Instructor:  Prof. Tad W. Patzek, patzek@ce.berkeley.edu

When and Where : Thursdays: 532 Davis, 2-3 p.m.

Office Hours: Tuesdays, 425 Davis Hall, 3-4 p.m.

How much: One hour of discussion/~1-2 hours of work in teams.

What to bring to class: Good spirit and will to work with others

Grading: Pass/Fail based on attendance and participation

Brief Course Description: If you do not want to be an active participant and contributor to the final report, please look elsewhere, as the class size is limited.  In this course I intend to take you on a journey into the future of energy supply to our civilization.  In the first part, we will find out what - if anything - can be “sustainable,” and if “sustainable development” is possible at all.  I will stress the differences between the earth-crust fuels (coal, crude oil, methane, gas-hydrates, etc.), and the “renewable fuels,” solar, biomass, and wind. Only when I convince you that the fuels from the earth crust afford convenience but no sustainability, and biomass energy is not sustainable, we will move on to photovoltaic cells.  In the second part, we will study the inherent strengths and severe limitations of solar energy and its weaker derivatives,  hydropower and wind.  We will try to arrive at practical scenarios of widespread use of solar cells.  We will spend some time talking about the forgotten benefits of energy conservation (which is not an energy source!).  In the third part, we will put our knowledge together into a report/science paper, and continue to debug our thinking.

Sponsoring Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering

Required text: None, I will bring the materials for you to use