Environmental Studies 115: Energy and the Environment
Winter 2014 Course Syllabus
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
– John Muir, 1911 (My First Summer in the Sierra)
“It is only recently that [humans] have begun to consider how they can reconcile
human needs for energy with the finiteness of the Earth. Such a reconciliation will
engage all the institutions of human society.”
– Milton Katz, 1971 (“Energy and Power”, Scientific American)
Welcome to Energy and the Environment! This is a required course for all Environmental Studies
Students (BA and BS), and a useful and informative course for all others concerned with basic issues
surrounding the environment, the global economy, and major social problems. We will learn a number
of scientific and quantitative concepts as well as historical and social ones as they relate to energy. A
continuing theme throughout the course will be an emphasis on energy efficiency. It is my hope that
you will take from this course a deeper understanding of energy and some of the basic laws of
thermodynamics, and apply them to your skillset as you venture into this rapidly changing world.
– Dr. Manalis
Course
Goals
Throughout the quarter, students will develop an understanding of and justification for
the following claims:
1. The laws of thermodynamics are a central organizing principle for the
environment, science, industry, and the overall economy.
2. Energy and entropy provide an integrative capability for addressing
environmental problems.
3. The basic and more complex scientific underpinnings of climate change represent
serious technical and social challenges for global human society and for the
United States.
4. Energy production, distribution, and use are a major contributor to social
injustices that are prevalent in today’s societies, including racial, gender,
socioeconomic, and geopolitical.
Lectures
MWF
9:00-9:50 AM
Buchanan 1910
Attendance is required and recorded
Tardiness will be noted
Instructor
Mel Manalis (manalis@es.ucsb.edu)
Office: Bren 4005
Hours: W 10:30-11:50
After Class
By appointment
Teaching
Assistants
Stephanie Harris
Chandra Macauley
Alana Yurkanin
Peng Zhang
snharris407@gmail.com
cmacauley@umail.ucsb.edu
ayurkanin@bren.ucsb.edu
p_zhang@umail.ucsb.edu
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Course
Website
All major course Content will be posted on Gauchospace. This includes key slides from
lectures, online readings, homework questions, review guides, and contact information
for your TA’s.
https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/
Please email your prospective TA if you are not yet registered but need access.
Required
Readings
Assignments will be made on Mondays and Posted on Gauchospace. There are several
sources of your required readings:
1. Course reading Main PDF File (Posted on Gauchospace)
2. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors by Burton Richter (Available at UCSB Bookstore)
3. Coal: A Human History by Barbara Freese (Available at UCSB Bookstore)
4. Hot off the Press – Recent and important news Stories (Posted on Gauchospace)
Homework
Problems
Homework problems are in Chapter VI of the Course Reading Main PDF File.
Exams
Exams will cover lectures, readings, homework problems and quiz questions. There will
be two exams (see course schedule on the next page).
Grading
Your grade will be assigned as follows:
Section Grade (Homework, participation,
attendance in section and lecture)
Test 1
Test 2
We will verify your homework completion by you taking a homework quiz on
Gauchospace. After completing all problems for the given HW assignment, you can begin
the Gauchospace quiz, and will have 25 minutes to answer questions based on the HW
questions. See the “Homework Quiz Info” document on Guachospace for more
information.
40%
30%
30%
To pass the class, you must earn an average of 50% or higher on your test scores.
Diversity
Statement
This course is designed in part to help you understand broader issues in society that
relate to social harms and potential benefits to traditionally disenfranchised or otherwise
marginalized groups of people, particularly involving gender and racial issues at the
international level, as well as socioeconomic trends in the United States. Addressing
these issues requires an open mind to forms of institutional failure and mechanisms for
empowerment from both a historical and a future-oriented perspective. It is our hope
that you take these problems and their causes to heart, and think about such broader
patterns throughout your academic, intellectual, and personal development.
Academic
Integrity
Statement
We treat you as adults who are honorable people. If special problems come up, see your
TA, ASAP.
Academic dishonesty assaults the basic integrity and meaning of a University.
Cheating, plagiarism, and collusion are serious acts that erode the University’s
educational role and debase the learning experience not only for perpetrators, but also
for the entire community. It is our expectation that students in ES115 will understand
and subscribe to the ideal of academic integrity and that they will bear individual
responsibility for their work. Materials (written or otherwise) submitted to fulfill
academic requirements must represent a student’s own efforts. Any act of academic
dishonesty attempted by any UCSB student is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
This does not mean you can’t talk about your work with other students and brainstorm,
etc., but when it comes to doing your work, it must be your own. We encourage Students,
TAs and Faculty to interact as much as possible on academic subjects of mutual interests.
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Course Summary | Energy and the Environment
Energy and the Environment will begin by discussing and presenting the video “Shift Happens”. This will get
students thinking about rapid change in the modern world. We then consider the impact of energy on human
well-being, utilizing the correlation with United Nations Human Development Index and electricity consumption.
A simple way to improve people's lives with off-grid electricity includes devices such as solar generated electricity
promoted by global nonprofit organizations such as Unite-to-Light. Despite the benefits that electricity provides
to many people, there are many external costs related to pollution and technological failures that are important to
consider both qualitatively, and as feasibly as possible, quantitatively in terms of economic impact.
