210161) and we would welcome donations. If you would like to donate, you can do so here.
You can register for both in-person and virtual attendance here.
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