D-Lab I
Energy & Development: An Overview
Offered Winter 2010
Instructor: Kurt Kornbluth
Course Syllabus (includes links to readings)
Eligibility:
Graduate level and upper division undergraduate students interested in energy issues in the developing world, including students in engineering, the social sciences, and graduate school of management.
This course is offered in two formats:
* For credit course, 3 units
* Pass/no pass, 1 unit
Course Description:
After all this time and investment why is it still so dark in the developing world? What can we do about it?This class will review the history of energy in the context of developing countries, looking at the rise of appropriate technologies and the role of government agencies, the private sector and non-governmental organizations. In addition, this course will review current issues (with an emphasis on environmental and public health, and economic constraints and impacts). Existing technologies in the market will be evaluated in lighting, water harvesting (including pumping), food production (specifically milling), food preparation (including cooking), and power generation. The class will foster critical thinking and review case studies of current and past approaches as well as assessment of actual impacts.
Student groups will be formed and each will investigate a particular energy sector focusing on a target region or community. They will present their findings with regard to scale, context, stakeholder analysis, and possible alternative approaches to current practices.
D-Lab I is the first of a 2-part series focusing on energy in developing countries and is based on the MIT D-lab series.