The Energy
Crisis: Policies,
Engineering, Economics.
A Proposed course for the spring semester 2006.
Professor
Claudio Filippone; Dr. Filippone’s cutting edge research in nuclear energy has
been cited most recently in the Economist and his work as a consultant for high
level officials at the Department of Energy allows a most up-to-date status on
energy policies under current consideration.
He is an expert in advanced nuclear reactor technologies and holds
several patents on waste heat recuperation systems to decrease environmental
pollution.
Overview
No
one denies that oil resources are at the heart of the dominant political and
economic crisis in the world today. Yet
in an increasingly globalized and industrialized world, the competition for
fossil fuels, and the increasing demand for nuclear power, will surely bring
new and greater crises in a world where dwindling fuel supplies intensify
competition for those necessary resources.
Brief Course
Description
The
course will have three primary goals which are related but often treated as
discrete—the technological, the economic/managerial and the political issues concerning energy
policy. With reference to technology
issues, key material will be presented in a manner that will allow the
non-technologically-oriented student to—after a few weeks—master the basic
scientific concepts and concerns. With
reference to the economic/managerial and political issues, the course will
focus on innovations in the energy industry as well as problems, relative to
the risks and rewards associated with the economic and political realities. A
full spectrum analysis on “future generation” advanced power plant aspects,
including renewable energy sources will also be executed by highlighting the
cost of their feasibility in the current market. This will provide the student with the
appropriate perspectives to assess the regulatory, managerial, and executive
mechanisms that currently drive energy policy in the
Grades
For each energy source discussed in the classroom
individual students will be assigned with 2-3 page weekly reports on policy
status, economic trends, and technological limitations/improvements. From these
summaries, and additional topics extracted from the lectures and seminars,
students will perform a 2-5 minute weekly presentation. The presentations are
designed to make the class as interactive as possible. The final grade is based
on the performance and interaction of each student throughout the course, the
midterm and final exam. The final exam will be a comprehensive paper on a topic
chosen by the student and extracted from the lectures.
Political,
economic and technological readings from texts and articles will be assigned
(probably in a “course packet”). For the
most part technological developments will be reviewed in class with audio-visual
and laboratory materials. Among possible
texts establishing the broader political-social context are such books as:
Andrew McKillop, The Final Energy Crisis, 2005
. Peter
Huber and Mark P. Mills, The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the
Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy, 2005
Richard
Heinberg, The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of
Industrial Societies, 2003
Matthew
Simmons, Twilight in the Desert: The
Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, 2005
Victor A.
Utgoff, The Coming Enrgy Crisis: Nuclear Proliferation,
Nuclear Energy
Agency Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, The Economics of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, 2004.
After a few weeks,
and as soon as students have acquired sufficient background knowledge, experts
on climate change, and energy production technologies, as well as policy makers
will be invited to the lectures.