Welcome to the MUM Energy Course wiki!

This is where you will find the course schedule, assignments, grading policy, primary and supplemental readings, audio, video, and much more.


Not only is energy fundamental to the development of human societies, energy is fundamental to the development of order, complexity, and intelligence in nature. In this course we learn fundamental concepts about energy and then explore their application in nature and in human societies. We will balance academic work with a wide variety of hands-on projects (see project descriptions here), including the installation of solar and wind systems to power our classroom and much of the west wing of the library.

The primary source of energy in our part of the Universe is the sun. The human economy is largely powered by fossil fuels, which is ancient sunlight, stored by plants millions of years ago. In contrast, all the rest of nature is powered by contemporary sunlight, the solar energy that hits the surface of the earth every day. The difference between nature's economy and the human economy is the difference between an economy that operates on the income from it's assets, which is eternally renewable, and an economy that operates by spending it's assets, which leads to scarcity and will eventually impoverish it.

Solar energy is delivered democratically, wirelessly, and for free. The Earth receives 14,000 times more energy from the sun than man uses every day. The Earth receives more energy in an hour from the sun than the human economy uses in a year. We will explore the technology and public policy that make the transition to a solar powered human economy desireable, affordable, and practical.

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Course Introduction

The sunlight, the wind, the earth’s temperature, the ocean tides, plant biomass and rainfall — all of these provide energy flows that power the economy of nature. This course explores how the human economy (a small subset of the eocnomy of nature and utterly dependent on it), can be designed to be powered in the same way. This course explores the basic concepts of energy. We’ll also look at the cultural, economic, and public policy issues involved in the widespread use of renewables coupled with drastic improvements in energy efficiency. Until now, the human economy has been driven by fossil fuels (ancient sunlight) and a cradle-to-grave materials flow. In contrast, nature’s economy is driven by contemporary sunlight and material flows that works in closed cycles, eliminating the concept of waste (also called cradle-to-cradle). A solar powered economy for humans would more closely resemble the energy and material flows in nature.

The creation of this economy will involve rethinking and redesigning almost every aspect of human endeavor, and is one of the greatest challenges in human history. The common thread that runs through the human economy today is fossil fuels – what kind of economies can we create that have the common thread of renewable energy? Can we use the distributed and scaleable nature of renewable energy to address problems of social and economic equity, to create equity and wealth in communities? We will explore these questions, and many others, in this short course intensive.

The course will consist of lecture, hands on demonstrations and projects, practical application in projects on campus and in the community, films, guest speakers, and teleconferences with national leaders in the field, an field trips. There will be no single textbook, but students will need to purchase a reader that the instructor has specially prepared for this course. (Much of the reader, plus supplemental text, audio, and video is available on-line below)

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