This introductory video describes the basic principles of residential geothermal heat pumps.
This video explains what is involved in conducting a home energy audit. Such an audit evaluates how much energy you use in your house and suggests the most cost-effective measures you can take to improve the energy efficiency of your home. The outcomes are the use of less energy resulting in cost-savings on your energy bills.
This video, from the US Department of Energy, shows the basics of how a PV panel converts light radiated from the sun into usable power, whether on the electric grid or off, and without emissions or the use of fossil fuels.
This video provides a simple introduction to wind turbines and how they generate electricity.
This online calculator converts from one energy unit to another - from gallons to British thermal units (Btu), kilowatt/hours to megajoules, short tons to metric tons.
In this card game, participants trace back the source of energy for a variety of items to find that they ultimately derive from the Sun. This is a simple activity that lets students move around and discover an aspect of their everyday lives that may not have been apparent to them already.
Much of the general population believes that the energy sources we depend on are perpetual. While people believe that energy use is the culprit for environmental damage, they are not aware of the methods and principles by which energy conversion devices operate. This course will provide you with knowledge and information on the main operating principles of devices/appliances in common use and will help you in making energy efficient and economical choices. The objective of the course is to expose you to energy efficiency in day to day life in order to save money and energy and thereby protect the environment. I hope the information in this course will help you become an environmentally-responsible individual of this Global Village.
This course will explore how Americans have confronted energy challenges since the end of World War II. Beginning in the 1970s, Americans worried about the supply of energy. As American production of oil declined, would the US be able to secure enough fuel to sustain their high consumption lifestyles? At the same time, Americans also began to fear the environmental side affects of energy use. Even if the US had enough fossil fuel, would its consumption be detrimental to health and safety? This class examines how Americans thought about these questions in the last half-century. We will consider the political, diplomatic, economic, cultural, and technological aspects of the energy crisis. Topics include nuclear power, suburbanization and the new car culture, the environmental movement and the challenges of clean energy, the Middle East and supply of oil, the energy crisis of the 1970s, and global warming.
This course examines the choices and constraints regarding sources and uses of energy by households, firms, and governments through a number of frameworks to describe and explain behavior at various levels of aggregation. Examples include a wide range of countries, scope, settings, and analytical approaches.
This course is one of many OCW Energy Courses, and it is a core subject in MIT’s undergraduate Energy Studies Minor. This Institute-wide program complements the deep expertise obtained in any major with a broad understanding of the interlinked realms of science, technology, and social sciences as they relate to energy and associated environmental challenges.
This course explores the theoretical and empirical perspectives on individual and industrial demand for energy, energy supply, energy markets, and public policies affecting energy markets. It discusses aspects of the oil, natural gas, electricity, and nuclear power sectors and examines energy tax, price regulation, deregulation, energy efficiency and policies for controlling emission.
This lesson enables students to see where their energy comes from and the future of renewable energy.
This pair of interactive visualizations allows students to explore basic and more complex concepts around heat conduction, heat capacity and energy transfer. The basic simulation demonstrates how heating and cooling iron, brick, water, and olive oil adds or removes energy from a system and transfers between objects. At the more advanced level, the systems simulation allows students to see that energy takes various forms, as well as how energy flows and changes from one form of energy into another.
This online activity challenges students to design a renewable energy system for one of five different cities, each with different energy resource potential and budgets. Students can test their designs using real-time weather data in each city.
Short Description:
Welcome to Energy Literacy for Energy Communities, a handbook created by the NEWCOMERS project. The handbook offers an introduction to some of the concepts and considerations relating to energy communities and their role in the energy system. It is written for community members and anyone else interested in joining the energy community movement.
Long Description:
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 837752.
Word Count: 5408
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EME 801 provides a broad introduction to global markets for crude oil and refined petroleum products, natural gas, and electric power. A major goal of the course is to help students understand how market design, market institutions, and regulatory structures affect firm-level decision-making in the energy industries and ultimately, how these decisions affect the functioning of energy markets and the prospects for alternative technologies.
Understanding the energy needs and market opportunities in the specific off-grid community or region is the first step for effectively selecting and implementing the solutions to meet a community’s energy needs. MIT D-Lab has developed the Energy Assessment Toolkit to guide organizations through the process of gathering the information needed to make informed decisions about what technologies and business models are best suited to meet the specific needs of their community through market-based initiatives.
This toolkit is designed for any organization that has an on-the-ground presence in an off-grid community or region and has the ability to take action based on the opportunities identified. This community-based assessment approach is not intended to replace studies that track energy access on a national level or to generate market intelligence reports for external organizations looking to expand their business or programs into new markets.
Energy policy sits at the crossroads of science and policy. And now, energy and climate policy are inextricably linked; the policies we choose have very real consequences for our climate. This intersection of science and policy is chaotic and bustles with activity motivated by various competing (and conflicting) interests and factors. We must understand the motivations driving them and bridge the divides between our reliance on fossil fuels and our need to transition to less carbon-intensive and renewable alternatives. While the science and math behind these problems is often fairly straightforward, the politics and behavioral changes are not. Come stand at this busy intersection with us as we navigate toward progressive climate policy alternatives at all scales of governance!
This data visualization describes global and regional energy production. A pie chart shows percentage of each energy source used in various different countries.
This visualization includes a series of flow charts showing the relative size of primary energy resources and end uses in the United States for the years 2008-2012.
In this activity learners work in pairs or small groups to evaluate energy use in their school and make recommendations for improved efficiency. Students create and use an energy audit tool to collect data and present recommendations to their class. Further communication at the school and district level is encouraged.