Instructor:  Prof. Tad W. Patzek (patzek@patzek.berkeley.edu)

Teaching Assistant:  TBA

Spring 2007 Semester, MWF: Lecture, 406 Davis, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

Office Hours: Mondays 1-3 pm, Wednesdays 2-4 pm

Course format: Three hours of lecture and one hour of discussion  per week.

Prerequisites: Math 1A or equivalent, Chemistry 1A, Physics 7A.
Engineering 77 recommended. Some knowledge of thermodynamics (C105B, ChemE141, ChemE241, E115, EPS209, or MSE201B) might be helpful.

Grading:

Class Assignments  40%

Midterm 20%

Final Project  40%

Homework assignments due in two weeks.  No late assignments graded.

Brief Course Description: Apply the fundamental laws of mass conservation and thermodynamics to evaluate overall thermodynamic efficiencies (I and II Law) of major human energy supply schemes: fossil, nuclear, solar, wind, and biomass. Define and quantify the irreversible linear processes, and sustainable/unsustainable cycles. The emphasis will be on relationships between ecosystems (ancient and new), their energy storage and throughput, energy production and its side effects.

Sponsoring Department:  Civil and Environmental Engineering

Required text:

• None, Class Notes will be provided

Some Good Papers and Books (Not Required):

Abbott, M. M. and Van Ness, H. C. 1972, Thermodynamics, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.

Benini, O., Cervelatti, R., and Fetto, P. 1996, The BZ reaction: Experimental and model studies in the physical chemistry laboratory, J. Chemical Education 73: 865–868.

Carathèodory, C. 1976, The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Vol. 5 of Benchmark papers on Energy, Chapt. Investigations into the foundation of thermodynamics, pp 229–256, Dowden, Hutchinson, & Ross, New York.

Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. and Cavalli-Sforza, F. 1995, The Great Human Diaspora: The History of Diversity and Evolution, Perseus Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Georgescu-Roegen, N. 1971, The Entropy Law and the Economic Progress, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Good, N. E. and Bell, D. H. 1980, The Biology of Crop Productivity, Chapt.  Photosynthesis, Plant Productivity and Crop Yield, pp 3–50, Academic Press, Inc., New York.

Hatsopoloulos, G. and Keenan, J. 1965, Principles of General Thermodynamics, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Ho, M.-W. and Ulanowicz, R. 2005, Sustainable systems as organisms?, Biosystems 82: 39 – 51. See here

Keenan, J. H. 1951, Availability and irreversibility in thermodynamics, The British Journal of Applied Physics 2: 183–192.

Kestin, J. 1966, A Course of Thermodynamics, Blaisdell.

Kimbrell, A. (ed.) 2002, Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, Island Press, Washington.

Kondepudi, D. and Prigogine, I. 1998, Modern Thermodynamics, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Lovelock, J. 1988, The Ages of Gaia, A Biography of Our Living Earth, W. W. Norton & Co. Inc.,New York.

May, R. M. 2001, Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems, Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford.

Odum, E. 1998, Ecological Vignettes – Ecological Approaches to Dealing with Human Predicaments, Hardwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam.

Patzek, T. W. 2004, Thermodynamics of the corn-ethanol biofuel cycle, Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 23(6): 519–567, An updated web version is at http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS416-Patzek-Web.pdf.

Patzek, T.W. and Pimentel, D. 2006, Thermodynamics of energy production from biomass, Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 24(5–6): 329–364, Available at http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS-BiomassPaper.pdf.

Planck, M. 1926, Treatise on Thermodynamics, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 3 edition,1945 Dover Reproduction.

Reich, P. B., Hobbie, S. E., Lee, T., Ellsworth, D. S., West, J. B., Tilman, D., Knops, J. M. H., Naeem, S., and Trost, J. 2006, Nitrogen limitation constrains sustainability of ecosystem response to CO2, Nature 440: 922–923. See here

Schneider, E. D. and Kay, J. J. 1994, Life as a manifestation of the Second Law of thermodynamics, Mathematical Computational Modelling 19(6–8): 25–48.

Schrödinger, E. 1996, Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Slesser, M. (ed.) 1974, Energy Analysis Workshop on Methodology and Conventions, The Nobel House, Stockholm, Sweden, International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study.  See here

Slesser, M. (ed.) 1975, Workshop on Energy Analysis and Economics, Liding¨o, Sweden, International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study. See here

Smil, V. 1985, Carbon – Nitrogen – Sulfur – Human Interferences in Grand Biospheric Cycles, Plenum Press, New York and London.

Stodola, A. 1927, Steam and Gas Turbines with the Supplement on the prospects of the thermal prime mover, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Ltd., New York, 1 edition, Two volumes, authorized translation of the sixth German edition.

Taiz, L. and Zeiger, E. 1998, Plant Physiology, Sinauer Associates, Inc., Publishers, Sunderland, Massachusetts, 2 edition.

Ulanowicz, R. E. and Hannon, B. M. 1987, Life and the production of entropy, Proc. Royal Soc. London. Series B, Biological Sci. 232(1267): 181–192. See here