Showcase Event

Charlotte Powell

Charlotte Powell is Head of Bioenergy and Carbon Removals at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, where she is leading £150m of Net Zero Innovation Portfolio investment into Biomass Feedstocks, Hydrogen BECCS and Greenhouse Removals. Prior to joining DESNZ, Charlotte was the European Leader for GE Water, delivering large-scale wastewater and anaerobic digestion solutions. She has over 30 years of experience in engineering and sustainability.

Will Macalpine

William is a willow breeder at Rothamsted Research. He has over 21 years’ experience in willow breeding, perennial energy crop agronomy and in making phenotypic and physiological measurements. He has performed over 700 crosses, carried out research to overcome crossing barriers, produced mapping populations and elite SRC willow varieties. He has planned, planted and managed around 100 perennial energy crop field trials. William has an in-depth knowledge of the UK National Willow Collection, a unique Salix germplasm resource, which is located at Rothamsted Research.

Kerrie Farrar

Kerrie graduated in 1996 with a Plant Sciences degree from the University of Edinburgh. She obtained a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology from the University of Durham (2000) and spent three years (2000-2003) as a postdoc at Aberystwyth University.

Kerrie has worked at IBERS (previously IGER) since January 2004; as a postdoc (2004-2007), a BBSRC Institute Career Path Fellow (2007-2013), Research Group leader for Energy Crop Biology (2011-2016), Theme leader for Agricultural Sciences & the BioEconomy (2018-2022) and as Institute Strategic Program lead for Resilient Crops (2023-present).

She has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) since 2014. Research in her lab aims to understand plant genomics, plant development and plant-microbe interactions, with a focus on the energy grass Miscanthus. Miscanthus is a perennial C4 grass which grows to a height of several metres every year, even in temperate climates, providing an annual biomass crop for over 15 years. Increasing biomass yield, under a changing climate, is essential in order to sequester carbon and to replace petroleum-based energy, liquid transport fuels, and bulk chemicals.

Kevin Lindegaard

Kevin Lindegaard has nearly 30 years of experience working in the field of energy crops and renewable energy. He spent 7 years working at Long Ashton Research Station as the plant breeder in charge of the European Willow Breeding Programme. He was responsible for breeding high-yielding and disease resistant willow varieties including: Resolution, Endurance and Endeavour.

Kevin has acted as a consultant for 20 years and has done hundreds of feasibility studies. He is currently using his consultancy skills to help build the Envirocrops web app – a decision support tool that will harness the digital tools we take for granted in modern life. He also is a key member of the Biomass Connect consortia. He also runs the Sustainable Fuel Register. He is a former director of the Wood Heat Association.

Timothy Volk

Personal Statement
Timothy was born and raised in Bangladesh, and studied environmental science and engineering in Sweden, China, and Bangladesh. His Ph.D. research focuses on the potential of establishing a bioeconomy in New York State that makes the best use of its biomass for achieving net zero emissions and ensuring a sustainable economy.

Graduate Research Topic
Assessment of Optimal Use of Restricted Biomass in NYS to Achieve Climate Goal

Favorite Quote
If your presence doesn’t make an impact, your absence won’t make a difference – T. Smith.

Steve Smith

With a background in atmospheric physics and a career in UK climate policy, Steve’s interests lie at the intersection of climate science and decision-making. He is Executive Director Oxford Net Zero and CO2RE: two programmes both focussed on stabilising the climate both rapidly and sustainably.

Oxford Net Zero brings together experts from across the University to address the critical issue of how to reach global net zero emissions. It includes academics from disciplines including Anthropology, Biology, Earth Sciences, Geography, Law, Business and Governance.

CO2RE is a multi-disciplinary research hub focused on removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Backed by seven UK universities, CO2RE works with demonstration-scale removal projects around the country. It conducts solutions-led research to develop and evaluate a balanced portfolio of scalable techniques.

Steve has published in major journals on a range of topics, including metrics for comparing emissions of different greenhouse gases, and the governance of carbon dioxide removal. He is also passionate about turning the latest science into usable tools, such as the Net Zero Tracker and the State of Carbon Dioxide Removal.

He joined the Smith School from the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) where he co-led the Climate Science Team and played a role in the legislation of the UK’s net zero target. Before that he was Head of Science at the Committee on Climate Change. He has a PhD from Imperial College London and is a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Alongside continuing to advise governments and businesses, Steve communicates climate change to children and wider audiences. He helped write Climate Crisis for Beginners by Usborne Books, and was a contributor to the Ladybird book on Climate Change.

