Material in Lecture 3 is covered in Chapter 3 of Energy Systems & Sustainability, 2/e (2012) and explains how our current energy systems work, or don't, and how our use of energy has changed and continues to expand.
I've added more current information about energy use in the US, Vermont and on our Randolph Center campus. 3.2: Energy: primary vs. delivered vs. used 3.3: Expanding use of energy 3.4: Energy use: national comparisons
Additional resources & lInks of interest:
> How to read LLNL energy flow charts (scroll down to video) > NHPR's coverage of potential biomass 'vetoes' (NHPR, September 2018) > Waste heat: innovators turn to an overlooked renewable resource (Jones, Yale E360, 29 May 2018) > American companies still make aluminum. In Iceland. (Appelbaum, NYTImes, 2017) > The city where the internet warms people's homes (Biba, BBC, 13 October 2017) > From fertilizer to zyklon B: 100 years of the scientific discovery.... (McKie, The Guardian, 2 Nov 2013) > Nitrogen fix: energy in nitrogen fertilizer (Schrock, MIT Technology Review, 1 May 2006) |
Resources:
Assignments:
Week 3 writing assignment Due Friday, 21 Sep: Research paper stage 1: three references and potential thesis statement(s) Reading: start Rhodes chapter 3 |
Student's pick's F'17:
- 'Trump promised to bring back coal jobs. That promise 'will not be kept', experts say.' (Fears, Washington Post, 29 March 2017) vs. 'Coal's colossal comeback' (Moore, The American Spectator, 17 April 2017)
- 'Trump's Defense Secretary cites climate change as national security challenge' (Revkin, ProPublica, 14 March 2017) vs. 'Trump signs executive order unwinding Obama climate policies' (Davenport & Alissa, NYTimes, 27 March 2017)
- 'California's goal: an electricity grid moving only clean energy' (Megerian, LA Times, 31 Aug 2017) vs 'The appalling delusion of 100% renewables, exposed' (Bryce, National Review, 24 June 2017)
- 'Hydro, wind and solar make inroads in California's electric grid' (Nikolewski, LA Times, 20 July 2017) vs. 'Emerging climate bonds boom, but are they really green?' (Newsmax, 19 August 2017) or 'California rain expected to boost hyro-electric revenue' (Street, Breitbart, 24 March 2017)
- 'The conservative case for nuclear energy' (Bryce, National Review, 16 December 2016) vs. 'Nuclear energy is unsafe and unreliable. And we still don't know what to do with nuclear waste.' (Kamps, LA Times, 14 September 2017)
- 'The US backs off nuclear power. Georgia wants to keep building reactors' (Plumer, NYTImes, 31 August 2017) vs.'US nuclear comeback stalls as two reactors are abandoned' (Plumer, NYTimes, 31 July 2017)
- 'No place for climate change deniers to hide' (Inslee, Huffington Post, 10 September 2017) vs. 'How climate change is being blamed for Harvey after a dozen years without a major hurricane' (Richardson, Washington Times, 29 August 2017)
- 'America's first offshore wind farm launched with GE turbines twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty' (Garfield, Business Insider, 22 May 2017) vs. 'Wind power is an attack on rural America'