Biographical Information of Speakers & Discussants
Morning Chairman
Welcome – Professor Jim Skea, PSI
Jim Skea has been Director of the Policy Studies Institute since November 1998. He was
previously Director of the Economic and Social Research Council's Global Environmental
Change Programme and a Professorial Fellow at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy
Research), University of Sussex. His main research interests are: energy/environmental
policies; sustainable development; climate change; environmental regulation and technical
change; and business and environment issues more generally.
Introduction to the Conference – Professor Paul Ekins, PSI
Paul Ekins is Head of the Environment Group at the Policy Studies Institute. He is also
Professor of Sustainable Development in the School of Politics, International Relations and
the Environment at Keele University; a Founder and Associate Director of the sustainable
development charity Forum for the Future; Senior Consultant to Cambridge Econometrics;
and a specialist adviser to the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons.
In 2002 he was appointed to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Paul Ekins’
academic work focuses on the conditions and policies for achieving an environmentally
sustainable economy, and he has extensive experience consulting for business, government
and international organisations. He is the author of numerous papers, book-chapters and
articles, and has written or edited six books, the most recent of which is Economic Growth
and Environmental Sustainability: the Prospects for Green Growth (Routledge, London,
2000). In 1994 Paul Ekins received a Global 500 Award ‘for outstanding environmental
achievement’ from the United Nations Environment Programme.
UK Energy research context – Dr John Taylor OBE, Director General
Research Councils
John Taylor is Director General of Research Councils in the UK Office of Science and
Technology, responsible for the seven Research Councils funding research across the whole
spectrum of science and technology in the UK science and engineering base. He was
formerly director of Hewlett Packard Laboratories Bristol, the European arm of Hewlett
Packard 's world-wide long range research laboratories, where he developed major programs
of research in the areas of information utilities, information appliances and mathematics,
including internet security, wireless communications, telecomms and personal digital imaging.
Earlier, he led various research groups at RSRE and ASWE in areas including secure
computing and communications, and command and control. He was President of the
Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1998-9, and chaired the UK Technology Foresight Panel
in IT Electronics and Communications until December 1998. He is an honorary fellow of
Emmanuel College and sometime visiting industrial professor at Bristol University and a
visiting professor at Imperial College, London.
The energy System
Speaker – Professor Dennis Anderson, Imperial College London
Dennis Anderson is Director of the Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy and Technology
(ICCEPT) and is Professor of Energy and Environmental Studies at the College. He holds
degrees in engineering and economics and is a member of the Insitutes of Electrical and
Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Physics. He was previously the Energy Advisor to
the World Bank, Chief Economist of Shell and an engineer in the electricity supply industry.
He has published extensively on development economics, energy and the environment.
Discussants 
Dr Dieter Helm, New College Oxford
Dr Dieter Helm is a Fellow in Economics at New College, Oxford, and founding director of
Oxford Economic Research Associates Ltd (OXERA). He is also a Fellow of the Institute of
Energy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and Fellow of Winchester College. Dr Helm has
been a Member of the DTI’s Energy Advisory Panel (1993-2003) and is Chairman of the
DEFRA Academic Panel.
He is Editor of The Utilities Journal and Associate Editor of the Oxford Review of Economic
Policy, and has written extensively on energy matters, and recent publications include: ‘The
Assessment: European Networks—Competition, Interconnection and Regulation’, Oxford
Review of Economic Policy, 17:3, 2001; ‘A Critique of Renewables Policy in the UK’,
Viewpoint, Energy Policy, 30:3, 2002; and ‘Security of Supply, Sustainability and
Competition’, Energy Policy, 30:3, 2002. Other articles include ‘Designing Energy Policy’
(forthcoming in Energy Focus, 2002) and ‘Investment in Energy Networks: Auctions,
Regulation and Planning’ published in Towards an Energy Policy, OXERA Press, (2002).
He has just completed Energy, the State and the Market: British Energy Policy since 1979
published by Oxford University Press in 2003 and has advised governments, regulators, and
major companies, in the UK and internationally.

