Energy Studies (ENER)

A course developing the basic ideas of energy and power and their applications. The fossil fuels are considered, together with their limitations, particularly as related to global warming, pollution, and their non-renewable character. The advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power are studied and compared with alternative energy sources such as solar energy, wind, and geothermal and hydroelectric power. Various aspects of energy storage and energy conservation are also considered. This section may serve as a substitution for Energy and Society in the Energy Studies Minor.

Environmental degradation and climate change are among the most pressing scientific, economic, political, and social issues of our time. These problems seem to require technological solutions. But they also seem to be the result of the increasing technological sophistication of human societies. This means that the ecological crisis is inextricable from questions about the proper use of technology. This course will equip students to reflect on these interrelated challenges from a theological perspective. Drawing on scripture and other texts from the Jewish and Christian traditions (Genesis Rabbah, Augustine, Basil of Caesarea, Moses Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, and others), students will consider three distinct models of creation, the relationship between God and creation, and the place of human beings in creation. We will also reflect on the moral and theological significance of ecology and technology through some of the literary classics of the environmental movement (Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry). Finally, we will explore how local communities might develop virtues and practices that would constitute a theologically-informed response to our "eco-technological" crisis. By the end of the course, students will have deepened their capacity for theological reflection and will understand how theology provides a compelling framework for moral formation and collective action in response to some of today's most urgent global challenges.

Around 1600, Japan closed itself off for 250 years, neither importing food nor exporting people. It was, in short, an almost hermetic ecological system, and yet, instead of outstripping their natural resources, Japanese people managed to attain a level of well-being above that of most other people. Some scholars have acclaimed this era an "eco-utopia" while others point to problems with this view. This course explores the interplay between political, social, economic, and ecological forces asking whether Tokugawa Japan modeled resilience.

The course focuses on issues and challenges faced by business entities comprising the largest and most important segment of our economy - energy. Large, integrated oil and gas producers will be highlighted as well as power generators and transmission companies (primarily regulated oil and gas utilities) and producers of alternative fuels. Energy efficiency and related smart grid initiatives will be explored. The course is a requirement for students choosing the Energy Studies Minor.

The Earth Focus course develops a narrative that pieces together the history of planet Earth over the last 4.5 billion years. Its violent beginnings, the changing orbital motions and seasons, the development of an atmosphere and oceans, all combined to produce a unique evolutionary history that formed a planet habitable by millions of life forms, including humans. The course introduces the science of natural climate change, including some drastic events that might leave you wondering how life could have survived. Understanding Earth's natural climate change is essential to analyzing and interpreting anthropogenic, i.e., human induced, climate change primarily brought about by the burning of fossil fuels over the last 150 years. The greenhouse effect will be used to explain how Earth has maintained its generally pleasant conditions,and climate models will be used to understand how small changes in CO2 levels can affect those conditions. With the ongoing consumption of fossil fuels, and the resulting addition of greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere, mankind is now conducting a unique experiment, one with potentially devastating consequences. Over the last century, the world has become highly industrialized and interconnected. The combustion of fossil fuels has played a major role in this process, and the consequences have become apparent with increasing pollution and climate issues. Earth is already beginning to react badly, e.g., a rise in ocean levels, weather extremes, ocean acidification, and extinction of species. How much the rising CO2 concentration and temperature will affect life on Earth is the question that scientists, politicians, economists, sociologists,as well as the rest of us, must consider in assessing what lies ahead. Decisions need to be made in the foreseeable future that will affect energy use, lifestyles, national economies, and international politics. Renewable and alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear are essential components of the energy discussion. A clear understanding of the science involved in the climate warming debate and potential solutions are necessary. It is up to each of us to examine the basic evidence and answer fundamental questions regarding what to do next. The goal of the course is to provide the history, science, and an understanding of the basic energy issues that face us in the 21st century with the goal of finding effective solutions. The focus will be on the facts and the underlying science,but it is also about the options and decisions that we, individually and as a society, must make regarding the very real implications of climate change.

We live and act in an ecological theater created by God that includes all other living organisms and their ecosystems within the biosphere. Urgent questions abound today about what our relationship is to the rest of the natural world. This course investigates the Christian understanding of God as Creator, creation, and our human relationship to God, one another, and the natural world. We will examine the theology of creation beginning with Scripture and the Creed and progressing through the Early Church, Medieval, and modern time period. We will also address theological anthropology in terms of our identity and mission regarding our ecological home. To this end, we will apply Pope Francis' notion of integral ecology to the specific case of the Great Lakes watershed in which we live, examining topics such as biodiversity and invasive species, water, agriculture, and energy. As ecological citizens and creatures of God, we will address the connection between liturgy and ecology. This course will have a special appeal to students interested in the intersection of theology and science, especially ecology and environmental studies.

