Supply and use of conventional and alternative fuels and energy. Design and operation of unit operations for processing of fossil fuels, biomass, and other energy sources. Environmental considerations of energy use. Credit will be granted for only one of CHBE 483, CHBE 583.
Engineering concepts of demand side management (DSM), energy auditing, analysis of buildings and industrial equipment, measurement & verification, and system data analysis. Energy efficient technologies for green buildings and industrial processes. Behavior and energy use. DSM policy concepts.
Energy policy process and governance. Sustainable energy as a social and political challenge, formal government structures and process, actors in the policy, policy analysis, policy instrument, and energy planning and approval processes, including environmental assessment. Introduction to demand-side energy policy.
Energy/environment/society interactions; development of energy resources; energy demand and its determinants; policy dimension of energy and climate change; impacts on ecosystems; life cycle analysis; impact assessment and other tools for quantitative and qualitative evaluation of alternative energy sources.
Planetary thermodynamics, energy system evolution, energy services, role of renewable energy sources. Alternative energy technologies. Solar, wind, small-scale hydro, tidal, geothermal, electrochemical (batteries, capacitors, and fuel cells), and biochemical energy, electromechanical conversion processes. Techno-economic assessment of alternative energy technologies.
Thermodynamic analysis of energy conversion processes, power cycles and refrigeration cycles. Exergy analysis of conventional energy systems. Thermal conversion technologies.
Concepts in sustainability around technology and material use; relevance of biological ecology to industrial ecology; life cycle analysis: components and applications; and approaches to design.
Understanding key issues for carbon management, protocols for carbon accounting and methodologies for emissions inventories and carbon costing. Economics and business response to climate change are examined.
Introduction to safe, clean, and sustainable supplies of energy. Economic, social, environmental, and policy issues raised by current systems of energy use and production are examined.
Synoptic and mesoscale meteorology and weather forecasting applied to wildfires. Effect of weather on fire behaviour, danger, smoke, climate and sustainability at the urban-forest interface.