Handbook

Energy is critical to the well-being of human society as a whole. Making proper energy choices depends not only on technology, but also on a basic understanding of sustainability science concepts, definitions and general analysis tools. This has to be complemented with some understanding of practical methodologies of evaluating various energy products, conversion pathways and complete energy systems in terms of technical, environmental, social, planning and governance aspects. This course will provide this knowledge through four different sections. The first will cover fundamental and foundational topics related to sustainability in general, with focus on energy systems. The second section will discuss energy consumption patterns, issues related to climate change and human health, and sustainable energy pathways. Next, various aspects and tools developed for analyzing complex and adaptive systems in terms of operational efficiency, resiliency and system dynamics modeling will be covered. Finally, several case studies will be presented to expose the student to current published literature on resiliency and sustainability assessments of energy products, processes and systems. Engineering and science students intending to specialize on sustainable energy would benefit from this course.

This is a fully online course taught by academics from Arizona State University as part of the PLuS Alliance. Among other things this means that a different learning management system may be used and the ASU mark and grade will be converted to a UNSW equivalent. You can find more details about this here.