Article
to appear in the Jan 2010 issue of the Newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics
& Society
Commentary:
Stimulating Renewable Energy Education in the U.S. and Beyond: One 72-year Old
Physicist’s Second Career
Robert
Ehrlich
Abstract. This
commentary, explores reasons why many four-year institutions have not mounted
undergraduate programs in the important area of renewable energy until
recently, and it suggests ways to overcome the obstacles which continue to
exist. Although the author’s teaching experience in
the renewable energy area is currently nil, he has developed and is scheduled
to teach such a course in spring 2010, and he has learned some important lessons
while preparing to do so. In a
concluding section he describes a web site he created to assist any other
faculty new to the renewable energy field who seek either to develop their own
courses and programs, or merely to integrate such material into their regular
courses.
As
of mid-2009, there are around 15 Bachelor’s-level
programs in the U.S. with renewable energy or some variant thereof in their
title; there appear to be even fewer at the graduate level. While the pace at which new programs in this
field are being introduced appears to be accelerating, it seems curious that
only perhaps one percent of colleges and universities have renewable energy
bachelor’s programs despite the strong student interest in the subject and the
need for graduates in the workforce. As
one measure of the slowness of higher education in responding to the need,
consider that it was not until 2004 that the second renewable energy bachelor’s
program in the U.S. appeared.
Obstacles to
new renewable energy programs and the need to mount them
Developing
any new undergraduate program can be costly both in terms of money and time,
and it represents a long-term commitment by an institution. A prudent institution will want assurances
that a proposed new program will not simply attract the same students who would
have, in its absence, flocked to one of its existing under-enrolled
majors. This concern is expected to be
especially acute for a program proposed in a “hot” but untested area such as
renewable energy, where one might worry whether its popularity might be
fleeting and not be able to deliver the number of expected majors over the
long-term. It will be recalled, for
example, that in the early 80s a plethora of courses on energy were created, which disappeared once
the nation’s concern about the “energy crisis” abated. It is argued here that our “energy crisis II”
is not going to dissipate so easily, and that student interest in renewable
energy could to do for science (and physics in particular), what Sputnik did in
the early 1960’s.
Even
so, the concern that developing an entire new major in renewable energy might be
unwise is supported by some limited polling data the author has done. Despite the strong interest of many of
today’s students in the field of renewable energy, these data suggests that
many undergraduates might not view a degree in renewable energy as a “real”
major like mathematics, english, or engineering. For all the above reasons, many institutions
have entered the field gingerly, choosing only to offer renewable energy tracks
within existing programs, or alternatively, to introduce them as minors rather
than majors. The latter choice is the
course of action that George Mason University has decided to undertake for now
– see: http://cos.gmu.edu/academics/undergraduate/minors/renewable-energy
Whatever
the programmatic structure (new major, minor, or track in existing program) the
worry that renewable energy will prove to be a passing fad is, however, almost
certainly unwarranted. Given the current
challenges the world faces in the areas of the three E’s (energy, environment,
and economy), most scientists and policy makers are convinced that we will need
to make the transition to renewable energy as rapidly as practical. Supporters
of renewable energy now include many movers and shakers in the public and
private sectors. These range from former
energy executive T. Boone Pickens to internet giant Google, which has started a
solar-energy company, e-solar. E-solar
relies on a solar-thermal process that can actually use solar energy to produce
electricity at night! Google co-founder
Larry Page has expressed the view that within 20 years solar power could
produce all the world’s energy needs. On
a shorter time span, Google says its goal is to produce one Gigawatt of
renewable energy — enough to power the city of San Francisco — more cheaply
than coal-generated electricity. The company has predicted that this can be
accomplished in “years, not decades.”[1]
The
field of renewable energy is strongly interdisciplinary, and currently most
professionals in the field have their undergraduate training in a traditionally
science or engineering-related subject.
Disciplinary-based training in science or engineering for those going
into renewal energy research may be appropriate, but here we argue that there
is also a role for undergraduate interdisciplinary programs in renewable energy
– as perhaps a minor instead of a major.
For example, a student wishing to pursue a career in marketing, law, IT
or public policy relating to renewable energy could well benefit from such a
minor.
There
is another argument for undergraduate programs and courses in renewable energy
that has particular saliency to those of us in the physical sciences concerned
about the high attrition rates in our subjects.
The ability of renewable energy to capture student’s imaginations and
motivate them can be an important means of drawing students into our fields and
keeping them there. Thus, renewable
energy can serve as an important recruiting vehicle for challenging subjects
such as physics, which many students might avoid initially. But such efforts need to be done in an honest
way, since students will see through any marketing ploy in which standard
courses having little to do with renewable energy are repackaged as part of
stitched-together program. An honest
move by an institution into the renewable energy area can be daunting from a
variety of perspectives, especially from that of individual faculty who have
spent their whole career teaching in other areas – I know since I am one!
Physics courses
on renewable energy, and finding resources to teach them
Last
year, after having spent the preceding half century in teaching physics, I
realized that there is nothing more important for me to work on in my remaining
years on this planet than renewable energy education. I began modestly enough by proposing a new
course on the physics of renewable energy which would build on some basic
knowledge of physics, rather than being an introductory survey course. Such introductory survey courses are also
valuable, but they serve a somewhat different (less mathematically
sophisticated) audience. The physics
course I developed (at the 300 or junior level) uses calculus, builds on freshman/sophomore
physics, and shows students how to do calculations so as to investigate the
performance of various renewable energy systems. I did contemplate a more general course on
energy (not just renewables), except I think topics like nuclear energy if
treated seriously are deserving of a separate course
Putting
together my course was made
more difficult by my lack of knowledge of available resources. In well-established fields such as physics
there are a plethora of standard textbooks, but what could I use as the text in
a physics of renewable energy course?[2] Very few options seemed available, given the
course level, and my desire for end-of-chapter assignments. Likewise, how could I find out about places
to visit in my area for field trips? Who could I contact for occasional guest
lectures? Where could I find good sets
of simulations and demonstrations? Where
could I find out about student internships, student projects, and last but not
least, how could I find a good set of lecture notes I could build on?
Although
I was able to rely on my own knowledge or a modest amount of Googling for some of
the preceding resources, others proved far more problematic. These difficulties led me to realize that
many other faculty new to the renewable energy area might have the same
problem, and that I could have a positive impact on renewable energy education
far beyond my own institution by providing a central clearinghouse for all such
resources. This was the germ of idea for
the “rev-up.org” web site which I started in Spring 2009. Rev-up stands for
renewable energy valuation and understanding project, and the acronym reminds
us of the need to rev-up our efforts in this important area.
What are the
unique features of the rev-up.org web site?
Virtually
all existing web sites dealing with renewable energy education, including the
excellent one maintained by the Department of Energy are controlled by some
central authority – a fact which has both positive and negative features,
depending on the resources, attention, biases and knowledge of the central
authority. However, such web sites can
never be as responsive to user’s needs as those of the web 2.0 variety, i.e., those
which are interactive and modifiable by users. I wanted rev-up to be modifiable
by the community of users in the manner of Wikipedia, and it should also offer
some of the social-networking capabilities available in Facebook and
MySpace. As with Wikepedia, rev-up has
moderators that prevent abuses, such as the posting of blatantly incorrect,
obscene, or defamatory information.
Rev-up
currently provides users with information on twelve categories of resources
related to renewable energy education.
These include: books, media, places to visit, speakers, simulations,
demos & kits, college programs, student projects, research, internships,
career information and course notes. Users
are free to sort, download, add content, edit and review existing entries. For example, it is a trivial matter for users
to find speakers, places to visit, or internships within some specified miles
of their location. It is equally trivial
for users to add themselves or their institution to the database of speakers,
or to that for internships, research, college programs, etc. In
addition to querying the database or adding new items, users can easily upload
images and videos, such as a film of an interesting renewable energy field trip
they took. Users can also post questions
or answer other’s questions. Naturally,
the site encourages users to propose changes to the basic structure, including
the possible addition of new categories of resources, and other ways to
encourage renewable energy education – especially at the secondary and
postsecondary levels. Thus, rev-up.org
is a work in progress that continually evolves to meet the needs of users.
Robert Ehrlich
chairs the physics and astronomy department at George Mason University. In 2009 he contracted with a company (Sakshi
Infoway Ltd) to build a web site to his specifications, and he created the
non-profit rev-up corporation to administer the site. Bob gives talks on workshops on the need for
physicists to get more involved in renewable energy and on his rev-up.org web
site. e-mail: rehrlich@gmu.edu
