Week 1: 8 January
Lecture Topics: Introduction to Class, Policies, Expectations; Summary of Global Energy Status Quo; HQL & Near-to-Medium Term Trends; Link Between Human Population Growth & Energy Access; Estimates of Future Global Energy Demand.
Readings: Tynan: Energy for the 21st Century, Chapters 1& 2;
Pasternack: Energy and Human Development
Lecture Notes: Overview of Course
Useful links: GapMinder
Homework 1 (due 15 January, Quiz in 4th hour on 22 January)
Week 2: 15 January
Lecture Topics: Review of Fundamentals of Thermodynamics: First & Second Laws of Thermodynamics; The Idealized Heat Engine; Actual Conversion Efficiency; Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI); Fossil Fuel Resource Estimates; Comparison of Estimated Fossil Fuel Resources Against Estimates of Future Energy Demand
Readings: Tynan: Energy for the 21st Century, Chapters 3 and 4
Implications of Energy Return on Energy Invested for Total Primary Energy Demand
What is the Minimum EROEI for a Human Society?
Homework 2 (due 22 January, Quiz in 4th hour on 29 January)
Week 3: 22 January
Lecture Topics: Radiative Heat Transfer Basics, Radiation-atmosphere interactions; 0-d heat balance for the coupled Earth-Atmosphere
system; Earth's Carbon Cycle; Implications for Allowable Future C emissions; Global Carbon Budget
Solar Spectrum - from Sun and at Earth's Surface
Earth's IR Spectrum showing effects of molecular absorption bands
Readings: Tynan: Energy for the 21st Century, Chapters 5,6 and 7;
Earth's Heat Balance (Trenberth, AMS);
Earth's Carbon Balance (Schimel, Nature)
Homework 3 (Due: 29 January 2018 Quiz: 5 February 2018)
Week 4: 29 January
Lecture Topics: What Possible Energy Sources Can Be Deployed at Scale to Meet Future Human Energy Demand? Geothermal Energy: Steady-state & Heat Mining. Concentrated Solar Power: Concepts, Direct & Diffuse Solar Irradiance; Energy Storage
Readings: Tynan: Energy for the 21st Century, Chapter 8
Hoffert: Implications of Future Stabilization of Atmospheric CO2 Content (Nature 1998)
Hoffert: Energy for a Greenhouse Planet (Science 2002)
Davis: Committed Emissions from Existing Fossil Fuel Systems (Science 2010)
Hoffert: Farewell to Fossil Fuels? (Science 2010)
Wave and Tidal Power Estimates
Hydropower Potential Estimates
MIT Report: The Future of Geothermal Energy (14+MB PDF)
Solar Thermal Power (lecture notes)
IEA Solar Thermal Power Technology Roadmap
Does Ivanpah Signal the demise of Concentrated Solar Thermal Power? (MITTech Review)
Homework 4 (Due: February 19 2018 Quiz: February 23 2018)
Week 5 & 6: 5 February; 12 February
Lecture Topics: Wind Energy: Turbine Aerodynamics & Mechanics; Theoretical and Real Efficiency of Turbines; Betz's Law; Wind speed variabliity and effect on power generation; Intermittency; Resource Estimates; Geophysical boundary layer; Implications for maximum power available from wind.
Readings: Tynan: Energy for the 21st Century, Chapter 9; MacKay: Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air pages 263-268
Maximum Power Extracted from Wind Turbine Array (lecture notes scan)
Maximum Power Extracted from Wind Turbine Array - Excel Spreadsheet (.XLS)
Wind Turbine Array Wakes - Computational Modeling
Effects of Large-scale Wind Power on Climate PNAS
Estimates of Available Wind Power (Archer & Jacobson) [Caution: Archer&Jacobson neglects important facts! ]
compare their upper limit estimates with those found in MacKay above]
Wind Power Myths (Debunked) - IEEE Spectrum
Wind Power Statistics - Installed Capacity, Energy Production, etc... (Global Wind Energy Council)
Homework 5 (Due: February 26 2018 Quiz: March 5 2018)
Week 7: 19 February
Lecture Topics: Solar PV Technology: The Basics of Semiconductors; Intrinsic Efficiency Estimates; P-N Junction as Simple Solar Cell and the Illuminated Diode Response; Performance of Solar PV Cells and Linkage to Microscopic Processes; Emerging Solar PV Technologies: Multijunction, Organics, Other; EROEI Estimates of Solar PV; Intermittency
Readings: Tynan, Chapters 11 & 12;
Useful links: Review of Amorphous Si PV Cells; PV EROEI Estimates;;
Useful links: Maximum Theoretical Efficiency of a single-junction PV Cell (Lecture Notes)
Ideal Diode - Qualitative Picture (Lecture Notes)
Week 8: 26 February
Ideal Diode - Quantitative Model Part I (Lecture Notes)
Ideal Diode - Quantitative Model Part II (Lecture Notes)
Ideal Diode as a Solar PV Cell (Lecture Notes)
Homework 6 due 9 March 2018 quiz 12 March 2018
Week 9: 5 March
Lecture Topics: Tynan, Energy for the 21st Century, Chapter 14: Technology Substitutions
Lecture Notes: Learning Curves, Technology Diffusion, Merit Order Effect: (Dr. Ahmed Abdulla, Guest Lecturer)
Lecture Notes: Technology Transitions & Adoption in the Market
Technology Diffusion & Adoption. Application to historical energy source transitions and renewable energy. Implications for C-emissions.
Lecture Notes: Renewables Integration Overview
Lecture Notes: Energy Storage Technologies
Readings: Fisher and Pry: Forecasting Technological Change (1971)
Marchetti: Forecasting Energy Technology Transitions Using the Substitution Model
Forecasting Energy Technology Transitions (1985) - Laurmann
Technology Learning Curves and the Future Cost of Electricity (Azevedo 2013)
Battery Learning Curves - Nature Climate 2015
The Role of Energy Storage in Renewable Energy Power Systems - Denholm NREL 2010
Limits of PV Integration in Grids with Storage - Denholm and Margolis - Energy Policy 2007
Impact of Renewables Variability in California and Texas (MIT Tech Review)
Interconnecting Wind Farms to Reduce Intermittency
Germany Runs into Limits of Integrating Wind Power (MIT Tech Review)
Recent Example - Southern Australia Outage
Homework 7 due 16 March 2018 - Material will be on final exam
Week 10: 12 March
Lecture Topics: Ground transportation energy technologies: Liquid fuel (petroleum) replacements, Electric Vehicles
Biofuel Lecture Notes
Crops to Ethanol - Energy Return on Energy Invested - Pimental and Patzek, Shapouri Articles
The Path Forward for Biomass and Biofuels - Ragauskas et al, Science 2006
Exploiting Diversity and Synthetic Biology for Production of Algae Biofuels - Mayfield, Nature 2012
Batteries.
Other relevant C-free technologies: Carbon capture and sequestration; Biofuels; nuclear fission - LWR, nuclear fission - advanced r reactors, nuclear fusion. Issues with nuclear energy.
Course Recap.
Readings:
Useful links: