Energy Studies
- ANT 314/ENE 314/AFS 314: The Anthropology of DevelopmentWhy do development projects fail? This course examines why well-meaning development experts get it wrong. It looks closely at what anthropologists mean by culture and why most development experts fail to attend to the cultural forces that hold communities together. By examining development projects from South Asia to the United States, students learn the relevance of exchange relations, genealogies, power, religion, and indigenous law. This semester the class will focus on energy in Africa.
- CEE 305/GEO 375/ENE 305: Environmental Fluid MechanicsThe course starts by introducing the conservation principles and related concepts used to describe fluids and their behavior. Mass conservation is addressed first, with a focus on its application to pollutant transport problems in environmental media. Momentum conservation, including the effects of buoyancy and earth's rotation, is then presented. Fundamentals of heat transfer are then combined with the first law of thermodynamics to understand the coupling between heat and momentum transport. We then proceed to apply these laws to study air and water flows in various environmental systems, with a focus on the atmospheric boundary layer.
- CEE 334/SPI 452/ENV 334/ENE 334: Global Environmental IssuesThis course examines a set of global environmental issues including population growth, ozone layer depletion, climate change, air pollution, the environmental consequences of energy supply and demand decisions and sustainable development. It provides an overview of the scientific basis for these problems and examines past, present and possible future policy responses. Individual projects, presentations, and problem sets are included.
- ECE 441/ENE 441: Solid-State Physics IAn introduction to the properties of solids. Theory of free electrons--classical and quantum. Crystal structure and methods of determination. Electron energy levels in a crystal: weak potential and tight-binding limits. Classification of solids--metals, semiconductors and insulators. Types of bonding and cohesion in crystals. Lattice dynamics, phonon spectra and thermal properties of harmonic crystals.
- ECE 481/ENE 481: Principles of Power ElectronicsPower electronics circuits are critical building blocks in a wide range of applications, ranging from mW-scale portable devices, W-scale telecom servers, kW-scale motor drives, to MW-scale solar farms. This course is a design-oriented course and will present fundamental principles of power electronics. Topics include: 1) circuit elements;2) circuit topology; 3) system modeling and control; 4) design methods and practical techniques. Numerous design examples will be presented in the class, such as solar inverters, data center power supplies, radio-frequency power amplifiers, and wireless power transfer systems.
- ECE 581/ENE 581: Principles of Power ElectronicsThis course presents fundamental principles and design techniques of power electronics. Topics include 1) circuit elements: semiconductor devices, magnetic components, and filters; 2) circuit topology: canonical switching cells of power converters, inverters, rectifiers, dc-dc converters and ac-dc converters; 3) system modeling and control: small signal modeling, feedback control and system stability analysis; 4) design methods: gate drive, magnetic optimization, electromagnetic interference and thermal management. Numerous practical design examples are presented in class.
- ENE 321/CEE 321/ENV 371: Resource Recovery for a Circular EconomyThe course will focus on emerging science and technologies that enable the transition from our traditional linear economy (take, make, waste) to a new circular economy (reduce, reuse, recycle). It will discuss the fundamental theories and applied technologies that are capable of converting traditional waste materials or environmental pollutants such as wastewater, food waste, plastics, e-waste, and CO2, etc. into valued-added products including energy, fuels, chemicals, and food products.
- ENE 475/PSY 475: Human Factors 2.0-Psychology for Engineering, Energy, and Environmental DecisionsHuman Factors 1.0 studied how humans interact with machines and technology, bringing engineering and psychology into contact in the 1950s and giving rise to theories of user-centric design. This course will cover recent theoretical advances in cognitive and social psychology, especially in human judgment and decision making, that are relevant for engineers and choice architects as they address technical and societal challenges related to sustainability. Such psychological theory (human factors 2.0) can be creatively applied to designs decision environments that help people overcome present bias, loss aversion, and status-quo bias.
- GEO 203/ENE 203: Fundamentals of Solid Earth ScienceA quantitative introduction to Solid Earth system science, focusing on the underlying physical and chemical processes and their geological and geophysical expression. Through the course we investigate the Earth starting from its basic constituents and continue though its accretion, differentiation and evolution and discuss how these processes create and sustain habitable conditions on Earth's surface. Topics include nucleosynthesis, planetary thermodynamics, plate tectonics, seismology, geomagnetism, petrology, sedimentology and the global carbon cycle. Two field trips included (depending on Covid).
- MAE 221/ENE 221: ThermodynamicsHeat and work in physical systems. Concepts of energy conversion and entropy, primarily from a macroscopic viewpoint. Efficiency of different thermodynamic cycles, with applications to everyday life including both renewable and classical energy sources. In the laboratory, students will carry out experiments in the fields of analog electronics and thermodynamics.
- MAE 438/ENE 438: Electrochemical EngineeringThis class goes over the fundamental electrochemistry in applied systems related to batteries, fuel cell, electrochemical fuel production, and supercapacitors. The class covers thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport related topics as they pertain to electrochemical systems. The context of this class overlaps with fundamental principles taught in chemical engineering, material science, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering. The class has several hands-on laboratory exercises to review electrochemical characterization techniques: electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, chronoamperometry, galvanostatic cycling, cyclic voltammetry.
- MAE 538/ENE 538: Electrochemical EngineeringThis class goes over the fundamental electrochemistry in applied systems related to batteries, fuel cell, electrochemical fuel production, and supercapacitors. The class covers thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport related topics as they pertain to electrochemical system. The context of this class overlaps with fundamental principles taught in chemical engineering, material science, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering. The class has several hands-on laboratory exercises to review electrochemical characterization techniques: electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, chronoamperometry, galvanostatic cycling, cyclic voltammetry.
- ORF 455/ENE 455: Energy and Commodities MarketsThis course is an introduction to commodities markets (oil, gas, metals, electricity, etc.), and quantitative approaches to capturing uncertainties in their demand and supply. We start from a financial perspective, and traditional models of commodity spot prices and forward curves. Then we cover modern topics: game theoretic models of energy production (OPEC vs. fracking vs. renewables); quantifying the risk of intermittency of solar and wind output on the reliability of the electric grid (mitigating the duck curve); financialization of commodity markets; carbon emissions markets. We also discuss economic and policy implications.