The aim of this course is to explore the ethical and political issues surrounding space exploration and consider how past and present realities constrain our future in space. We will first survey the present state of space exploration. This will include the privatization of space travel, military investment in the space industry, space policy and law, and the state of modern space science. Then, we will look to our future in space and consider questions such as: Does climate change justify/ necessitate colonizing other worlds? What are the ethics of terraforming? What types of extraterrestrial life are worthy of ethical consideration? Will space travel replicate or exacerbate existing structural oppression, and should we pursue ‘anti-colonial' space travel? Ultimately, students should be able to place space exploration in its social context and articulate a vision of space exploration that they believe best serves society.

Germany is globally recognized as a leader in the fields of renewable energy, sustainable development, and environmental protection. But how did this come about? In this course, we will examine the roles that culture and history play in shaping human attitudes towards the environment. Our case studies will range over two centuries, from damming projects in the Rhine valley at the start of the nineteenth century to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster at the end of the twentieth. We will study novels, films, and philosophical essays alongside works by leading environmental historians. Over the course of the semester, students will develop a richer understanding of German environmentalism that also includes an awareness of its dark sides, such as the role that nature conservancy played within Nazi ideology.

“Energy Systems for Decarbonization” is a lecture-based class primarily targeted at undergraduates. It is designed to introduce you to our energy system as it currently exists, then to the work we have ahead of us to transform it for justice and decarbonization to address climate change and other issues. Energy systems are crucial drivers of both social and environmental outcomes. Structural transformation of both supply and demand side energy systems is necessary for climate change mitigation, with a number of other major implications that will vary based on the transition approach. Transforming these systems in a way that centers justice and human dignity is possible, but not guaranteed. This course will cover both supply and demand-side energy systems, including fossil, nuclear, and renewable fuels, and buildings, transportation, industry, and infrastructure energy uses, with an emphasis on what exists today and what would need to happen for decarbonization to proceed. The course will also address policy and emphasize cobenefits and disbenefits of specific paths forward, for US and international contexts.

Conserving the earth’s rich biological heritage while enhancing the well-being of some of the world’s poorest people stands as a critical global challenge. This course examines this complex issue using the lens of political science and related fields such as political ecology, gender studies, and sustainability science. It will demonstrate how insights and approaches from these areas of scholarship can help understand and address the twin problems of biodiversity loss and poverty in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Examples will focus on forest and wildlife conservation and management. This course will be of interest to students from a wide range of natural and social science disciplines.

Fracking, Water Wars, Deforestation of the Amazon, Droughts, Global Warming, Climate Change, Unsustainable Agriculture, Hurricanes, Pollution, Species Extinction, Invasive Species, Poaching, Overfishing, Depletion of Fossil Fuels, Overpopulation, Wastes, Ocean Acidification, Wildfires, Oil Spills, Overpopulation, Overconsumption, Land degradation - the list goes on! These complex environmental problems are occurring constantly and rapidly; their consequences are global in scope and transcend national boundaries; and they embody the complex relationship between humans and the natural environment. This course is about developing an interdisciplinary understanding of the relationship between humans (society) and the environment. We will examine the historical and contemporary environmental challenges of global concern, the underlying role of humans, and attempts by society to address, mitigate, and adapt to such complex problems through policies, institutions, and governance. We will pay attention to the roles of different state and non-state actors in environmental policy making. Overall, students will draw from both the social and natural sciences to develop a deeper understanding of how society - through consumption, culture, politics, power, ethics, values, economic growth, location, etc... contribute to, or solve, environmental problems.

This course explores the myriad of national security policy challenges facing the United States and the policy options to address these challenges. The course will explore security issues with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as well as climate change, global health/pandemics, cyber threats/security and terrorism/extremism. The course will include lectures by policy experts and student engagement with these experts to explore policy options and their potential for success. Students will conduct research of primary source policy documents to develop a policy memorandum for the US National Security Council that will outline a policy challenge for the United States and recommend policy options for consideration.

