Spring Quarter 2005
TTP 289B-005 – (CRN 71142)

Instructors: Attilio Pigneri (visitng researcher), Dr. Chris Yang (research engineer) Institute of Transportation Studies

Guest lecturers: Gustavo Collantes (Ph.D. candidate, ITS UC DAVIS), Mark A. Delucchi (Research Scientist, ITS UC DAVIS), Charles Heaps (Senior Scientist, Stockholm Environmental Institute- Boston) Other guest lecturers TBA Faculty: Professor Joan Ogden, Department of Environmental Science and Policy and Institute of Transportation Studies
Credit: 2 units
Time & Location: Thursday, 12-2 pm. Wellman Room 111

The goal of this course is to provide students with the analytical concepts and tools necessary to approach the problem of planning an adequate energy supply and demand balance across an economy, being it local, national or regional. This course will require strong analytic skills and extensive use of software modeling tools and is intended for graduate and senior undergraduate students majoring in the engineering, economics, policy and environmental sciences areas.

The exercise of scoping alternative energy options requires an interdisciplinary approach. The first part of the course will review elements of environmental sciences, economics, policy, engineering as applied to energy.

The main focus of the course will be learning to use Integrated Resource Planning methodology as a tool for the systematic analysis of the energetic, environmental and economic costs and benefits of future energy alternatives. To analyze energy demand and supply and evaluate alternatives, the students will learn to use LEAP (Long- Range Energy Alternatives Planning) software developed by the Boston branch of the Stockholm Environmental Institute.  LEAP is an energy-environment modeling tool with a flexible data structure and including a vast database on energy supply and demand technologies. It has been extensively used to analyze energy economies of developing and industrialized countries, to establish and maintain greenhouse gas emission inventories and to assess the costs and benefits of energy and transportation policies and programs. A major part of the course will be learning to use LEAP and applying it to a final class project evaluating alternative options for one or more sectors of an energy economy, based on real-world data.