Courses Related to Energy and Climate Research
The following list, selected by an interdisciplinary faculty committee, provides an overview of energy and climate course offerings at UC Berkeley.
Search for courses related to energy research.
Search for courses related to climate research.
For class meeting times and locations during the academic year click on the link indicating the term during which the course is offered, i.e. Spring 2012 and/or Fall 2012.
Please refer to Berkeley's online schedule of classes for all final enrollment information.
If you would like to suggest that another existing course to be added to the list, please write to energy@berkeley.edu.
general Overview COURSEs
ENE RES C100/ PUB POL C184– Energy and Society
In this course, you will develop an understanding – and a real working knowledge – of our energy technologies, policies and options. This will include analysis of the different opportunities and impacts of energy systems that exist within and between groups defined by national, regional, household, ethnic, and gender distinctions. Analysis of the range of current and future energy choices will be stressed, as well as the role of energy in determining local environmental conditions and the global climate.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: Daniel Kammen See course catalog
courses related to Energy research
ARCH 140 – Energy and Environment
This course provides undergraduates and graduates with an introduction to issues of physical building performance including building thermodynamics, daylighting, and solar control. The course presents the fundamentals of building science while recongnizing the evolving nature of building technologies, energy efficiency, ecology, and responsible design. The course begins with a detailed explication of the thermal properties of materials, heat transfer through building assemblies, balance point temperature, solar geometry, and shading analysis. Students apply these principles later in the course to a design project. The latter part of the course also provides a survey of broader building science topics including mechanical system design, microclimate, and current developments in energy-efficient design.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Gail Brager See course catalog
BIO ENG C181 / PLANTBI C124 / CHEM C138 / CHM ENG C195A - The Berkeley Lectures on Energy: Energy from Biomass
After an introduction to the different aspects of our global energy consumption, the course will focus on the role of biomass. The course will illustrate how the global scale of energy guides the biomass research. Emphasis will be placed on the integration of the biological aspects (crop selection, harvesting, storage and distribution, and chemical composition of biomass) with the chemical aspects to convert biomass to energy. The course aims to engage students in state-of-the-art research.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: Berend Smit and others See course website
CIV ENG 11 – Engineered Systems and Sustainability
An introduction to key engineered systems (e.g., energy, water supply, buildings, transportation) and their environmental impacts. Basic principles of environmental science needed to understand natural processes as they are influenced by human activities. Overview of concepts and methods of sustainability analysis. Critical evaluation of engineering approaches to address sustainability.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Robert Harley See course catalog
EEP 147 – Regulation of Industry , Energy, and Environment
This course is about government regulation of energy with an emphasis on policies that seek to mitigate the impact of energy production and consumption on the environment. It is designed to give students practical experience in making connections between economic concepts and real world regulatory policy questions and issues. The emphasis will be on insights that economic theory and concepts can provide when thinking about the following questions: How do energy markets work? Should the government intervene to regulate energy production and consumption? What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of different environmental policy designs and options?
Not currently offered. See course catalog
EL ENG 134 – Fundamentals of Photovoltaic Devices
This course is designed to give an introduction to, and overview of, the fundamentals of photovoltaic devices. Students will learn how solar cells work, understand the concepts and models of solar cell device physics, and formulate and solve relevant physical problems related to photovoltaic devices. Monocrystalline, thin film and third generation solar cells will be discussed and analyzed. Light management and economic considerations in a solar cell system will also be covered.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Ana Claudia Arias See course catalog
EL ENG 194 – Power Systems Engineering
This course offers an introduction to Power Engineering from the Systems point of view. Topics covered include: modeling of generation, transmission, and distribution systems, load flow analysis, fault detection, steady-state and transient stability. We will treat modern market operations and dispatch. Finally, we will study intermittent controllable renewable power sources from the context of modeling, the roles of storage technologies, and market mechanisms for deep integration.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
ENE RES 201 – Interdisciplinary Analysis in Energy and Resources
Introduction to interdisciplinary analysis as it is practiced in the ERG. Most of the course consists of important perspectives on energy and resource issues, introduced through a particularly influential book or set of papers. The course also provides an introduction to the current research activities of the ERG faculty as well as practical knowledge and skills necessary to successfully complete graduate school in an interdisciplinary program.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: Richard Norgaard See course catalog
ENE RES 220 – Modeling Energy, Environmental, and Resource Systems