In a religiously diverse and vastly troubled world, how do religious traditions motivate believers to work toward the common good? "Engaging Religions," the course title, refers to three things we will examine. First, it describes how religions are intrinsically engaging: they draw in adherents by fulfilling their material, intellectual, and spiritual needs. Second, it specifies what various secular institutions like governments and development organizations must do in pursuing the common good across our planet -- most of whose inhabitants are religious. Finally, it characterizes our work in this class: exploring how various religious traditions conceptualize and work toward the common good in a global context. We will read historians, social scientists, philosophers, and critical theorists on how to analyze and interpret the role of religion in contemporary life, while examining case studies of how religious practices, beliefs, and identities intersect with issues in global affairs such as inequality, armed conflict, and climate change. In doing so, we will engage how religious traditions from the East and West -- from Asian and Abrahamic "world" religions, to a variety of indigenous "local" religions -- complicate or complement modern Catholicism's emphasis on Integral Human Development.

This course is a survey of the field of environmental education. Students will: 1) gain an understanding of environmental literacy, 2) explore the foundations of environmental education, 3) learn the personal responsibilities of the environmental educator, 4) design environmental education curriculum, 5) foster pedagogical approaches for effective learning, and 6) develop skills for evaluation and assessment of environmental education curricula. Class members will have the opportunity to focus assignments to meet their personal aspirations for environmental education within their career goals.

Effective, ethical business leadership in a global context requires the ability to understand and synthesize inputs from a variety of sources, to discern information from multiple, often conflicting perspectives, and to communicate complex data and information clearly and persuasively to diverse stakeholders. Through reading and writing, discussion, and engagement with classmates and outside experts including international faculty, students will examine the intersections of sustainability and global business, with a focus on the role of business decision making and action in the interrelated areas of sustainable environmental and social impact. The topic is more salient than ever, as communities around the globe ask whether the pandemic and related economic crisis will prompt a new vision for society that focuses on justice and sustainability, or will simply continue to exacerbate existing inequities. The course complements courses on campus that address sustainable development, but differs in its focus on mainstream companies in advanced economies, and their engagement with community stakeholders. Through written work, reading, and exploration of key concepts, the students will work toward their culminating assignment, a research paper that presents an informed perspective on a specific topic of their choosing within the course theme.

In this course, we will examine the political, moral, and existential considerations associated with climate change and environmentalism, such as: collective responsibility, intergenerational obligation, the limitations of national sovereignty, wealth distribution, connections between politics and nature, and environmental justice. Students will also develop the skills to critically assess the discourse surrounding political responses to climate change. Readings will be drawn from canonical political thought as well as contemporary sources.

This course will use Food and Beverage and Agriculture industries to unpack a wide range of topics to provide a broader view and understanding of the sustainability challenges faced by the companies today, the innovative approaches to address sustainability as they work toward future sustainability goals, and how companies make short/mid/long term business decisions as they strive to make sustainability a part of the company's values and long-term strategy. A deep dive into the consumer evolving mindset toward sustainability will expose consumer motivations, needs, and "demands" the consumers place on the business and how business can effectively communicate their commitments, track the progress, and communicate back to the consumer to gain their trust.

As an Integration course, students successfully completing the class will have fulfilled a University core curriculum requirement. Reflecting an integration of key considerations from the disciplines of Economics and Business Ethics, the course will allow students the opportunity to examine the complexities of climate change, public policy, environmental and social sustainability, and impacts on global economies and communities. Economics will provide the foundation of knowledge of labor market structure, market failures such as externalities, taxation, migration decisions, discrimination, and income inequality measures. The management approach will address business in practice, and organizational and societal dimensions of effective and ethical business. Topics will include climate change; resilience and its measures; climate change-driven migration around the world and its impacts on labor markets and the business environment; ethical frameworks for guiding business; stakeholder analysis; environmental justice and the disproportionate effects on communities by socio-economic status, race and gender; and regulation and international agreements. Students will participate in experiential activities in real-world contexts, examine indicators of societal resilience, present relevant data in a compelling way through individual and team projects, reflect understanding through assessments including quizzes and exams, and present a policy proposal, all reflective of an integrative approach.

This course explores the myriad of national security policy challenges facing the United States and the policy options to address these challenges. The course will explore security issues with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as well as climate change, global health/pandemics, cyber threats/security and terrorism/extremism. The course will include lectures by policy experts and student engagement with these experts to explore policy options and their potential for success. Students will conduct research of primary source policy documents to develop a policy memorandum for the US National Security Council that will outline a policy challenge for the United States and recommend policy options for consideration.