Jerry Ravetz, Freelance
Jerry Ravetz was born in Philadelphia in 1929; He went to Swarthmore College and then to
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he got his Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics. In 1957 he went to
Leeds University to work in the History & Philosophy of Science, and stayed there nearly thirty
years. He was the first Executive Secretary of the Council for Science and Society (1973-6).
He wrote Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems (1971, republished 1996), and (with
Silvio Funtowicz) Uncertainty and Quality in Science for Policy, where the NUSAP notational
system is developed. He has also collaborated with Zia Sardar (Cyberfutures, Introducing
Mathematics). He is the Director of the Research Methods Consultancy Ltd. He writes and
consults on issues related to Post-Normal Science, where typically 'facts are uncertain,
values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent'
Details on his work can be found at:: www.nusap.net.
Energy Efficiency
Speaker - Professor John Chesshire, SPRU
Now Honorary Professor at SPRU, Sussex University, where he worked for 27 years. From
1986-97, he led the SPRU Energy Programme and co-directed the ESRC Centre for Science,
Technology, Energy and Environment Policy (STEEP). He is an Associate Fellow,
Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University; and Visiting Professor, City University. He
co-edits the EU’s Annual Energy Review and advises the European Commission, OECD, the
National Audit Office and several European governments. For 22 years he advised several
House of Commons select committees. He is now a member of the Government’s Energy
Advisory Panel; Chairman of the Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes; Deputy Chairman
of the Government’s Fuel Poverty Advisory Group; Chairman of Eaga Partnership Charitable
Trust; and Chairman of the National Energy Foundation. He is a past President of the Institute
of Energy.
Discussants 
Jeremy Eppel, DEFRA
Jeremy Eppel is Head of the DEFRA’s Sustainable Energy Policy Division (SEP), responsible
for policy on household, business and public sector energy efficiency, CHP, fuel poverty, the
climate change levy agreements and sponsorship of the Carbon Trust and Energy Saving
Trust. From October 1992 to November 2000 he was Counsellor to the Environment Director
of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, where he
was responsible for advising on the strategic direction of the OECD’s Environment
Programme and its relations with other international organisations and business, NGO and
trade union stakeholders. He also played a major role in the development of the OECD’s
programme on sustainable development, and was in charge of its work on sustainable
consumption and production for five years.
Before moving to OECD, Jeremy Eppel occupied a number of posts in the Departments of the
Environment and Transport, dealing with policy on: business and the environment (as
secretary of the first Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment, ACBE); local
authority housing and local government finance; waste management; marine pollution; and
railways.

Dr Elizabeth Shove, University of Lancaster
Elizabeth Shove is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Lancaster University. She has written
about energy use in buildings, A Sociology of Energy, Buildings and the Environment, with
Simon Guy and has recently completed a book on Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience:
the social organisation of normality. Through this work, and as co-ordinator of a five-year
programme of events on consumption, everyday life and sustainability (funded by the
European Science Foundation), Elizabeth has brought theoretical approaches from the
sociology of consumption and from science and technology studies to bear upon a range of
energy-related issues. Such a strategy has generated new ways of thinking about demand
and the social organisation of energy consumption.
Renewable Energy
Speaker – Dr Catherine Mitchell, University of Warwick
Dr. Catherine Mitchell is a Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Management Under
Regulation in the Warwick Business School of the University of Warwick. Prior to this she
worked in the Energy Group of the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University and
undertook a Visiting Fellowship and Lectureship at the Energy and Resources Group at the
University of California, Berkeley. She was a member of the Government's Energy Advisory
Panel from 1998-2003 and has sat on numerous other energy policy advisory boards, both in
a domestic and international context.
Discussants 
Nick Hartley, OXERA Consulting Ltd
Nick Hartley is a Senior Adviser at OXERA Consulting Ltd. He joined OXERA in 1996 after a
career in the UK Government Economic Service. From 1984-89 he was the Chief Economist
at OFTEL, responsible for developing the early stages of the economic regulation of the
telecommunications industry. He then went on to head teams of energy and environmental
economists at the Department of the Environment and the Department of Trade and Industry.
At OXERA he advises companies and governments on regulatory issues in general, drawing
on the UK experience with the regulation of all the privatised utilities. In 2002 he was
seconded from OXERA to head the team which prepared the UK Cabinet Office
(Performance and Innovation Unit) report on Energy Policy. This report laid the foundations
for the UK Government Energy White Paper published in February 2003.