A first course in modeling with an emphasis on optimization and on applications in energy, environment, and resource management. Readings, lectures, homework, and small projects will be used to help understand the role of modeling in exploring a variety of questions associated with energy and resources. Course is based in Excel, both the native Solver module and the more powerful add-in OptQuest that is included with the textbook, so each student will be able to apply the learned skills in a wide variety of potential research and work environments. Goals: the student will be able to describe a problem from an optimization perspective, formulate the appropriate mathematical programming model to examine the problem, solve the model, and interpret the results. Course provides the fundamental basis for more sophisticated modeling, but does not cover algorithm implementations. Prerequisites: Understanding of linear algebra and first-semester calculus (Math 54 or equivalent). Limited to seniors and graduate students.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
ENE RES 290 – 001 California Water
For six decades, the State of California has debated how to best move water from North to South while balancing water reliability for users with protecting the environment, economy, and culture of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This course covers the history of California water development and environmental trasnformation and then focuses on the science, economics, and politics underlying the current decision with respect to the construction of a peripheral tunnel around the Delta. The benefits and costs of such a major long-term investment are clouded by the uncertainties of climate change.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Richard Norgaard See course catalog
ENE RES 290 – 002 Climate Change Mitigation and Impacts: Technologies and Policies Needed to Limit Atmospheric Temperature Increase 2 Degrees Celsius by the year 2050
This course will explore the adaptation and mitigation components of climate change research, the magnitude of increase in temperature due to different emissions scenarios, identify energy technologies to reduce emissions; describe challenges to marketing and the role of policies to speed up deployment, in order to limit the temperature increase. This course will provide a forum for the development of original written material that challenges current hypotheses and presents alternative theoris.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Larry Dale & Jayant Sathaye See course catalog
ENE RES 290 – 003 Energy Efficiency Technology in Buildings: From Fundamentals to Systems
This course has three objectives. The first is to build up a foundation of the principles behind energy efficiency (EE) in buildings, including: convective, conductive and radiative heat transfer; fluid flow and fan laws; control systems; psychrometrics; and vapor compression cycles. The second objective is to understand these principles in the context of building systems, examining the state-of-the art with respect to energy efficiency as well as the major aspects of energy audits. The third objective is to examine how these building-level concepts scale up to understanding the national and global potential of EE as a resource. Work load will be a mixture of problem sets, reading, class presentations and a final group project, but the course will be run as an informal seminar. There are no firm prerequisites, but experience with math-based problem sets is a must.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
ENE RES 291 – 002 Transportation Sustainability
This multi-disciplinary course is intended to introduce students to the fundamentals of sustainable transportation, with an emphasis on: 1) current trends, climate and energy science, and the policy context; 2) methodological and analysis techniques; 3) vehicle technology, fuels, and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) solutions (supply side); and 4) land use, public transportation, and demand management. The key question motivating this course is how to address auto and oil dependency in light of resource constraints and growing evidence of climate change.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
ENE RES 295- Special Topics in Energy and Resources
Presentations of research in energy issues by faculty, students, and visiting lecturers.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: John Harte See course catalog
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Duncan Callaway See course catalog
ENGIN 93- Energy Engineering Seminar
Weekly seminar with different speakers on energy-related topics. The goal is to expose students to a broad range of energy issues.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: Tarek I. Zohdi See course catalog
ESPM 60 – Environmental Policy, Administration, and Law
Introduction to U.S. environmental policy process focuses on history and evolution of political institutions, importance of property, federal and state roles in decision making, and challenges of environmental policy. Emphasis is on use of science in decision making, choices between regulations and incentives, and role of bureaucracy in resource policy. Case studies on natural resource management, risk management, environmental regulation, and environmental justice.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Alastair Iles See course catalog
ESPM 102D – Resource and Environmental Policy
The course develops capacities to analyze and affect the cause, dynamics, and consequences of resources and environmental policy formation and execution. It develops concepts of public policy and how cultural, legal, political, economic, and administrative processes form, execute, and modify it. It examines the causes and outcomes of politics among groups defined by race, ethnicity, class, and scientific/religious identities and analyzes resource and environmental policies that create or reduce enduring inequalities among racial/ethnic groups. It examines the social and environmental consequences of resource policies as well as alternative policies and processes. This course satisfies the American cultures requirement.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: TBA See course catalog
Law 270.6 – Energy Regulation and the Environment
Energy production and use drive the world’s economies and offer hope for growth and prosperity. Yet, the extraction and use of fuels and the development of energy facilities are among the greatest threats to the global environment. This course introduces students to the legal, economic, and structural issues that both shape our energy practices and provide opportunities to overcome these critical problems. The course focuses primarily on the regulation and design of electricity systems and markets since so many energy choices–the use of oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, the green alternatives such as solar, wind, and energy conservation or “demand side management”– relate to the way we generate or deliver electricity, or avoid the need to do so. Next to the use of petroleum for transportation, electric generation is the greatest contributor to air pollution and the greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, as urban and suburban development spread across the land, the maintenance and expansion of the electric transmission grid provide increasingly challenging land use problems. The course examines both the traditional monopoly model of regulation and evolving competitive alternatives. The course exposes students to energy resource planning, pollution management, rate design, green markets, energy efficiency, demand side management, renewable energy portfolios, climate change, and carbon management. The course provides an introduction to administrative law and to practice issues in the field.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: Steven Weissman See course catalog
Law 270.7 – Renewable Energy and Other Alternative Fuels: Law, Policy and Promise
This course explores the growing and dynamic field of renewable and alternative energy supplies. It reviews local, state, and federal laws and policies that promote (and impede) such sources, and considers emerging distributed generation models. Turning to technology-specific evaluations, it surveys the range of emerging technologies and looks in depth into some specific models of high potential or value, concluding with consideration of proposed strategies for reducing greenhouse gases.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Steven Weissman See course catalog
Law 272.3 – Climate Change: Law and Policy
Climate change will be a core concern that will influence policy and economic activity for years to come. It raises classic issues of distributional justice, law and science, risk, uncertainty and precaution, federalism, technology policy, and international relations. Students will leave this course with an understanding of the sources and impacts of climate change, the key state, national and international policies, and the role of law.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
MBA 212.1 / EWMBA212 – Energy and Environmental Markets
Business strategy and public issues in energy and environmental markets. Topics include development and effect of organized spot, futures, and derivative energy markets; political economy of regulation and deregulation; climate change and environmental policies related to energy production and use; cartels, market power and competition policy; pricing of exhaustible resources; competitiveness of alternative energy sources; and transportation and storage of energy commodities.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Severin Borenstein
MEC ENG 146 - Energy Conversion Principles
This course covers the fundamental principles of energy conversion processes, followed by development of theoretical and computational tools that can be used to analyze energy conversion processes. The course also introduces the use of modern computational methods to model energy conversion performance characteristics of devices and systems. Performance features, sources of inefficiencies, and optimal design strategies are explored for a variety of applications, which may include conventional combustion based and Rankine power systems, energy systems for space applications, solar, wind, wave, thermoelectric, and geothermal energy systems.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: Van P. Carey See course catalog
PLANTBI 222 – Biochemistry of Biofuels: Concepts and Foundations
Description: This course offers a consideration of genes, enzymes, metabolic pathways and biochemical processes leading to the generation of hydrogen, bio-oils, ethanol, and other biofuels. Discussion of biochemistry is extended to cover product yields and techno-economic analyses of commercial viability of the various biofuel products. Lectures are based on historical and contemporary papers in plant and microbial biochemistry, integrating structure, function and evolution of the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels, and discussing how this knowledge can be applied in the generation of renewable biofuels.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Anastasios Melis See course catalog
PUB POL 290 - Renewable Energy & Other Cleaner Fuels: Energy Policy to Save the Planet, the Country, and the Economy
Our nation is a profligate energy user and yet we have no coherent national energy policy. We have a massive jobs deficit and have been unable or unwilling to turn clean energy into a job creation engine. This course will develop a national energy policy that respects the states, encourages partnership with the private sector, and tears down the regulatory barriers to renewable energy development. We will explore the emerging field of renewable and alternative energy supplies, and review local, state, and federal laws and policies that promote (and impede) such sources. The course will identify policies that empower everyday people to produce their own renewable power through distributed generation, and will survey the range of emerging clean energy technologies.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
courses related to CLIMATE research
CHEM C236 / CHM ENG C295Z / EPS C295Z - Energy Solutions: Carbon Capture and Sequestration
Sustainable energy generation is seen as one of the the largest challenges of our generation. All long-term solutions rely mostly on the conversion of solar energy, yet these solutions appear to be years from implementation. In the coming decades then, while the relative importance of fossil fuels will decrease, absolute use of fossil fuels will not. Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) employed on a global scale can sustain the world's energy use and help mitigate alarmingly high CO2 levels in the atmosphere. UC Berkeley and LBNL have large research programs addressing Carbon Capture and Sequestration. Part of the Berkeley Energy Lectures, this course aims to introduce these research programs to undergraduate and graduate students. Topics will include our current understanding of CO2 in and around the plant, the geological storage of CO2, and the science and technology of carbon capture. Through this series of lectures, students will learn about the state of the art science related to CCS, and learn to develop, analyze, and compare CCS solutions as part of a multidisciplinary team. Course is open to upper division undergraduates in the sciences and engineering with sufficient background in Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructors: Jeffrey Reimer, Berend Smit, Jeffrey Long, Don DePaolo, Curt Oldenburg, Ian Bourg See course catalog