Transitioning to the discussion of fossil fuels, we discuss key issues in hydraulic fracturing, the tar sands, and coal.
We also point out the dangers of excessive consumption with Bartlett's “forgotten fundamentals” of the energy
crisis. Ending this discussion with the latest advances in methane supplied fuel cells an example of which is
currently demonstrated on the UCSB campus.
We then approach basic energy types and units, and distinguish energy from power, as the two are often confused.
We help to clear up this confusion by introducing the key concept of a hybrid energy unit (kWh). Advancing these
issues, we then engage the matter of the first law of thermodynamics, discussing perpetual motion machines and
the impressive relation of the first law to thermocline energy.
Within the purview of the first law, the class will then begin to understand the basis of climate by discussing the
Earth’s energy balance. We show that, theoretically, even without the consideration of greenhouse gases, climate
change is possible with enough of a change in this balance (albedo changes, additional human energy release).
Then we get into the reality of climate change by discussing the greenhouse effect and the global warming
potential of various greenhouse gases. These issues are further explored by referring to climate feedback loops. In
addition to the effect on climate, ocean acidification remains a significant problem. We finally consider various
stabilization scenarios and the most troubling one them all: geoengineering.
The first midterm exam will cover the above content.
We begin nuclear energy with a general discussion of the puzzling phenomenon of radioactivity, but then explore
how this can be utilized in a heat engine cycle to generate electricity. There are a number of other related issues as
well, such as the dangers of proliferation but the potential boon of breeding uranium, along with Bill Gates’
terrapower investment.
The course finishes up the second half by jumping into the issue of energy efficiency and a historical take on
energy flows in society. We then briefly explore the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, and the basic order of
merit of energy types. This brings in a basic understanding to start the discussion on heat engines: perfect, ideal,
and real. These can easily be related to thermocline energy because of the large changes from perfect to ideal and
real. We then look at improving the efficiency of heat engines by taking a look at combined heat and power, hybrid
cars, and combined cycle heat engines. Then comes the discussion of heat pumps. We explore how they can have
efficiency that is several factors greater than the best electric or gas heating devices. Such a discussion lends itself
right over to the discussion of second law efficiency. We conclude the second law portion by describing the
connections between entropy and information, and the tradeoffs between efficiency and resiliency. We thus return
to the system definition and thermodynamics as the critical aspects of sustainability.
The last day of class should tie the issue of external costs back to sustainability and entropy. If we can do this
effectively, students should be able to walk away from the course with a strong grasp of scientific and social issues
relating to energy and the environment.
The second midterm exam will cover this remaining content.
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Tentative Course Schedule (generally speaking, reading should take place before the week begins. Readings also ALWAYS include GS links
for the week, although they aren’t listed explicitly in the assigned reading below)
Reading
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Chapter I, 1-46
BSM, Preface ix-x,
Introduction pp 1-6
6 Jan
Intro to Course
Population Video (Hans Rosling)
Why study Energy?
8 Jan
People and Energy
Shift Happens
How do we plan the energy needs for a world
of 10 billion?
10 Jan
Sustainability & External Costs of Energy
Unite to Light
What do economists mean when they refer to
“externalities”?
Chapter II,1-49
Coal Book, Ch 2,3,5,8
BSM, Ch 9 pp 75-82
13 Jan
Fossil Fuels 1
15 Jan
Fossil Fuels 2
17 Jan
Hydrogen, Bloom Box
Chapter III, 1-33
20 Jan
MLK Jr. Day
HW Quiz 1 Opens, 1PM
22 Jan
Energy Units, First Law, Power
HW Quiz 1 Ends, 8PM
24 Jan
Calculations, Helms Project, Utility Curve,
Thermocline Energy
Chapter III, 34-76
BSM, Ch 2-3 pp 9-26
27 Jan
Energy Balance 1
29 Jan
Energy Balance 2
31 Jan
Greenhouse Effect
Chapter III, 77-104
BSM, Ch 16 pp 195206
3 Feb
Global Warming Potential & Feedbacks
HW Quiz 2 Opens, 1PM
5 Feb
Stabilization & Acidification
HW Quiz 2 Ends, 8PM
7 Feb
Gail Lubchenko Talk, Geoengineering
Review Readings and
Key Slides
10 Feb
Ethics and Review
12 Feb
Midterm #1
14 Feb
Bill Gates
Chapter IV, 1-44
BSM, Ch 12 pp 142149
17 Feb
President’s Day
19 Feb
Nuclear 1
21 Feb
Nuclear 2
Chapter V,1-37
BSM Ch 11 pp 94-121
24 Feb
Nature of Energy Waste, Sanky Diagrams
26 Feb
nd
Introduction to 2 Law and Entropy
28 Feb
Heat Engines 1
Chapter V, 38-74
3 Mar
Heat Engines 2
HW Quiz 3 Opens, 1PM
5 Mar
Heat Pumps
HW Quiz 3 Ends, 8PM
7 Mar
Second Law Efficiency
Chapter V, 75-82
Review Readings and
Key Slides
10 Mar
Entropy and Information
12 Mar
Conclusion and Evaluation
14 Mar
Midterm #2
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