Syllabus

Tentative Syllabus

1. Climate Change: Causes, Contributors, Consequences (1 week):

• Incontrovertible evidence of climate change and its seriousness
• Global warming (how and why?), Greenhouse effect, and effects of greenhouse gases (how and why?): CO₂, methane, water vapor
• Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and Carbon footprint and Carbon Cycle: metrics and significance
• CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels (why) as primary contributor to climate change, impact of fracking
• Renewable energy sources, their carbon footprint
• Sustainability: meaning, significance; in context of energy generation and use
• Mission: create a mindset to be sustainability conscious

Resources:

Selection of video snippets including NASA videos on changing climate, melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica; “Racing Extinction” on melting of permafrost; and animations from NREL/DOE on Greenhouse effect.

2. Electricity as a possible solution to combat climate change (1 week):

• Fundamentals of energy and power, overview of types of energy (potential, kinetic, mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, nuclear, etc)
• Energy use and energy sources in the United States
• Fundamental concepts of electric energy, electricity generation and the electric grid
• Possibility of shifting energy use to electricity in various sectors, and generating that electricity from renewables
• Overview of the current technologies and future trends in renewable energy technology

Resources:

Prof. David Keith (Harvard University) “I was wrong about Solar”

3. Energy from Conventional Fossil Fuel Sources (1 week):

• Traditional energy sources: (coal, natural gas, nuclear energy etc.)
• Physics of combustion based energy sources (fossil fuels)
• The carbon cycle, its relationship to global climate and the environment
• Magnification of impacts such as polar melts and ocean acidification
• Carbon cycle disturbance from fossil fuel combustion

Nuclear Power (1/2 week):

• Role of existing nuclear plants in the interim as a carbon-free energy source
• Fundamentals of nuclear energy, fission vs fusion
• How nuclear plants work
• Boiling water vs Pressurized water reactor (BWR, PWR), Advanced Reactors
• The problem of storing radioactive waste – will it ever be solved?
• New designs to make nuclear power plants modular and safer

Resources:

Animations illustrating differences between BWR and PWR plants; video on advanced nuclear reactors from U.S. NRC

Hydroelectric systems (1/2 week):

• Potential of hydro-electric power in the US
• Run of the river hydro plants, dams, and installed generation hydro-electric capacity
• Principle of hydro-electric power: kinetic and potential energy conversion, turbines and generators

Resources:

Demo of harnessing potential energy; electric generators

Wind Power (2 weeks):

• Wind energy capacity and potential in the US
• On-land and off-shore wind power capacity
• Why does the wind blow? Geophysical basis of wind, solar heating, Coriolis effect
• Benefits, constraints and implications of wind generation: economic, environmental, shadow effects, bird migrations, societal, etc
• Physics of harnessing wind energy, Betz’s Law
• Wind turbine gearboxes and basics of rotational mechanics (torque, speed, power and gear ratios)
• Coefficient of performance and maximum-power point.
• Structure, construction and efficiency of wind turbines
• Electric generator technologies for wind-generation
• Correlation between wind energy generation and utility load
• Relative cost of wind-electricity
• Variability in wind supply, and associated challenges for grid-integration
• Wind forecasting in day-ahead and real-time markets
• Success examples like Colorado

Resources:

Demos on wind turbines and generation of electricity; operating at the maximum coefficient of performance

Solar Energy (1/2 week):

• Energy from the sun: light, heat, solar spectrum
• Physics overview of electromagnetic (EM) energy: light and heat as forms of EM energy, behavior of light, wavelength and frequency, black bodies, particle-wave duality
• Spectral absorption of CO₂, CH₄ and water vapor, mechanism of greenhouse effect.
• Overview of solar energy technologies: Solar thermal, solar PV and concentrating solar power.
   

Solar Photovoltaics (PV)– Residential/Rooftop, Community Solar and Utility-Scale (1.5 weeks):

• Physics of PV cells: Semiconductor fundamentals, photon-induced charge pairs, photon energy and wavelength, physical limits on maximum efficiency.
• I-V characteristics of PV cells, PV modules and panels and maximum power point.
• PV system sizing, rating (peak power vs actual power), capacity factor and lifetime cost of energy
• Grid-interconnection of PV, inverters and balance of system
• Variability of PV power over a day (compared to avg. utility load), challenges to grid integration
• Benefits, costs and constraints of PV systems: economics, infrastructure, environmental impact, limitations, potential and technological future, public policy and societal perception
• PV vs other energy sources: effective cost, carbon footprint
• Community Solar gardens, utility scale solar
• PV Forecasting in day-ahead and real-time markets
• Case studies of successful solar deployment: Hawaii, California, New Jersey, etc.

Resources:

Animations to show working of PV cells; Demos of I-V characteristics of PVs; maximum power point; partial shading and effects on PV arrays; PVs for charging batteries.

The Electric Power Grid and its Stability (1 week):

• Structure of the Electric Power grid and historical perspective
• Components of the power grid: generation, transmission and distribution
• Physics of AC electric systems: voltages and currents, frequency, real and reactive power, RMS value
• Comparison and contrasts with DC systems, benefits and challenges of each
• Variable generation, distributed generation and stability of the electric grid
• Demand-side management: load following generation

Resources

Demos using Power World software

• Energy Storage (1/2 week):
  • Need for storage and types of storage (batteries, compressed air, pumped hydro, flywheels, etc)
  • Fundamentals of electrochemistry and battery storage, types of battery chemistries
  • Energy density, power density, round trip efficiency and state-of-charge
  • Large-scale storage: pumped hydro, flywheels, compressed air, etc

Resources

Animations of battery fundamentals, demo of charging, discharging and state-of-charge

 

• Electrifying transportation (1 week):

• Possibility of Electrifying Transportation powered by renewables
• Electric and Hybrid-electric vehicles
• Batteries and Supercapacitors for automotive application
• Fuel cell fundamentals and types of fuel cells: pros and cons
• How does the efficiency of fuel-cell systems compares with natural-gas turbines

Resources:

Animation of how fuel cells work; demo of fuel cells

• Energy Conservation in various applications (1 week):

• LED fundamentals, comparison to incandescent and CFLs
• An introduction to thermodynamic principles, air conditioning, heating, refrigeration and ventilation; heat pumps, energy efficient homes
• Adjustable-speed electric drives for industry and transportation

Resources

Demo of LEDs and dimming, and demo of adjustable-speed drives

• Energy conservation in the Agriculture sector (1/2 week)

• Greenhouse gases from various agricultural sectors
• Effect of various diets on the environment
• Making vegetables affordable by growing them in greenhouses, using LEDs powered by renewables

Resources

Video on various agricultural/diet-related greenhouse gas emissions, heat pumps and air conditioners

• Miscellaneous Topics (1-1/2 weeks)

• Electricity Management Apps – weather forecasting for resources and loads – using the Internet of Things and Bluetooth technology
• LEED Certification, Architectural Design and Urban sustainability
• Net-zero electricity homes and communities
• Electricity Policy Issues, RES in Minnesota), Carbon Trading, Windsource, Tax Depreciation for Solar Gardens/Community Solar, etc.

Guest Speakers - wherever appropriate throughout the course.

All through the course, critical thinking and decision making on socio/economic impact of electricity usage and possible solutions for sustainability will be promoted.

Animations: Animations that can be manipulated will be used throughout to provide a visual conceptualization to improve learning. Some of these animations are developed and they will be supplemented with excellent animations available through various organizations