Since the dawn of civilization, humankind has depended on energy for many uses. Energy is all around us and has played a role in nearly every aspect of society. Starting with the ability to use fire for light, heat, and cooking, to harnessing the atom for nuclear power, energy has been part of social and economic advancement. Energy is a fundamental and necessary aspect of manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, and just everyday living. Our initial reaction may be to consider electricity when we hear the word “energy,” but electricity is only part of the many forms of energy on which we depend.

We must first consider what a significant role energy plays in our day-to-day lives, and in helping a society and economy to function. Were it not for accessibility to energy, you would not be able to be taking this course online. As a matter of fact, imagine a day without any form of energy. No electricity, no lights, no air conditioning, no driving, no manufacturing, and so on. You get the picture! Energy is a fundamental necessity of society and the economy. One way we will see how important energy is to society is to understand how it is reflected in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Discuss how the 4 Factors of Energy Provision present opportunities and challenges for individuals depending on their role in society
• Describe three key points about SDG #7 on energy
• Illustrate the connections between one of the 4 Factors of Energy Provision and the targets of Energy Sustainable Development Goal (SDG #7)

Lesson Activities

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

Power Plant with wind turbine

Power Plant Energy, Pixy.org, Public Domain

Energy is one of those issues that is faced with competing priorities. In other words, it is essential to society and the economy, as well as having profound impacts on the environment and availability of natural resources. Why should we care about this?

At a minimum, we want energy sources that are reliable, secure, and are accessible to as many as possible. Ideally, energy sources would also be sustainable. In the perfect world, we would find energy solutions that would be the best solutions for all these aspects. But we know that is not the case.

Those with specific interests or responsibilities may view energy solutions differently based on the desired goal. For example, those interested in environmentally-friendly solutions may prefer renewable energy sources. However, those tasked with providing a reliable 24/7 supply may be more wary of renewable energy sources, many of which are intermittent or inconsistent.

Four Factors of Energy Provision

The Pennsylvania State University

Let us look at those terms in more detail. First is energy reliability. A reliable energy supply is one that you can count on to provide the energy you need, when you need it, all the time. Whereas for many this is a convenience, there are cases such as infrastructure, hospitals, and national security where energy lapses are not only unacceptable and disruptive but can be life and property threatening.

Related to this is energy security. This is related to energy reliability but is more about how safe and secure is our energy infrastructure? Concerns about sabotage and terrorism, and the risk of the energy infrastructure being intentionally compromised are very real. Ironically, the more efficient and sophisticated our energy infrastructure becomes, with smart meters, connected systems and the like, the more susceptible it is to cyberattacks and compromise. Even the traditional “wire and poles” infrastructure is at risk from sabotage and natural disasters. We hear all too often of power outages due to storms.

Energy accessibility relates to the ability for those who need energy to get it. Unlike reliability and security, this aspect is more about equity and opportunity for the population as a whole. The expectations and thresholds are different in this case. For an area who did not have access to energy until recently, recipients might be more tolerant of lapses in reliability and even security as compared to areas with a long history of energy access. A component of accessibility is affordability. Living on the grid but being unable to pay the electric bill can mean energy is not accessible to you.

Finally, we speak of energy sources as being sustainable. This unfortunately has historically been the most expendable attribute. Sources that are sustainable are difficult to sell if they cannot also address at least one or more of the other three attributes. This is why solar, wind, and other renewables have taken so long to take root in the energy profile of many regions around the world.

Let’s explore how trying to balance these four attributes is a real-life issue. In the attached video, we ask a subject matter expert who has had to address this choice from a variety of perspectives what he thinks of the four attributes and how he has made decisions on which path to take and how to prioritize them.

Video Interview

Watch the following video interview between Ed Pinero (former EGEE 401 instructor) and Bob Barkanic (10:45)

In 1992, the world experts convened in Rio de Janeiro Brazil for what was billed as the first Earth Summit. This triggered an ongoing series of summits and actions that led to the current suite of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Review the general information at the Sustainable Development Goals website, including the timeline of milestones that show how the concept has evolved since the beginning.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Click for a text description of The UN Sustainable Development Goals.

1. No Poverty
2. Zero Hunger
3. Good Health and Wellbeing
4. Quality Education
5. Gender Equality
6. Clean Water and Sanitation
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequalities
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
12. Responsible Consumption and Production
13. Climate Action
14. Life Below Water
15. Life on Land
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
17. Partnerships for the Goals

The SDGs created by The United Nations, public domain, wikimedia commons

Comparing the SDGs and MDGs

It is important to note that the SDGs are “second generation” goals in that they replaced the original Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Review the MDG Website and I encourage you do a cursory review of the status reports, such as the Millennium Development Goals 2015 Report. An issue that has followed the entire effort since the MDGs were announced is that they are almost too aspirational and nearly impossible to achieve in the relatively short timelines set for the goals. For example, one was to eradicate poverty and hunger, and another was to achieve environmental sustainability. Results were of course mixed and, overall, we missed the mark on all the MDGs, even though progress was made towards each. We see the same happening with the SDGs where progress is being made, but the absolute end point goals will be an elusive target; clearly, while there are fewer people in poverty now than in the past, we did not eradicate poverty.

There are 17 SDG Goals, with Goal 7 on energy being the most directly related to this course. We will discuss Goal 7 next. However, it is important to be familiar with the other 16 goals because we will see that energy also permeates nearly all of the other 16. This is because energy impacts many other environmental, social, and economic aspects. Goals on infrastructure, economic development, and sustainable cities among many others have energy-related elements. In fact, we will be looking more closely at the energy-water-food nexus later in the course. Review the various targets for each of the 17 SDGs and see how many you can make the connection to energy reliability, security, and accessibility.

Goal 7 is to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. There are five targets associated with this goal, each having at least one indicator of success. The intent of the targets is to set discrete, measurable actions, with a way to assess progress and performance that will lead to meeting the main goal. We see in the goal and the targets' actions that will get at the key tenets that drive the energy dialogue- reliability, security, and accessibility.

SDG Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.

Goal 7 of the SDGs, The United Nations

One of the critiques against the SDGs is that they are too overreaching. In others they call for an ideal end state that is very hard to meet, and even if met, hard to validate. Considering that the goals have ten-year timelines, do you think Goal 7 is even realistic? The challenge with setting such goals is that progress is difficult to characterize. For example, if the ultimate goal is that the goal applies to everyone, then it is hard to say if the progress that was made is good or bad.

Let us think about the four attributes we learned earlier, reliability, security, accessibility, and sustainability. Do you feel all four aspects are addressed with Goal 7? Arguably, these four attributes are key and if Goal 7 doesn’t collectively address these, this SDG may not be the right path forward.

As we go through the rest of the class, let’s keep these aspirational SDGs goals in mind in assessing progress in these areas of reliability, security, and accessibility and sustainability.

Infographic Assignment:

In lesson 1 we learned about the 4 factors of Energy Provision, which include reliability, security, accessibility, and sustainability. We also reviewed Goal #7 of the Sustainable Development Goals established by the Earth First Summit. Now you’re going to engage in an activity to demonstrate your understanding of how these concepts relate to and impact one another through the creation of an infographic.

Purpose of this infographic:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will create an infographic that illustrates a connection between one of the Goal 7 targets and as many of the 4 factors as possible.

Communicating Visually:

As you begin to work on your infographic, keep in mind that a single target from Goal #7 can be applied to more than 1 factor. This means you’ll need to spend some time thinking about the various connections and how to demonstrate them in the most concise and effective manner possible. You’ll need to illustrate all this information in a manner that is easily understood ‘at a glance,’ meaning there shouldn’t be any additional resources or information one should need to read in order to understand what you are trying to communicate. For example, if you feel the second target described in the SDG #7 aligns with security and reliability, you’ll need to visually communicate these connections. 

Successfully Completing this Assignment:

If you haven’t done so already, review the foundational resources provided in the Orientation lesson. They are titled, Creating Infographics, and Overview of Infographic Assignments. The rubric used for grading this assignment is provided on the following page in Canvas.

If you have any questions, please post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion Forum.

Infographic Information Video (4:13): 

In this lesson, we provide links to outlooks from 8 different entities, reflecting views from government, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, think tanks, and industry. These are just a few examples and you are free to search for others. We have included a short narrative as to the nature of the organization preparing the outlook. When you explore the links provided, there is opportunity to learn even more about the organization.

In Lesson 2, we will learn about “what” an outlook is. In Lesson 3, we will learn how to use this information to draw conclusions about energy supply and demand. We will be looking at the same readings for both lessons, but from different perspectives.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Describe the purpose of energy outlooks
• Identify the types of outlooks and who prepares them
• Recognize differences and similarities among various outlooks

Lesson Activities

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

Click to expand to provide more information

A graphic illustrating the World's consumption of various energy sources (liquids, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, other renewables, and nuclear) from 1990 to the anticipated usage in 2035.

World Energy Consumption Outlook 2015 by Delphi234 from Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

Energy outlooks are all about reflecting “supply and demand.” They are projections of energy demand and availability looking out into the future. Whether combined into one document, or done as different products, outlooks can be short term, such as week to week or month to month, and others are longer term, some looking out a number of years. Whereas these outlooks may forecast 20 to 40 years, they are typically updated annually because conditions change frequently and many times unpredictably. So they are actually rolling predictions of 20 to 40 years, updated annually. For example, the COVID pandemic had an unexpected and profound impact on energy demand. We will discuss COVID impact again in a later lesson.

As you can imagine, in order to create such projections, some rather important assumptions must be made. These may be based on past energy supply and demand history combined with other patterns, such as population growth and distribution or economic development. Secondly, different types of organizations create outlooks because they wish to highlight specific trends or tell a story. In theory, all of the outlooks would be the same, or put another way, we would only need one to be done. However, in reality, not everyone agrees on what assumptions should be made and not everyone agrees on how to present the information.

It would be convenient if there were one master outlook, but in reality, there are a number of such outlooks, prepared by different organizations. A popular and important one is developed by the Energy Information Administration, which is an office of the U.S. Department of Energy.

In order to help you understand how to review/analyze these outlooks, we’re going to take a look at one together. We chose the EIA outlook because it is probably one of the more comprehensive options, is relatively “neutral” in terms of possible biases, and has some excellent navigation and interactive features.

Go to the link for the EIA. You see on the landing page a layout of how to access information. As you scroll down the webpage, you will note that there are several options for how the information is presented. What EIA has done is divide the full report into many sub-publications that focus on specific aspects. The landing page also provides quick access information such as key takeaways and supporting information as well as a link to download the most recent outlook report.

Finally, on the main page click on the "Interactive" icon under the "Data Tables - Reference Case Tables" header. Arguably, this is one the best features of this outlook, and I think makes EIA one of the better sources. I would recommend you “play around” with this interactive viewer. You will note several drop-down menu tabs where you can select many different variations of the information and see how the trends vary going into the future. The Publications Tables tab will let you pick an outlook year, and the Scenarios tab will let you pick the assumptions case, for example the aforementioned Reference Case. You will also see options for the various side cases. The Regions tab lets you see trends by geographic region. There are also tabs to show information either as a curve or on a map. The Map tab is particularly interesting in that you can run it as a time lapse animation to see how information changes. We will come back to this interactive Table Viewer in the next lesson where we explore the actual data.

This short tour through the EIA Outlook gives you a general sense of the kinds of information presented in outlooks.

Considerations:

I mentioned the terms alternate cases, sectors, and fuel types. It is easy to get confused as to what they all mean and why some outlooks are sorted one way, but others use a different format. It is all about the story they are trying to tell. For example, you may see energy demand sorted by user sector. These can include industrial, municipal/public, or commercial. Some even further subdivide industrial into types of industry. Sorting by user sector gives the reader of the outlook a sense of how our energy resources are shared among users. It also gives a sense of where the greatest demand is or is projected to be.

Another way to sort is by “energy sector,” or supply type. This type of sorting is used to demonstrate supply and tells us how much of each type is available and projected to be available in the future. In Lesson 3, we will take advantage of these sorting options to draw conclusions about projected supply and demand.

Particularly, but especially in the EIA outlook, they refer to alternate cases. As you can imagine, energy supply and demand in the future will be very dependent on many variables such as population growth, economic development, and policy decisions, among others. Clearly, no one can totally and accurately predict these variables, so in order to make projections, certain assumptions are made. Alternate cases are projections using other assumptions for certain variables. You are encouraged to explore some alternate cases in terms of which ones are used in the outlooks you explore. In Lesson 3, we will drill deeper into what the differences in results are between cases.

Comparing Outlooks Assignment Overview:

On the following page, there is a list of organizations with links to the outlooks they have produced. Your task is to review two of these, ideally from different types of organizations, to get a sense of what these are and what they tell us. Do not be too focused on the actual data. In a future lesson, we will deep dive into these same outlooks and explore the data in more detail. For now, the idea is to understand outlooks and start to get a sense of which types you would want to review based specifically on what you want to know.

Purpose:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will write an essay which compares two or more outlooks to identify their priorities and how those relate to the Four Factors [Reliability, Security, Accessibility, Sustainability] discussed in this course.

Identify connections:

As you review the outlooks, keep in mind the four key attributes of energy in our society- reliability, accessibility, security, and sustainability. As you explore the outlooks, see if you can find how these attributes are reflected. For example, the World Energy Council states: “Securing flows of clean, reliable, affordable and sustainable energy to everyone, anywhere at any time is the ultimate vision of the World Energy Council.” You may explore how they use their publication to illustrate that point.

Successfully completing this assignment:

In 325 words (plus or minus 10%) write an essay that compares two outlooks and addresses the following points. Remember that for this lesson, we are focused on the general attributes of the outlook and not the specific information. Try to avoid comparing the data. Your essay should be submitted using Microsoft Word and will address the following questions:

• What is the purpose and focus of the outlooks you have chosen?
• Briefly describe the organizations that created the outlook- what is their purpose and focus? Priority area?
• How do they differ from each other?
• In general, how are the differences between the preparers reflected in the nature and format of information presented?
• Recall the exercise from Lesson 1 when you played the role and had to prioritize reliability, accessibility, security, and sustainability.
• How would these outlooks help you make that decision?
• In your opinion, when would you feel it appropriate to use one over the other, or does it matter?
• Could these outlooks help inform progress towards SDG #7?

Energy Information Agency:

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is an office within the U.S. Department of Energy and was established in 1977. It is primarily a statistical and analytic agency and provides neutral data for others to use.

Energy Information Agency

International Energy Agency:

The International Energy Agency was established in 1974 in the wake of the oil crisis of 1973 and has evolved to be an information source of oil market and other energy sector data.

World Energy Outlook 2024

International Renewable Energy Agency:

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is an organization supporting the movement towards a sustainable energy future, mainly through the promotion of renewable energy sources.

World Energy Transitions Outlook 2024

World Energy Council:

The World Energy Council (WEC) is a bit different in that their mission is more about sharing information and experiences, such as case studies, to help the delivery of energy. Forecasting is a component of what they do, and the World Energy Scenarios link below is their closest product to a traditional outlook.

World Energy Trilemma 2024

Resources for the Future:

Resources for the Future (RFF) is a private nonprofit ‘think tank” which provides neutral and unbiased research to help inform energy-related decision and policy making. In addition to their outlook publication, which is available at the links below, they offer a succinct summary of key findings on the landing pages of these links.

Global Energy Outlook 2024

McKinsey and Company:

McKinsey and Company is a private sector diversified worldwide consulting firm. They have a highly varied suite of clients in the private and public sector. One of their products is providing studies and analyses. They prepare an oil and gas outlook.

Global Energy Perspective 2024

ExxonMobil:

ExxonMobil is an energy company that provides energy sources such as oil and gas. They provide full life cycle services from exploration for new supplies of oil and gas, through producing fossil fuels from their fields, and all the way through refining, and marketing. ExxonMobil has diversified over the years to include non-fossil fuel sources such as wind and solar. ExxonMobil was born from the merger of Exxon and Mobil oil corporations- two long standing American icons of the industry.

ExxonMobil Outlook for Energy

BP:

Like ExxonMobil, BP is an energy source company that over time has diversified from only oil and gas, to now include renewables. BP used to be known as British Petroleum but changed its name to Beyond Petroleum to capture their expanded portfolio of sources.

BP Energy Outlook

So far, we have explored what energy outlooks are, who creates them, and we started to understand what they tell us. In this lesson, we will use the information learned to actually use the outlooks to obtain information. Specifically, we will use the EIA outlook to learn aspects about global and U.S. national energy supply and demand.

This exercise has real-world implications. Policy-makers at the state level across the U.S. are preparing for potential energy shortages this year including heating oil shortages paticularly in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. State officials are tracking supplies and prices of key heating fuels in order to assess where shortages might occur if prices would rise causing problems for those who could not afford it. The EIA outlook, in particular, is a key source of information for the reponsible officials as it gives a sense of how much fuel might be available, where it could be, and what the trends in prices are.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Make comparative analyses from data sets provided in the outlooks such as differences in energy use trends among sectors or differences in trends between energy sources
• Learn how the trends would vary if assumptions change
• Draw conclusions from graphs generated using the EIA outlook

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

In order to prepare for the assignment of this lesson, let’s go back to the EIA website to create some graphs and see how we decipher information from interpreting the data.

Interactive Table Viewer from the EIA Website

©Penn State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Under “Data Tables” in the subsection titled “reference case tables” click on Interactive (highlighted with a red circle in the image above). The page opens to Table 1 from the Annual Energy Outlook 2025. On the top line to the right of the table title, there is a drop-down menu called “Publications and Tables” with numerous options to choose from.

Image of Interactive graph

©Penn State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

For the first example, I chose Annual Energy Outlook 2023 as the publication, and Table 2.

Image of the outlook and table 2 selection

©Penn State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Below the graph, you will see a table with a column called PIN. Here we see the usage sectors (residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, etc.) and, underneath each of those, you will see the fuel type. Click on the light blue icon to the right of your desired entry or entries in the PIN column to plot those specific items above in the graph. It will superimpose as many as you choose.

PIN and selection options from the EIA website

©Penn State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

I chose to plot electricity, renewable energy consumption and natural gas consumption in the residential sector. I clicked on the three items and we see them plotted. You can now use this information to draw some immediate conclusions. For example, we see that renewable energy use in the residential sector stays very low, and declines slightly, over time. Natural gas usage is much higher, but it also declines slightly. Electricity demand, on the other hand, is the highest in terms of projected use, and actually increases over time.

Why is that? You would look into the rest of the report, especially the sections on those sectors and sources, to see why. Could it be that the shift of natural gas prices is making it less attractive? Is fracking projected to be banned at some point? Why is renewable such a small percentage and actually declining? To answer such questions, you will need to drill into the outlook a bit.

Feel free to go back to the landing page for the 2025 Outlook and read through the Narrative section to learn more about what is driving the trends and usage you have plotted. The overall point is that, by navigating the various parts of the Outlook, there is a wealth of information which can be gleaned from the narratives and data.

Overview:

By reviewing outlooks, we can gain an understanding of the drivers or influences that impact how they are created. Various companies seek to create outlooks that reflect the priorities that are most important to their goals and the anticipated needs of their consumers. Being able to analyze and interpret the data is an important skill you will need in order to achieve success in your chosen career. For this assignment, we will deep dive into one of the outlooks, the EIA Outlook, and explore the data in more detail.

Purpose:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will write an essay where you interpret the trends reflected in a graph you will create using the interactive function of the EIA Outlook.

Interpreting and explaining data:

As we demonstrated in the example above, it is possible to plot information from several variables in order to interpret what the patterns and trends tell us about energy sources and uses. This could be aspects related to different sources of energy such as natural gas or coal; or aspects about user patterns, such as residential vs. industrial. It is important that there be logic as to why you chose the variables to compare, as well as knowing where to find the supporting information from which you can draw conclusions about what you see. In the example above, we looked at other information in the EIA Outlook to explain the patterns that we saw in the graph we constructed.

Successful Completion:

We will revisit the EIA outlook we explored in Lesson 2, and the link. Energy Information Agency: The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is an office within the U.S. Department of Energy and was established in 1977. It is primarily a statistical and analytic agency and provides neutral data for others to use.

