Alternative Energy: Past, Present, Future, and Innovations

About

Under the influence of scientific and technological progress, our life is changing at a rapid pace. Understanding the basic principles that affect ongoing changes and future developments is important for all branches and areas. This course illustrates the general issues of one of the key industries for all technological progress - the energetic sector. Our focus will mainly be on alternative energy collected from renewable resources which are naturally replenished on a human timescale, including carbon neutral sources like sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat. We will consider the advances that significantly improve energy efficiency of different devices and systems. Discussions will be conducted with taking into account social, economic and medical aspects. As the course is at a popular scientific level, it will be interesting and useful not only for students of technical disciplines but also for students of humanities.

The course is organised in lectures, seminars, case studies, readings and student presentations. The flexibility of approaches in the study and the rating provides different alternatives to increase and prove your knowledge in a wide variety of optional activities, such as computer simulation, physical calculations, economic analysis, historical review, etc.

Course leader

Sergiy Valyukh

Target group

The course is given within the framework of the Linköping University Summer Academy and is only open to students from Linköping University's partner universities. The course is on bachelor level and is offered in English.

To meet the general entry requirements, students must have completed one year of full-time studies upon application (passed 60 ECTS credits or equivalent) and be nominated by one of LiU’s partner universities.

Course aim

The aim of the course is to give the students an introduction to the historical and economic aspects of scientific-technological progress for sustainable development in the energy sector.

After completing the course, the student should be able to:

describe alternative energy sources and revolutionary technologies affecting the quality of our life.
trace the events and causes that are the prerequisites for great discoveries and inventions in the past, present and future. Explain and critically compare the technical and economic benefits of system solutions based on resource availability, energy demand and market conditions. Write, present and discuss a short report on a special topic related to the energy sector in the context of technical efficiency, economic welfare, environmental perspectives, and social needs.