Professor Dennis Anderson (Mechanical Engineering DIC 1960, Professor of Energy and Environmental Studies)

Provided by Mrs Marsaleete Anderson, written by Professor Peter Pearson (Centre for Environmental Policy)

Professor Dennis Anderson

Dennis Anderson, emeritus Professor of Energy &Environmental Studies in the Centre for Environmental Policy, died on 20 April, aged 70.  Youngest son of a Sheffield coalman and charabanc owner, at 15 Dennis was apprenticed to the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) and studied at Rotherham Technical College for his HND.  There a perceptive lecturer recognised his remarkable mathematical ability, observing him reading algebra for pleasure on his tram journey to College, rather than comics like the Hotspur or Wizard.  These early studies led to a distinguished career, in which he made prescient efforts to identify and address the challenges of energy, environment and human development. 

During his work for the CEGB, Dennis gained postgraduate qualifications in electrical and nuclear engineering and later in econometrics, at Imperial, Manchester and LSE.  His subsequent experience included periods as an economic advisor at the Ministry of Technology, chief economist at Royal Dutch Shell and senior economist and energy advisor at the World Bank. On retiring from the Bank in 1996, he committed himself unstintingly for more than a decade to Imperial, becoming an Economic and Social Research Council Global Environmental Change Professorial Research Fellow and then Professor of Energy and Environmental Studies.  His establishment of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology (ICEPT) in 1998 showed vision and an unusual capacity for interdisciplinary engagement - colleagues across the College have spoken warmly of his openness to new ideas and generosity of spirit.  A stream of postgraduates came under his kindly but testing scrutiny as, in shirtsleeves at the white board, he showed them enthusiastically how to craft key relationships into models with tractable results that they could translate into communicable policy insights.

In his last decade, helped by his ICEPT team,  Dennis made key policy contributions, advising government on Energy Reviews and White Papers, playing a leading role for the Prime Minister's office in developing technological options for G8 climate change talks, assisting the Commission on Environmental Markets and Economic Performance, and providing  his specialist advice to Parliamentary Select Committees, the UK Energy Research Centre,  the Carbon Trust and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  As executive adviser to the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change, he provided invaluable advice, contributing key background papers and to the drafting of the final report.  The energy and environmental policy field encompasses controversial issues, with outspoken champions or critics of particular technologies and approaches.  While Dennis handled such debates carefully, he could be assertive in the face of ill-informed arguments. 

Notable for his unstuffy manner and gentle humour, his former students and colleagues regarded him with great affection, indeed as a model of decency, commitment and humility. Dennis’s intellectual vigour and enthusiasm remained undimmed throughout his seventh decade.  Had he not been the victim of cancer, there is little doubt that he would have continued to battle for the brighter future which he insisted was within reach. Dennis received an OBE for services to the energy industry in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in June 2008. A good friend and generous host, his home life was central to him.  He is survived by his wife, Marsaleete, and two daughters, Lucy and Margaret.