Alex Zapantis

Biography

Alex has a Degree in Applied Science with a major in Physics, a Graduate Diploma in Health & Medical Physics and an MBA. After completing his degree, Alex worked as a physicist for the Queensland Government regulating the use of ionising radiation. From there, he moved to the Queensland University of Technology as the University Radiation Safety Officer before being appointed, in 1996, as the Health Physicist in the Office of the Supervising Scientist (OSS), part of the Australian Department of the Environment and Heritage. In 2000 Alex was promoted to Assistant Secretary of the OSS where he was accountable for delivering the Commonwealth Government’s environmental audit, inspection and oversight programmes of uranium mining and exploration activities in the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory, and for advising the Minister for the Environment and Heritage on uranium mining and nuclear fuel cycle policy issues. In 2004, Alex joined Energy Resources of Australia as the Environment Safety & Health Manager for the Ranger Uranium Mine and was transferred to Rio Tinto Australia’s head office in Melbourne in 2006 as Manager Energy and Sustainable Development for the Rio Tinto Energy Group. Since 2006, Alex held a number of roles in Rio Tinto Energy and Rio Tinto Coal Australia with a focus on energy and climate policy, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas management and product stewardship as applied to coal and uranium. During his time at Rio Tinto Alex developed and led the implementation of Rio Tinto Energy’s Product Stewardship Strategy and served on the boards of the Energy Policy Institute of Australia, Australian Coal Association Low Emissions Technology Ltd, the World Coal Association, and the Coal Industry Advisory Board to the International Energy Agency. Alex Joined the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute as General Manager – Asia Pacific in 2016.  

Research Interest

Energy and climate policy, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas management