The required textbook for the course is Energy, Environment, and Climate by Richard Wolfson.

Course announcements are located at the bottom of the page.

• General Course Information and Policies
• Course Schedule

Homework/research assignments:

• Homework/Research Assignment #1 (due Tue Feb 3 at 4:00 p.m.) - Solutions
• Homework/Research Assignment #2 (due Tue Feb 24 at 4:00 p.m.) - Solutions
• Homework/Research Assignment #3 (due Thu Mar 26 at 4:00 p.m.) - Solutions
• Homework/Research Assignment #4 (due Thu Apr 9 at 4:00 p.m.) - Solutions
• Homework/Research Assignment #5 (due Thu Apr 16 at 4:00 p.m.) - Solutions
• Homework/Research Assignment #6 (due Thu Apr 23 at 4:00 p.m.) - Solutions

Writing assignments and midterm exam:

• Writing Assignment #1 (rough draft due Thu Mar 5 in class; final paper due Thu Mar 12 at 4:00 p.m.)
• Midterm Exam (Tue Mar 31) - mean = 76.1%, sigma = 10.7%, median = 79.0%
• Writing Assignment #2 (due Mon Apr 20 at 9:00 a.m.)
• Writing Assignment #3 (due Fri May 8 at 9:00 a.m.)

Supplemental readings (more food for thought...):

• "Electricity from Waste Heat", by Jennifer Kho, Technology Review, Nov 21, 2008
• "Oil Left in the Ground", by Kevin Bullis, Technology Review, May 20, 2008
• "The End of Oil?", by Mark Williams, Technology Review, February 2005
• "The Outlook on Oil", by Jim Motavalli, E: The Environmental Magazine, Jan/Feb 2006
• "The Net-Zero Gas Tax", by Charles Krauthammer, The Weekly Standard, Jan 5, 2009
• "The Fake Fire Brigade -- How We Cheat Ourseleves About Our Energy Future", by Nate Hagens, The Oil Drum
• "Tidal Power Comes to Market", by Brittany Sauser, Technology Review, Jul 29, 2008
• "More-Efficient Solar Cells", by Kevin Bullis, Technology Review, Aug 14, 2008
• "Lifeline for Renewable Power", by David Talbot, Technology Review, Jan/Feb 2009
• "Wind Power Moves into Deep Waters", by Peter Fairley, Technology Review, Jun 4, 2008
• "Giant Laser Experiment Powers Up", BBC World News, March 31, 2009

Useful and relevant web sites:

• U.S. Census Bureau - Sources of Population and Housing Information
• U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Information Administration
• United Nations Development Programme - Human Development Reports
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Radiation Dose Calculator
• International Energy Agency - Energy Statistics Homepage
• International Energy Agency - Trends in Photovoltaic Applications (pdf)
• Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
• University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit - Temperature Data
• National Climatic Data Center - Global Surface Temperature Anomalies
• The Encyclopedia of Earth

Other links:

• Gapminder.org
• Life Expectancy Graphs
• Jason Zimba's "The Suddenness of Exponential Growth" (a subsection of his "Understanding Exponential Growth" blog) has demonstrators: [constant (linear) speed] vs. [exponentially increasing speed]
• "The March Towards Singularity: Frightening Statistics" on the WTF Robots web site (this is a post which includes interesting statistics and a video about the exponential times in which we live)
• Rotating 3D Methane Molecule
• ClimatePrediction.net - Use your idle computer cycles to help predict Earth's future climate!