No one under 30 has ever lived through a month of global temperatures below the 20th-century average." Why bother with history if the future, because of climate change, will be nothing like the past? That's the central question of this course. Scientists now tell us that the relatively benign epoch of human flourishing designed the "Holocene" is over. The change is so great and so rapid that some scientists have even proposed a new epoch called the "Anthropocene" to designate this irreversible rupture with the previous 11,700 year when human beings first discovered agriculture, created cities, and developed writing systems?when most of what historians have called "history" occurred. To confront this dilemma, this course asks three questions: (1) What is the "Anthropocene" and what are scientists telling us about this epoch which began by most accounts in the mid-twentieth century with the Great Acceleration in economic activities and population growth? (2) What does history show us about how we arrived at this crisis? Historians have long been interested in political and economic questions about power, state structures, democracy, and development, but have they sufficiently considered the relationship between their own stories of modernity and the dilemmas we now face? (3) Were there political and economic formations in the past more conducive to environmentally sustainable communities and can historians now help by uncovering them? The readings combine scientific debates over the "Anthropocene" with historians' work on sustainable communities from Victorian England and early modern Japan. We end by reading the famous novelist and anthropologist Amitav Ghosh's The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable.

How has the use of fossil fuels for heat, energy, and raw material shaped contemporary Christian ethics and social teachings? Has the Catholic pursuit of virtue and the common good driven climate change? Is there a need to “decarbonize” Christian concepts, cultures, and communities? While the concept of decarbonization is most commonly applied to technology, policy, and the economy, what would a “decarbonized” vision of human flourishing and the common good look like? In this course, we will generate responses to these questions by examining the extent to which fossil fuels have shaped Catholic concepts of moral virtue, human dignity, and the common good in the modern world, as well as how Catholic moral and social teachings can inform a just transformation of energy systems. In recent years, scholars from multiple disciplines have argued that there is a two-way influence between the material properties of things, like coal and oil, and human values and cultural ways of life. These dynamics are the object of our study in this course. In addition to engaging with developments in history, we will also explore emerging models of non-carbon intensive human flourishing and the common good as well as the virtues and practices needed to sustain them. Throughout the course, each student will conduct a case study of one moral virtue or Catholic social principle both to examine how it has been “carbonized” and to develop an argument about whether or how it should be “decarbonized.” This course in energy and environmental studies engages with perspectives drawn from history, environmental/climate studies, ethics, theological studies, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. There are no required prerequisites.

Environmental justice has emerged as one of the most significant frameworks shaping contemporary environmental policy and scholarship at local, national, and international scales. Less well known is that it originated and has been led at the grassroots level with social movements making connections between racial, gender, and economic justice, political empowerment, and vastly unequal exposure to environmental harms and hazards. In short, the meanings, values, strategies, and concepts that make up the environmental justice (EJ) framework have been driven by grassroots leaders and organizations with a transformative vision. This course in environmental humanities and social sciences examines this transformative approach to EJ as it has emerged in places as diverse as rural North Carolina, urban New York, Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," tropical forests around the world, and most recently transnational networks of grassroots leaders responding to climate change. Through interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship in environmental studies, religion, ethics, history, sociology, anthropology, and politics, as well as analysis of primary source documents, this course equips students to analyze the dynamic relationship between human cultures and environmental realities at local and global scales. In particular, it equips students to answer questions such as: To what extent has the EJ movement been shaped by religion and culture? How do transformative approaches to EJ differ from other approaches? How do diverse concepts of the sacred, nature, and justice factor into contemporary debates about environmental and climate action? What moral and political resources do EJ communities draw on to sustain their commitments? What commitments inform students' personal approach to EJ issues?

Available by permission only. Contact the professor for more information.

This seminar will examine the future of renewable energy in Puerto Rico from political, economic, historical, cultural, ethical, and technical perspectives. Participants will have the opportunity to learn from community leaders in San Juan and the mountain town of Adjuntas during a required spring break immersion. Students must attend all pre/post-trip classes held on campus. Participation requires a selection process. No fees are required. See https://energy.nd.edu/minor/puerto-rico-experience/ for application and more information.

This is the first of two half-credit capstone seminars required to complete the Energy Studies Minor. Those new to the minor should take it as soon as their schedules allow. The capstone seminars involve sharing experiences and interests within a community of undergraduates passionate about energy topics. Vertical integration between 37003 and 37004 will allow those new to the minor to network with upperclassmen.

This is the second of two half-credit capstone seminars required to complete the Energy Studies Minor. This section is for upperclassmen who have completed an approved energy-related experience. The capstone seminars involve sharing experiences and interests within a community of undergraduates passionate about energy topics. Vertical integration between 37003 and 37004 will allow upperclassmen to mentor those new to the minor.

"Climate and Environmental Justice” is a lecture- and discussion-based class primarily targeted at undergraduates. It is designed to introduce you to the core and crucial concepts of climate justice and environmental justice, with a particular emphasis on existing legacy injustices and the injustices we are currently creating as environmental pollution, climate change, and human systems interact. We will discuss existing patterns of burden, inequality, poverty, and threats to human dignity, and discuss opportunities and mechanisms to repair and avoid injustice. In particular we will discuss environmental injustice as a widely experienced but largely localized experience of disproportionate burden (e.g., on the basis of race and class) associated with extraction, industrialization, and non-greenhouse gas environmental pollution, alongside climate injustice as a global and emergent phenomenon of severe and disproportionate impacts from climate change. We will address concepts of reparations and remediation, as well as governance and other strategies for enacting justice. We will also address links between climate and environmental justice with related movements focused on adaptation, energy, housing, transportation, health, and land. Our focus will be both domestic and international, with attention directed to power dynamics, vulnerabilities, and opportunities for corrective action. Climate change and the energy transition will be major themes given their deep relationship with both climate and environmental justice, particularly as processes of industrialization and deindustrialization associated with decarbonization proceed. Overall, the course will focus on patterns, drivers, and opportunities for corrective action associated with severe injustices associated with climate change and environmental burden.

“Life Cycle Assessment” is a lecture- and practicum-based class primarily targeted at graduate students. The class is designed as a once-per-week session where we will spend about half the time on lectures and the other half on hands-on activities to practice LCA. The class is designed to introduce you to Life Cycle Assessment as a method for evaluating environmental, and social impacts of products, policies, systems, and services, with a focus on International Standards Organization (ISO)-compliant LCA. We will primarily be using OpenLCA, with some exposure to alternative tools. This course will particularly focus on LCA practice in the context of policy development, with emphasis on LCA’s role as a decision support tool. We will address the implications of LCA and related methods being increasingly required in policy contexts (e.g., for prioritizing grant recipients and allocating tax subsidies). We will also address the challenges associated with disparities in the maturity of various life cycle methods, most notably social LCA in comparison to environmental LCA and life cycle costing. We will evaluate published LCAs in forms like Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements, and also investigate the use of life cycle thinking and LCA for Environmental Product Declarations. The course will also emphasize the role of LCA in the energy transition, particularly given LCA’s strong role in greenhouse gas accounting, and explore how both technological and climate dynamics pose challenges for LCA practice. This course is primarily a methods course, and we will work through case studies and examples together both in and out of class, with a topical emphasis on energy, buildings, and climate due to LCA’s particular relevance in those areas.

At a moment when global challenges - from climate change to inclusive development to public health threats - loom large, many nation-states seem unable to come together to address them. In what ways are the world's cities and subnational governments working on their own and in concert to meet these challenges? This course examines the distinctive roles and capacities of cities, provinces, and states in managing global policy issues and explores different modes of trans-local cooperation and coordination. We start by considering the global governance shortcomings of nation-states and exploring the multilevel character of key policy challenges. We next use case studies from different issue-areas to assess how action by subnational governments is contributing to but also complicating solutions. We conclude by discussing the limitations of subnational approaches to global challenges and considering the most appropriate policy roles and portfolios for subnational actors in the 21st century.

Why is talking about climate change without reference to colonial pasts an incomplete conversation?

The course develops the fundamental concepts and theories that can be used to design an efficient wind turbine. To accomplish this task one must know the following; understand the properties of the wind resource from which the power is to be extracted, understand the blade design features and aerodynamics that yields an efficient rotor, know how to control the blade loading during gusting winds to reduce fatigue problems, and to be able to use active control to enhance turbine performance when operating below the rated wind speed. The control portion of the course will focus on various control strategies including passive control techniques as well as distributed active flow control devices and strategies. Students will have an opportunity to develop a conceptual design of a wind turbine for a specified wind distribution.