Annual Energy Outlook 2025

In 325 words (plus or minus 10%) write an essay that explores information presented by the outlook. Begin by creating a comparative graph as we did in the example but select different parameters. It would be best to compare logical items. For example, you might wish to compare industrial natural gas demand trends vs. residential trends. Or you might want to compare electricity vs. gasoline in the transportation sector. Do not feel limited to only two items; feel free to group several together that tell a logical story. For example, in our sample above, we chose two energy sources in the residential sector in order to try to draw conclusions. Your essay should be submitted in Microsoft Word and will address the following questions.

• Which parameters did you choose and why?
• What are the trends for each and how do they differ?

Using supporting information from the rest of the outlook, try to explain why the trends are what they are. The best way to do this is to read about the logic for each item. You can use the topic specific PDF or PPT links on the home page.

What is your opinion about the projection? Does it make sense to you? In our example above, one might wonder why the renewable energy use in the residential sector never really takes off.

In this lesson, we will focus on the drivers for change in regard to electricity. What is moving us from fossil fuels to renewables? How does this shift impact reliability, accessibility, security, and sustainability? Conversely, how do these four factors drive the transition? In the previous lessons, we explore the outlooks that illustrate projected trends in supply and demand. These outlooks illustrate these trends, and, to an extent, offer some explanations. In this lesson we will step back and take a look at the high-level drivers of the trends these outlooks tell in regard to the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. In the next lesson, we will explore trends in energy efficiency and other ways to deliver electricity more effectively to users, regardless of how it is generated.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Recognize the drivers and trends involved in moving from fossil fuels to renewables
• Relate these trends to energy sustainability, reliability, accessibility, and security
• Describe how these drivers and trends support the SDG #7 targets

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

Throughout history, our society has seen periodic shifts in how we acquire energy. In some cases, it was done by introducing new technologies such as steam power engines or widely available electricity. In other cases, ironically, it was applying old approaches in more advanced ways such as solar energy heating or windmills. Note that prior to the heyday of the use of electricity, energy necessary to do work was obtained from sources we now consider renewables. These include wind, solar, and hydropower. Even fossil fuels date to the early days of organized society. Cultures used seeping crude oil, peat bogs, and coal to burn for light, heat, and cooking. Windmills dotted the Dutch landscape, and water wheels were common in early America. In the pre-electricity era, wind and hydropower were used more for mechanical purposes such as pumping water or spinning mills. Solar was used mainly for heating and cooking.

Landscape Photography of Factory

Credit: power-plant-industry-chimney by Benita5 from Pixabay is licensed under the Simplified Pixabay License

Electricity generation found a new application for fossil fuels, hydropower, and wind. The ability to generate electricity using some form of energy to spin turbines which generated current transformed the energy landscape. Burning fossil fuels generated steam to turn turbines. Even with the advent of renewable sources, including nuclear, the primary purposes are for generating electricity. Hydropower and wind energy now spin turbines, and solar can either heat water into steam or generate electricity directly via photovoltaics.

We learned from the outlooks that there is information available predicting how this transition will play out. One may think that, with all of the thinking that goes into an outlook, they would be rather accurate and reliable. That is relatively true until there is a “Black Swan Event.” In general, this is an expression for an event that occurs rarely and randomly but has severe consequences. Some definitions go on to say it is also something that, in retrospect, should have been foreseen. The Covid-19 pandemic is such an eventand perhaps even the war in Ukraine.

The 2024 edition of the IEA World Energy Outlook has this highlight statement:

"Escalating conflict in the Middle East and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine underscore the continued energy security risks that the world faces. Some of the immediate effects of the global energy crisis had started to recede in 2023, but the risk of further disruptions is now very high. The experience of the last few years shows how quickly dependencies can turn into vulnerabilities; a lesson that applies also to clean energy supply chains that have high levels of market concentration. Markets for traditional fuels and for clean technologies are becoming more fragmented: since 2020, almost 200 trade measures affecting clean energy technologies – most of them restrictive – have been introduced around the world, compared with 40 in the preceding five-year period...Fragility in today’s energy markets is a reminder of the abiding importance of energy security."