Professor Michael Laughton, Imperial College
Professor Michael Laughton is Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University
of London where he was formerly Pro-Principal of Queen Mary and Westfield College and
subsequently Dean of Engineering of the University of London. He is currently a Visiting
Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at Imperial College.
He has been involved in renewable energy matters for over twenty years, from involvement
with the SERC on an early wind energy panel, the Working Group Chairman and Editor of the
1990 Report on "Renewable Energy Sources" of the Watt Committee, a contributor to the
Open University programme on renewables as well as discussing the subject in many
seminars and papers. He is currently a member of energy policy advisory groups of the
Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
and the Institution of Electrical Engineers. He has also acted as Specialist Adviser to different
Parliamentary Committees on inquiries into alternative energy sources and efficiency of
electricity use.
Nuclear Energy
Speaker – Malcolm Grimston, Royal Institute of International affairs
Malcolm Grimston was Educated at Scarborough College and Magdalene, Cambridge,
graduating in 1979 having read Natural Sciences and specialised in
psychology. He went on to do a PGCE 1980, Open University BA (Hons) (First Class) 1993
after which he taught chemistry from 1980 to 1987 at Stowe and then Millfield.
In July 1987 appointed Director of Talks for the UK Atomic Energy Authority and in April 1992
joined British Nuclear Industry Forum as Energy Issues Adviser. In October 1995 Malcolm
joined Imperial College, London as a Senior Research Fellow (retain Honorary status) in the
IC Centre for Environmental Technology Environmental Policy and Management Group. More
recently Malcolm was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International
Affairs, Chatham House in September 1999 (now Associate Fellow) and is conducting an
investigation into the future of civil nuclear energy.
Selected recent publications include:
1. Double or Quits - the global future of civil nuclear energy (with Peter Beck) (2002)
Earthscan: London. 237 pp
2. 'The Potential and Role of Carbon Dioxide Sequestration in Tackling Global Climate
Change' (lead author) (2001) Climate Policy 1(2), 155-171.
3. Civil nuclear energy - fuel of the future or relic of the past? (with Peter Beck) (2000) Royal
Institute of International Affairs: London (with Peter Beck), 126 pp.
4. 'New nuclear investment - an unmanageable risk?', in Proceedings, Conference, 'Meeting
the Competitive Challenge', BNES, London (December1999)
Discussants 
Gordon MacKerron, NERA
Gordon MacKerron is an economist working mainly on the economic and policy issues in
energy and the environment. His particular specialisation has been in nuclear power. For
over 20 years he was an academic at SPRU, University of Sussex, where he headed the
Energy Programme from 1997 to 2000. Since January 2001 he has been at NERA (an
economic consultancy) and was seconded for six months as a senior team member of the
Cabinet Office PIU team that produced the 'Energy Review' in February 2002. He has
undertaken a wide variety of consulting and advisory work, including Specialist Adviser and
invited witness to a number of energy inquiries of the House of Commons Trade and Industry
Committee, being Chairman of the Energy Panel, DTI/OST Foresight Programme from 1995
to 1998, and membership of the UKAEA QQR Steering Board in 1999/2000.

Professor Jacquie Burgess, University College London
Jacquie is Professor of Geography and director of the Environment and Society Research
Unit. Her expertise lies in the field of environmental decision-making. In particular, she
specialises in the development and application of deliberative and inclusive processes that
bring specialists, stakeholders and citizens together to resolve what to do about complex and
difficult problems. Jacquie recently led a specialist workshop for DEFRA which brought
together a range of people to scope a public engagement process to support the New Body
designated by government to resolve what should be done to dispose of the legacy of
intermediate and high level radio-active waste.
The European and International Dimensions

Professor Eberhard Jochem, Fraunhofer Institute
Eberhard Jochem, is a Professor at the Center of Energy Policy and Economics at the ETH
Zurich, founded with his colleagues Massimo Filippini and Daniel Spreng the Centre for
Energy Policy and Economics (CEPE) in 1999. He gives courses and seminars in energy
economics, technology and policy at the ETH Zürich and Lausanne.
Eberhard Jochem, born in Essen in 1942, received degrees in chemical engineering in
Aachen (1967), in economics (Munich, 1971), and PhD in technical chemistry (Munich, 1971).
He was research fellow in Munich and at the Harvard University, Boston (1971-1972). In 1973
he joined the Fraunhofer Institute of Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), Karlsruhe where
he served as deputy director between 1983 and 1999. He lectured at the universities of
Munich, Karlsruhe and Kassel. He is member of several national and international scientific
advisory committees, among others of the Helmholtz Society and the Council for Sustainable
Development appointed by the German Government, the Tyndall Center, U.K. and the
Wuppertal Institute. He is member of the editorial boards of the scientific jounals Energy &
Environment, Climate Policy, and Ecological Economics.

Professor Aviel Verbuggen, University of Antwerp
Aviel Verbuggen has a training in engineering as well as economics from Louvain in Antwerp
and Stanford University respectively. Aviel’s energy research covers electricity economics
(co-generation, planning, costing and pricing in power systems, distributed generation and
grid access) and energy efficiency. Aviel is the co-founder of research and consultant units
STEM, CENERGIE and FINES. Also Aviel conceived, supervised and edited the State of the
Environment Reports in Flanders as well as being president of the Environmental Advisory
Council between 1991 and 1995 and principal advisor to the Minister of the Environment
(1999-01). Aviel also co-authored the IPCC Third Assessment Report WGIII, Ch. 5 (Barriers
and Opportunities).