Admission requirements
There are no prerequisites for this course. This course is compulsory for all students in the first year.
Description
The Western world has witnessed an unprecedented growth in prosperity over the last century. This would not have been possible without access to convenient and cheap energy sources, notably oil and natural gas. Their decreasing availability and concerns about global warming have spurred the introduction of new, CO2-lean fuel concepts based on renewable resources. Humanity faces the global challenge to develop and deploy alternatives that will replace fossil fuels on a sustainable basis and are profitable at all scales, both for the producer and the consumer.
This course will look at this global challenge through a series of plenary lectures which are focussed on solutions to this problem. The solutions are oriented around two broad themes: improvements in efficiency in the way we use energy, i.e. the energy sinks, and how to provide sustainable sources of energy. Two seminars will follow the plenary lecture each week. Here students will be given training in the necessary skills and knowledge to utilise the information they obtain in the plenary lectures. In these workgroups, students will work (in groups of 4-5) on their own case study, where they can put theory into practice. The case study will involve applying the quantitative skills they have acquired to develop a scenario-proposal for the sustainable energy supply of a specific country. Based on their quantitative assessment, the students will connect to the other courses in the curriculum by addressing ethical or political dilemmas applicable to sustainable energy to fulfil a utilitarian need, such as the need for enforcing regulations, the possible role of litigation, and socio-economic pros and cons.
Course objectives
To achieve the final goal of proposing a scenario for making a given country sustainable, students will need to develop the following knowledge and skills:
Quantitatively assess where better energy efficiency can be realistically obtained.
Quantitatively assess various (sustainable) energy sources in terms of their ability to provide the necessary energy and fairly judge their environmental, social and economic impact.
Find, evaluate and critically read relevant academic literature and other information.
Use this information to come to informed and quantitatively correct conclusions.
Be able to combine various fields of social sciences or humanities with scientific evidence in normative discussions about ways to provide a scalable and sustainable energy scenario for our societies.
Have a solution-oriented attitude to sustainability: design and evaluate strategies to solve problems that are relevant to sustainability with arguments that are supported by quantitative evidence.
Timetable
Please see the LUC website: www.lucthehague.nl
Mode of instruction
The course meets 3 × 2 hours weekly for seven weeks, consisting of:
(1 × 2 hours) plenary lectures that will be given by experts in various areas of energy use and production;
(2 × 2 hours) seminars that will be a mixture of teaching, skills acquisition, discussion and presentation. Students will get an opportunity to ask questions about the lectures, be provided with further information necessary for their final project, discuss issues relevant to the theme of the week and hone their skills in quantifying the various elements of the sustainable energy debate.
Assessment method
Due attention will be paid to active attendance and continuous assessment: there is an emphasis on class participation; a reading assignment will be set each week, which the students will have to do individually at home; and two experiments will be done during the course. The final assessment items are an oral presentation about a future energy supply scenario for a given country and an exam.
- Engaged understanding of course material: assessed through In-class participation (15% of final grade), ongoing weeks 1-7
- Individual engagement with reading material: assessed through weekly reading assignment (10% of final grade), due weeks 1-7, Mondays at 10:00
- Insight by hands-on experiment: assessed through report and participation (15% of final grade), as planned
- Use quantitative assessment of energy sources in scenario: assessed through oral presentation followed by SWOT peer review (30% of final grade), due week 7
- Understand concept and role of energy: assessed through final exam (30% of final grade), due week 8
Blackboard
This course is supported by a BlackBoard site
Reading list
There are two books which are compulsory reading for this course:
‘The Great Disruption’ (Paul Gilding, Bloomsbury Press, 2011).
‘Energy Survival Guide’ (Jo Hermans, to be published with Leiden University Press in 2011).
Each week, reading will be set that must be read before the plenary lecture. This reading material will either consists of chapters from the above-mentioned books, or be from additional sources. In the latter case, the texts will be provided on blackboard in due course.
Additionally, the following book is recommended as additional reading:‘Sustainable energy – without the hot air’ (David J.C. MacKay, UIT Cambridge Ltd., 2009). This is available as a free pdf download from http://www.withouthotair.com/.
Registration
This course is only open for LUC The Hague students.
Contact information
dr. Robin Purchase, course convener: r.l.purchase@lic.leidenuniv.nl
Weekly Overview
The first week forms an introduction to the course. In weeks 2 – 7, experts in various areas of energy production, efficient use and its role in society will be invited to speak. Topics covered will include:
Solar energy
Nuclear energy
Wind energy
Home heating and cooling
Future energy scenarios
Preparation for first session
Ch. 1, 10, 12-15 and 18 of ‘The Great Disruption’ (Paul Gilding, Bloomsbury Press, 2011) must be read prior to the first lecture. The reading assignment based upon this reading material is to draft the plan for the case study by the students. This draft plan must be submitted on the Friday of week 1. Students are strongly encouraged to read the entire of ‘The Great Disruption’ before the course begins.
Liberal arts and science education in Energy is solution-oriented, and successful students will require a high school math and physics excellence entry level in concepts and quantitative thinking in energy and the corresponding ability to explain information presented in mathematical forms (e.g., equations, graphs, diagrams, tables, words). Essential training for the required entry level for this course can also be found in a small and focused subset of Khan Academy lectures on energy, electricity and thermodynamics:
Introduction to work and energy
Work and Energy (part 2)
Conservation of Energy
Work/Energy problem with Friction
Electric Potential Energy
Electric Potential Energy (part 2— involves calculus)
Voltage
Capacitance
First Law of Thermodynamics/ Internal Energy
More on Internal Energy
Work from Expansion
Work Done by Isothermic Process
Carnot Cycle and Carnot Engine
These lectures include extensive online training with exercises with a free Google account to allow students to assess and improve their entry level when necessary prior to entering the course. The course will include level assessments that will count towards the final grading. “A” level requires students to provide accurate explanations of information presented in mathematical forms and to make appropriate inferences based on that information.