GEOS 24705 / ENST 24705 / ENSC 21100

Energy: Science, Technology, and Human Usage (2018)

Prof: Liz Moyer (Hinds 405)

TA: Jim Franke (Hinds 491)

Field trip coordinator: Mia Leatherman

Lecture 1: Human energy use, energy and wealth

Lecture 2: Human energy use, Earth's energy flows

Lecture 3: Are the Earth's energy flows enough? Intro to photosynthesis and agriculture

Fields in Oklahoma, Oklahoma Farm Report

Lecture 3 slides

No PS3.

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Lecture 4: Agriculture & the Green Revolution; transition to the modern energy system

• Pre-Industrial-Revolution growth in human energy use (15th-18th centuries): the chapter on energy from "The Structures of Everyday Life", by the historian Fernand Braudel. It is OK to skim the long section on animal power. Pay especial attention to concluding remarks on p. 371-372.
• An essay by Smil from Nature, 2000, on the history of the horse as a source of mechanical work for humans.
• Optional: Notes on the power of horses, this article from Nature (Scientific Correspondence), 1993. Read only after finishing the problem set.
• Optional: Notes on the power of humans, an article from Human Power 1989, describing the calculations of the MIT engineers who built the Daedalus, the plane that set the world record in 1988 for distance by a human-powered airplane (which still holds today).

Lecture 5: Pre-industrial energy use

Lecture 6: Breaking the heat-to-work barrier

• For the next problem set you'll need sections from Galloway, "History of Coal Mining in Great Britain". (See problem set for which sections.) The book is available online as an e-book. (It is out of copyright since it was written in 1882).
• Optional: for some reading on steam engines, see this nice page on the history of steam engines set up by a professor from Michigan State.

Lecture 7: The birth of the industrial revolution, theory of heat engines

• A chapter called "Engines and Refrigerators: the Second Law" from a great book called "The Refrigerator and the Universe".
• Carnot's original 1825 paper, "Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power", that described the maximum-efficiency heat engine cycle.
• A summary of Carnot's contributions, written by a physicist.
• You may find my background notes on the physics of steam useful for some problems.

Lecture 8: The Industrial Revolution

• To get a sense of what railroads meant to the U.S., and to Chicago in particular, read the beginning of Chapter 2 ("Rails and Water") in Cronon's book about Chicago, Nature's Metropolis, from p. 55 to 76. This is one of the great works of environmental studies. You can read this section via Google books here.
• To understand the transition from water power to steam power in the U.K., see this article about the switch, focusing on the cotton industry. The author argues that steam engines were more expensive, and further water resources were available, but those potential sites for water power were too far from cities where labor had concentrated. The stean engine in contrast could be brought to the site of the labor.
• A second article by the same author describes a failed plan, just before the advent of steam in Britain, to massively increase waterpower use through a huge water works project in Scotland, creating aqueducts and reservoirs. The plan looked successful at first -- "Accounts of Thom's achievements in the British press were filled with the expectation that water was on the verge of a nationwide comeback, rolling back the challenge of Watt's engine" -- but there was no enthusiasm to spend public money on it, and mill owners could not agree on collective private funding.

Lecture 9: Industrial revolution continued

Lecture 10: The 2nd great revolution: electricity

• Read the first part of the power plants chapter from the great book "Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape", by Brian Hayes. Read the section on fossil-fuel power plants, to page 201.
• For those who have not taken physics since high school, you may find this background on electricity useful as reinforcement of Thursday's lecture. For now, the most relevant material is up to the middle of p. 9 (but of course read further if you want to).

Lecture 11: Electricity II

• An 1882 New York Times article on the opening of Edison's first power plant in New York and the first lights in the New York Times building
• Another article article 125 years later on the shut-down of the last DC power generation from Edison's original New York system.
• The section on Tesla vs. Edison in the electricity background reading
• Skim this description of the development of hydropower at Niagara at a U. Buffalo web page.
• Henry Adams' famous essay about his awe at the generators being displayed at the Paris 1900 World's Fair. Read up to the famous line "...he found himself lying in the Gallery of Machines at the Great Exposition of 1900, his historical neck broken by the sudden irruption of forces totally new.''. (Another famous line from this essay is "Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.")
• Optional The front page of the Buffalo Courier on Jan 13, 1897 had a half-page description, with illustrations, of a banquet held in honor of the successful transmission of electric power from Niagara Falls to Buffalo. The guest of honor was Nicolas Tesla, the inventor of the technology used for transmission.
• Optional A website describing early electrification projects, including the electrification of Buffalo. Skim but read the section describing the discussion of different strategies for transmitting power, including compressed air.
• Optional This website giving pictures and descriptions of the first power transmission projects in the U.S., 1889-1909. (The site is by a group devoted to the electrical insulators use in high-voltage power lines.)

