Energy transition

 Mike Stephenson lead two science strategy cycles at the British Geological Survey as Director of Science and Technology and was more recently responsible for the new ‘Decarbonisation and Resource Management’ programme at the British Geological Survey as Executive Chief Scientist, involving 130 staff, approx. £8m/yr. Before that he lead strategy development for the British Geological Survey Energy Programme (70 staff, 5 teams, value ~ £4 m/yr), including development of commercial and grant opportunities in applied energy science - conventional and unconventional oil/gas, carbon capture and storage, radioactive waste disposal, gas storage and renewables.

Mike is well known in Government and industry with extensive experience of working with advisory boards and at executive level. He has been an advisor to Sir Mark Walport (then Government Chief Scientific Advisor) on shale gas and carbon capture and storage; has given evidence to parliamentary committees on energy and net zero issues, and was Chair of the BIS e-infrastructure Energy Data Expert Group, 2013-2014. Mike was a member of the Responsible Business Board of Storengy 2020-2021, providing oversight and guidance on fair business growth, transparency and accountability, and was responsible for review of £15m worth of projects for Science Foundation Ireland as part of the SPOKES programme in 2015. He was also an evaluation panel member of the Science Foundation Ireland iCRAG initiative 2017.

More recently Mike was a member of the UKRI Energy Programme Science Advisory Committee, a member of the Government’s Hydrogen Advisory Council, and Chair of the Geological Society of London Decarbonisation Working Group.

Mike lead the UK community in the energy transition by convening the 2019 Bryan Lovell meeting ‘The role of geological science in the decarbonisation of power production, heat, transport and industry’. The findings of the meeting were summarized in a paper ‘Geoscience and decarbonization: current status and future directions’ in the journal Petroleum Geoscience. The paper has since been downloaded 11000 times. A paper ‘Geological skills and knowledge crucial in delivering net-zero’ was also published in the journal Science in Parliament.

He has published three widely praised books on energy and decarbonisation issues and many peer-reviewed scientific papers on aspects of energy and carbon capture and storage. ‘Returning Carbon to Nature; coal, carbon capture, and storage’ (Elsevier 2013) describes the science of carbon capture and storage. ‘Shale gas and fracking: the science behind the controversy’ (Elsevier 2015), won an ‘honourable mention’ at the Association of American Publishers PROSE awards in Washington DC which ‘…annually recognize the very best in scholarly publishing…’.

More recently he published the visionary ‘Energy and Climate Change: An Introduction to Geological Controls, Interventions and Mitigations’ (Elsevier 2018) which set the agenda for much of the geoscience for the net zero challenge.