ES 231: Survey of Energy Technology

Graduate course (Half course, spring semester. Course meeting times W, F 2:30-4:00, in Maxwell Dworkin G115.)

Prerequisites: One full year of college-level physics and familiarity with chemistry at the high school advanced placement level. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. 

Principles governing energy generation and interconversion; current and projected world energy use; selected important current and anticipated future technologies for energy generation, interconversion, storage, and end usage. This course does not require advanced undergraduate or graduate training in any discipline. Graduate students who are not scientists or engineers but who have had enough background in basic physics and chemistry to follow most of the technical content of the course are welcome to enroll. The breadth of the topics addressed is so large that the technical depth will rarely go beyond that which can be built onto Newtonian Mechanics and Advanced Placement high school chemistry. Some elementary concepts in physics beyond Newtonian Mechanics--such as Electricity and Magnetism--will be introduced at the phenomenological level to permit a technical discussion of topics such as electrical energy technology.

Grading will be based on:

1. Problem sets, approximately weekly, approximately 50%.
2. In-class or take-home mid-term exam, approximately 20%.
3. Final project, approximately 30%.

Course Outline (Tentative)

Lecture numbers represent 80-minute class meetings, WF 2:30-4:00 in Maxwell Dworkin G115.  There are 25 regularly scheduled meetings begining 1/28/09. Sections will be scheduled after the first class meeting.

1 (1/28). Earth's Energy System: Definition of Energy, units & interconversion, important magnitudes. Global energy sources. Energy for human use: Pre-industrial revolution energy consumption; important developments. History, present, and projected distributions of primary energy and population: World, US, major regions. Energy consumption per capita and other measures of well-being. Carbon emissions. The Kaya identity. Energy flows in the US. Projections.

2 (1/30). Silver Bullets: Scale of the human energy challenge. What would it take for each of several major or anticipated major technologies to become the "silver bullet"? Intro to concepts in energy economics.

3 (2/4), 4(2/6). The Basics. Forms of Energy. Types of energy transformation. The Heat Engine. Laws of Thermodynamics. Perpetual motion machines. Irreversibility. Entropy. Availability. 

5 (2/11), 6 (2/13). Engines. Heat engine cycles, Carnot cycle, Carnot efficiency, Heat pumps.  Spark-ignition engine, Diesel engine, Jet engine cycles. Stirling engine.Non-idealities. Brayton and Rankine cycles used for power generation. Steam turbine. Gas turbine. Power plants.

7 (2/18). Electricity. AC, DC, interconversion, transformers, transmission and distribution. Relevant physics of E&M. Losses. Electric power demand cycles.

8 (2/20). Biomass. Photosynthesis. Chemistry of sugar, starch, lignin, cellulose, lipids. History of human biomass energy. Renewable vs. non-renewable sources. Renewable biomass sources: food crops, energy crops (incl. algae), waste streams.  Fermentation. Long-term production potential worldwide. Waste, fertilizer use, land and water use issues, e.g. fuel vs. food. Current costs. Prospects for advances.

9 (2/25), 10 (2/27), 11 (3/4). Fossil Fuels. Geology, formation mechanisms, chemistry, history. Heating value (LHV and HHV) of a fuel. Coal: World resources. Exploration. Extraction. Sources, sinks, transportation. Coal-fired power plant designs, efficiencies, costs. Carbon intensity. Scrubbing (SOx and NOx technologies).Petroleum and Gas. Energy density of fuels. Exploration. Extraction. Petroleum refining and products. World resources. Sources, sinks, transportation. Flared gas. LNG technology. Economics including shipping (oil and LNG) and gas pipelines. Challenges to growth. Non-conventional fossil fuels. Methane hydrates, shale oil, tar sands.

12 (3/6). Synthetic fuels of organic origin. Thermodynamics, processes, pathways of important chemical transformations. Economics. Syngas production from coal, biomass, muni waste, steam reforming. Water-gas shift reaction. Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of alkanes. Coal gasification and IGCC. Bio-diesel.

13 (3/11). Carbon sequestration. Carbon capture from flue gas and geological sequestration. Other approaches: reforestation, mineralization, ocean sequestration, air capture, accelerated weathering.

(3/13)***Midterm exam***

14 (3/18). Nuclear power.  Fission: basic reactions; reactor designs; reactor safety; reactor products, recycling and weapons proliferation.  Fission economics. Fusion: basic reactions; reactor types and projections: scale, economics.

15 (3/20). Wind. Energy in wind; relevant fluid dynamics and turbine mechanics, Betz limit. Capacity. Problems: transmission, storage, grid stability

(3/25, 3/27) ***spring recess***

16 (4/1). Hydroelectric, waves, tides, geothermal. Hydroelectric capacity. Water turbine efficiency. Turbines without dams for tides, rivers. Available and currently harnessed power in waves and tides. Geothermal flux, regional variation and minimum requirement. Heat mining. Geothermal systems.

17(4/3). Solar thermal heating and electricity generation.  The solar resource. Passive and active solar heating systems. Concentrated solar power. Concentrating devices.

18(4/8). Photovoltaics. Essential solid state physics. Solar cells. Concentrating vs. flat panels. Crystalline Si, thin film Si, other inorganic including future projections; organic; other. Economics. Photochemical fuel production.

19(4/10)-20(4/15). Energy Storage. Batteries: important types, theoretical limitations on specific energy storage and current proximity to limits.  Pumped hydroelectric. Compressed Air Energy Storage. Flow batteries. Flywheels. Electrochemical capacitors. Superconducting magnetic energy storage. Thermal energy storage. Applications: transportation; intermittent renewables; grid. Requirements for hybrid electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, and electric vehicle. Hydrogen storage and transport.

21(4/17). Fuel Cells. Thermodynamics of extractable work vs. Carnot heat engine. Types of fuel cells. Costs; prospects for improvement.

22(4/22), 23 (4/24), 24(4/29). Interesting technologies in end usage.
Lighting: incandescent, fluorescent, solid state
Automobile transportation. Major losses and lower limits. Fuel cell vs battery.
Space heating and cooling.  Insulation; R-values and U-values. Passive solar heating. Windows. Heat exchangers, heat pumps and refrigerators. Thermoelectrics. Major industrial energy usage. Agriculture, iron, aluminum, cement, chemicals, plastics, fertilizer.

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