CIV ENG C106 / EPS C180 / ESPM C180 – Air Pollution
This course is an introduction to air pollution and the chemistry of earth's atmosphere. We will focus on the fundamental natural processes controlling trace gas and aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere, and how anthropogenic activity has affected those processes at the local, regional, and global scales. Specific topics include stratospheric ozone depletion, increasing concentrations of green house gasses, smog, and changes in the oxidation capacity of the troposphere.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: Allen Goldstein See course catalog
CIV ENG 107 – Climate Change Mitigation
Assessment of technological options for responding to the threat of climate change. Overview of climate-change science: sources, sinks, and atmospheric dynamics of greenhouse gases. Current systems for energy supply and use. Renewable energy resources, transport, storage, and transformation technologies. Technological opportunities for improving end-use energy efficiency. Recovery, sequestration, and disposal of greenhouse gases from fossil-fuel combustion. Societal context for implementing engineered responses.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: William W. Nazaroff See course catalog
ENE RES 175 – Water and Development
This course introduces students to water policy in developing countries. It is a course motivated by the fact that over one billion people in developing countries have no access to safe drinking water, three billion do not have sanitation facilities, and many millions of farmers do not have reliable water supplies to ensure a healthy crop. Readings and discussions will cover: the problems of water access and use in developing countries; the potential for technological, social, and economic solutions to these problems; the role of institutions in access to water and sanitation; and the pitfalls of the assumptions behind some of today’s popular “solutions.”
Not currently offered. See course catalog
ENE RES 198 – Directed Group Study - Tools of the Trade
Quantitative methods for energy and resource analysis. Topics include linear algebra, differential equations, statistical methods, chemical equilibrium theory, and thermodynamics.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
ENE RES 198 – 001 Directed Group Studies for Advanced Undergraduates - Introduction to Energy Topics: An Exploration of Social, Environmental and Economic Consequences of our Carbon-based Economy
Quantitative methods for energy and resource analysis. Topics include linear algebra, differential equations, statistical methods, chemical equilibrium theory, and thermodynamics.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: TBA See course catalog
ENE RES 102 – Quantitative Aspects of Global Environmental Problems
Human disruption of biogeochemical and hydrological cycles; causes and consequences of climate change and acid deposition; transport and health impacts of pollutants; loss of species; radioactivity in the environment; epidemics.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: John Harte See course catalog
ENVECON C175 / IAS C175 – The Economics of Climate Change
The course will start with a brief introduction and evaluation of the scientific aspects behind climate change. Economic models will be developed to analyze the impacts of climate change and provide and critique existing and proposed policy tools. Specific topics studied are impacts on water resources and agriculture, economic evaluation of impacts, optimal control of greenhouse gases, benefit cost analysis, international treaty formation, discounting, uncertainty, irreversibility, and extreme events.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: Christian Traeger See course catalog
EPS 8 – Geologic Record of Climate Change
This course will review the geologic record of climate change emphasizing how such knowledge can constrain present day thinking about (and predictive models of) future climate change. We will cover the entire spectrum of climate variations, from the formation of the Earth's early atmosphere 4.6 billion years ago to the ice ages to the development of instrumental records.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
EPS C182 / CHEM C182 – Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Laboratory
Fluid dynamics, radiative transfer, and the kinetics, spectroscopy, and measurement of atmospherically relevant species are explored through laboratory experiments, numerical simulations, and field observations. The course is intended for Earth and Planetary Science majors and minors, and for chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, and engineering majors whose interests may lie in science applied to the atmosphere of Earth and other planets.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Kristie Boering See course catalog
ESPM 111 – Ecosystem Ecology
This course will develop the principles of ecosystems ecology, with an emphasis on their application to terrestrial ecosystems. Ecosystem ecology involves the study of energy and material flows through both the living (plants, animals, microbes) and non-living (soils, atmosphere) components of ecological systems. We will study the major element cycles (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus) and patterns of energy flow through ecosystems, including how those fluxes and their controls differ for different ecosystems. Our goal is to develop a solid understanding of the links between ecosystem structure and function. Thus we will focus on the logical connections among ideas so that complex processes can be understood from some basic concepts.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Whendee Silver See course catalog
GEOG C139 / EPS C181 – Atmospheric Physics and Dynamics
This course examines the processes that determine the structure and circulation of the Earth's atmosphere. The approach is deductive rather than descriptive: to figure out the properties and behavior of the Earth's atmosphere based on the laws of physics and fluid dynamics. Topics will include interaction between radiation and atmospheric composition; the role of water in the energy and radiation balance; governing equations for atmospheric motion, mass conservation, and thermodynamic energy balance; geostrophic flow, quasigeostrophic motion, baroclinic instability and dynamics of extratropical cyclones.