Lecture 12: Electricity III

• (In prep for Tues. lecture) The chapter from the Hayes book titled "The Grid". You can skim for now, but you will need to read this more carefully for upcoming problem sets.
• (In prep for Tues. lecture and Wed. lab) Pick a reading about grid operators (often "independent system operators", ISOs, or "regional transmission organizations", RTOs). Choose among: a New York Times article about grid operators; a brochure from New England ISO, and this 2015 article from "UtilityDive" describing how activist groups in the Southeast, one of the few parts of the country served by traditional utilities instead of an RTO, are pushing for creation of an RTO in their area.
• Optional A more detailed reading on electric motors.

Lecture 13: Electricity IV: generation, grid management and markets

• Read this slide deck on electricity markets and regulation carefully, so that you can start from an informed place in the discussion. Make sure that you have also done the readings from Lecture 12 above.
• A summer 2017 article from RTO Insider on California's "duck curve", which requires that some renewables be "curtailed" (turned off) in the middle of the day. It can be interesting to browse around on this site to get a feel for electricity market issues in general.

Lecture 14: End of electricity, turbines, wind

• The wind section of the Hayes book chapter on power plants (p. 215-221). This is pretty basic and a bit out of date given changes in wind turbines.
• Watch videos of wind turbines being built. This time-lapse shows installation of a tiny 330kW turbine; not typical but interesting because the turbine is so small they hoist the generator in separately instead of lifting a complete nacelle unit. This time-lapse is of a somewhat bigger turbine, though still smaller than the current norm of 2 MW. Finally this video shows a very large 3.6 MW turbine.
• A long video describing the inside of a wind turbine. From 2010 so not that recent, but excellent graphics.
• (Optional) Some brief notes on rotational vs. linear velocity, if you need review for the problem set.
• (Optional) An information page on the Vestas V100 turbines (and click for a brochure). These are designed for use in low wind, and can operate in winds with speed as low as 3 m/s ("good" wind is ~ 8 m/s). The turbines are "variable speed", i.e. they need not be synchronized to the elecrtical grid. They do still use a gearbox to let the turbine turns at very low speeds while generator spins more rapidly.
• (Optional) The very useful and important Wind Technologies Market Report, produced each year. This one is for 2016. A goldmine of useful information about the U.S. wind market.

• These notes on solar PV physics are intended for lab prep, but are also good background.

Lecture 15: Wind, hydro

• The hydro section of the Hayes book chapter on power plants (p. 212-215).
• An explanation of the three types of hydro turbines.
• A promotional video on the Three Gorges dam project on the Yangtze in China, completed in 2012. Three Gorges is the world's largest electrical generation station, with 22.5 GW of installed capacity.
• (Optional, skim). Video of Three Gorges while it was being built.

No lecture Th. May 17

Lecture 16: End of wind, beginning of internal combustion engines / transportation

Lecture 17: Internal combustion engines / transportation (make-up time, Wed. 3:30 PM, Hinds 451))

Lecture 18: End of transportation, fossil fuels

• Read the oil & gas chapter of the Hayes book. You will need this for the problem set.
• Fuel usage in driving: You may find this reading on air and rolling resistance useful for the problem set.
• Steam cars I: watch this video of Jay Leno talking about and driving his 1925 Doble E-20 steam-powered car, once owned by Howard Hughes, which burns gasoline externally and hit over 130 mph.
• Optional: Steam cars II. Read a 1959 Harper's article about the advantages of steam for automobiles, and its potential return.
• Optional. Read two articles from the 1902 edition of "Automobile Review Magazine" describing the new gasoline fuel and improvements in carburetors to cope with variations in fuel properties. Excerpts are here; search on "Subject of Gasoline" to find the right spot and read through the following article, "Properties of Gasoline". The first article begins: "When the explosive engine first came to be used for vehicle propulsion, the explosive mixtures were obtained by drawing air over the surface of some of the highly volatile naphthas..."; the second describes gasoline as a "byproduct in the manufacture of kerosene from crude petroleum".
• Optional. Read this article from Wired on the history of the electric car, and General Motors' new position as leading the push to bring electrics back with its Chevrolet Bolt. The 2018 version of the Bolt claims a range of 238 miles per charge. The CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra, publicly asserts a longterm plan to eliminate gasoline from their line and go all-electric.