John Hawkins

John is a third-generation tenant arable farmer in Mid Dorset. He grew up on the farm but then after a BSc in Maritime Studies was commissioned into the Royal Navy. Later he travelled extensively as a security consultant which gave him an insight into global problems issues and solutions before realising that there is no place like home.

In a period of agricultural change, his primary initial role on the farm was to look for ways to diversify the business to support the families involved. This led to planting a 5000 tree cherry orchard (agroforestry) and committing 10 years to adding value to his fruit. The organic knowledge and steep learning curve in horticulture then paved the way to take over as Managing Partner of the Business 6 years ago within the background of 10 years min till arable rotation. 4 years ago using support from Mid Tier CS and Wessex Water and other complementary systems he turned his whole farm into a giant experiment (a sort of shot in the dark pre-policy pre ELM’strial) to see if Regenerative Agriculture was a viable alternative to intensive production whilst still seeing if he could grow food and energy crops more sustainably.

Reed Canary Grass was a catalyst for this change and initially grown on contract. It has been trialled on farm for 7 years now. Current themes include using Soil Carbon increases to maximise Nitrogen efficiency on farm, especially with Perennial Crops. Everything is driven by a practical observation of Science and tested rigorously to compare it to previous arable rotations within the confines of a rented farm.

Jamie Rickerby

Jamie has always been interested in farm machinery – with his 140-year-old family business being the main Claas dealer in the north west. For the last 10 years Jamie has run Willow Energy and accumulated an enormous amount of experience as a planting and harvesting contractor of Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) willow. In this time the company has planted 779 hectares and harvested 5,500 hectares of SRC with a total biomass output of 225,000 tonnes.

SRC contracting is not an easy occupation. Most of the machinery was not designed for the UK’s maritime climate and Jamie has accumulated a wealth of knowledge on what works and what doesn’t. Jamie is currently leading the BEIS funded Net Zero Willow project, which aims to construct, test and develop to full commercial deployment three innovations that will enable the rapid scaling up of the UK biomass supply chain. The proposed machines will facilitate the efficient multiplication, planting and harvesting of SRC willow crops through include increased automation, reduced handling and lighter machinery that result in a lower environmental footprint.

Willow Energy works in partnership with the Iggesund paperboard mill for whom they provide contract planting, maintenance and harvesting services.  In the last five years WE has begun multiplying SRC willow varieties on license with Rothamsted Research.  

Jamie is passionate about agriculture and the countryside. With advancements in technology, there is a huge potential to make British agriculture more efficient and sustainable for future generations. With the advent of artificial intelligence technologies, farmers will be able to tend to individual plants rather than fields of crop. The ability to tend individual plants will increase productivity per hectare and free up land to be used for biodiversity and energy production through parental energy crops. Jamie is excited to have been funded through the BEIS Biomass feedstock innovation program to develop artificial intelligence technology which will help scale up the production planting and harvesting of SRC willow throughout the UK and beyond.

Enrique Cornejo

Enrique joined Offshore Energies UK in 2023 as Head of Energy Policy. His focus is to promote the development of energy and industrial policies harnessing the UK’s offshore energy resources. He also leads the CCUS and hydrogen pillars within the North Sea Transition Deal (NSTD).

Enrique has extensive experience working in energy and climate policy, having worked in various international and domestic roles in the UK government for over 12 years focusing on oil & gas, renewables, and climate policy development. His experience includes heading the Energy Team at the commercial section of the British Embassy in Mexico, delivering the oil & gas exports strategy for the Americas and Africa at the Department for International Trade, leading the technologies strand (CCUS, hydrogen, electrification) of the UK government’s Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy and leading the CCUS Supply Chains Team at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Erisa Senerdem

Erisa Senerdem is editor of the Argus Biomass Markets report at global price-reporting agency Argus Media: a weekly that publishes price assessments for the industrial wood pellets, chips, residential pellets and palm kernel shell (PKS) spot markets globally, in-depth market commentaries and analysis, and related data. She has been with Argus for over ten years and previously covered power, natural gas, coal and petroleum coke markets. Prior to Argus, Erisa worked as a researcher, university lecturer, journalist and a parliamentary consultant for EU legislation. She holds a Ph.D. in economics, with a special focus on the energy field.