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.
The meteorology of hydro, wind, and solar power. Atmospheric processes affecting renewable energy on global, regional & local weather scales.
An evaluation of the issues of sustainability and collapse of ecological and social systems through the archaeological study of the past.
Physical principles underlying weather and climates. Thermal, moisture and wind climates from the scale of plants and animals to the globe. Daily weather systems and climate change. Credit will be granted for only one of GEOB 200, GEOB 204 or APBI 244.