Offered: Fall 2012 Instructor: David Romps See course catalog
GEOG 142 – Climate Dynamics
A conceptual basis for understanding of how earth's present climate comes about and how the various components of the climate system (atmosphere, land, ocean, cryosphere) interact to do so. The hope is that the student would be able to apply this knowledge to understand how change to the climate system can come about.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: John Chiang See course catalog
INTEGBI 106A – Physical and Chemical Environment of the Ocean
The biological implications of marine physics and chemistry. History and properties of seawater. Geophysical fluids. Currents and circulations. Deep sea. Waves, tides, and bottom boundary layers. The coastal ocean; estuaries. Air/sea interaction. Mixing. Formation of water masses. Modeling biological and geochemical processes. Ocean and climate change.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
INTEGBI 166 – Evolutionary Biogeography
The goals of the course are to (a) examine how geographically-linked characteristics of species influence their potential for evolution and extinction; and (b) provide an overview of the analytical techniques and applications for studying the interplay between geographic ranges, environment, evolution, and extinction. Accordingly, the course begins by examining what geographic ranges of species are and what controls them. We then will explore how geographic-range characteristics influence and interact with speciation and extinction processes. With that foundation, we will examine how species assemble into communities and how ecological processes govern distributions at the community and landscape levels, touching on such topics as community energetics, scaling issues, and the influences of humans on "natural" ecosystems. The last third of the course will be devoted to an overview of quantitative analytical techniques that commonly are used to study interactions between biogeogeographic ranges, evolutionary processes, extinction, and environmental change.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
PB HLTH 271G – Global Environmental Change for Health Scientists
This course provides a basic foundation in the physical and societal basis of climate change, including atmospheric structure and feedbacks, carbon cycling, and the sources and trends of human and natural greenhouse pollutant emissions. Forecasts of future climate, and their uncertainties, will be discussed, emphasizing parameters of potential relevance to human health. Students will explore epidemiologic, risk assessment, and statistical methods appropriate for understanding the impact of climate on health in different populations, including reviews of current burden of disease estimates of avoidable and attributable risk. The public health implications, positive and negative, of society’s efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change will be elaborated, including discussions of ethical, political, economic aspects. The one-unit version ends before the spring break. Students in the two-unit version will continue and be responsible for formal class presentations summarizing and critiquing the evidence base on a health outcome related to climate change.
Offered: Spring 2013 Instructor: Michael Jerrett See course catalog
PHYSICS H190 – Physics of Energy and Environment
The course will dwell on the rich and complex physics (which the class will attempt to make as simple as meaningfully possible) related to the thermal balance (or as some may say, lack thereof) of the planet, including the physics of radiative energy transfer, the greenhouse effect, the physics of clouds, ocean circulation, etc. The course will also discuss the topics of energy production (energy is conserved, but not all energy forms are equally useful), consumption, and distribution; whether human activity is a significant factor affecting the Earth's climate, and various other things of this sort. In the course, the students will learn many useful research skills, including how to make "back-of-the-envelope" estimates, how to effectively search for relevant information, how to judge technical validity of information, what to do when different experts are saying the opposite, and how to present science to a critical audience.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
PUB POL 182/282 – Environment and Technology from the Policy and Business Perspectives
This class explores a wide range of environmental policy issues that shed light on the complex relationships between the natural environment, technology, policy, and business. The first few weeks provide an overview of contemporary (and historic) environmental problems and introduce a number of political and economic themes as well as approaches to environmental policy and management. But most of the classes explore the government and business contexts in which particular environmental technology “heroes” and “villains” develop, with the idea of creating a “bottom-up” understanding of the dynamics of environmental innovation as well as technology-induced risk. This class should particularly appeal to students interested in designing innovative approaches to environmental policy and management from positions in government, industry, or the non-profit sector. Topics include water management, approaches to solid waste issues, the reduction of air pollution from stationary and mobile sources, solutions to climate change, and coping strategies with respect to emerging technologies with potential environmental implications, including nanotechnology.
Not currently offered. See course catalog