Coupled with the the transition in the U.S. to a new presidential administration and energy stance, the long-term impacts to the prospects for rapid clean energy transitions remains unclear. It is too soon to say whether today’s crises represent a major setback for efforts to bring about a more secure and sustainable energy system, or a catalyst that accelerates the pace of change. The war in Ukraine and destabilization in the Middle East continue to unfold; many uncertainties remain, and crucial energy policy decisions have yet to be made.

World Energy Outlook 2024

Let us explore general drivers to shift from fossil fuel to renewables, and some related disadvantages regarding energy security, reliability, accessibility, and sustainability. These are only high-level thoughts; in this lesson, you will be exploring more about these aspects. It is clear that the primary driver to go from fossil fuel to renewables for electricity generation has been sustainability- specifically the goal to reduce carbon emissions.

Windmills on Shore

Credit: Afterglow-alternative-energy-clouds-dawn by Wind Turbine Landscape Photography from Pexels is licensed under CC0

Reliability:

As we will explore more deeply in future lessons, the concept of reliability is “being able to depend on” getting the energy you need when you want it. The expectations for this vary around the world. For example, in the developed nations, especially the USA, reliability means having energy “24/7/365.” Any interruption is considered unacceptable, at a minimum for comfort and lifestyle, but, in cases of emergency services, for example, it can mean the difference between life and death. Being able to ensure reliable energy and having a plan to contend with lapses in reliability is often referred to as energy resilience.

We know, however, that there is a difference between the amount of energy required to keep society functioning and the amount of energy desired for discretionary activities. For example, powering a hospital is much more critical than lighting a stadium for a sports event. This necessary minimum amount of reliable energy is called the “baseload” and we will learn more about it in a later lesson. Historically, fossil fuel or nuclear plants provided most of the baseload, with hydropower becoming a key component more recently. Renewables are becoming greater contributors to baseload production but, to-date, they are not reliable enough to supply the baseload without additional generation methods.

Accessibility:

Recall this means being able to get energy to your point of use. Having a reliable energy grid is not of much comfort to a person who cannot access it. In developed countries, especially the USA, accessibility is an issue in very remote areas. Even the most impoverished areas in the USA have access to the grid. However, it is important to note that affordability is a subset of accessibility. If you cannot afford to pay for energy, then it is not accessible to you, even if your home is connected to the grid. Interestingly, renewables have a history of providing energy in cases where grid access or affordability has been an issue. These are examples of onsite solar or wind to generate some power over the short term if grid access is disrupted. We are also now seeing movement toward using renewables to satisfy a portion of energy demand to improve affordability. This will become more widespread as the cost differential between renewables and non-renewables equalizes.

Security:

Here again, distributed energy and renewables, which are more adaptable to site-based production, are becoming desirable over a traditional nationwide grid. We have seen from blackouts over history that disruptions to the grid propagate quickly throughout the system and in a very short time can plunge major areas of the country into darkness. I had the rather unfortunate experience of living in New York City during the 1963 and 1977 blackouts. Both were caused by a very localized problem that quickly spread due to the cascading nature of the grid trying to make up loss of supply. A relatively new concern is the potential for intentional disruption, such as terroristic acts.

Sustainability:

Probably the newest of the four attributes, sustainability drivers for energy have been the underpinning of the rapid expansion of renewable energy across the world. Here we see the greatest of the conflicts- while renewables tend to be the most “sustainable” in terms of environmental impact, they have struggled to become affordable compared to fossil fuels. More importantly, renewables alone cannot yet meet the demand, especially baseload. Until that is possible, through improved capacity to store energy combined with more built capacity, it is unrealistic to expect the energy supply to be 100% renewable in the near future. Renewable energy, such as wind and solar, by virtue of its characteristics, is practical for distributed energy- that is energy produced locally for a limited area, rather than drawing from a regional or national grid, although renewable energy does feed the grid.

In other classes, you have learned the basics of energy, including types of energy created. You have also learned the basics of the various renewable energy sources. A very interesting effort is called Project Drawdown. The overall intent is to provide insight and perspective on possible solutions to reduce emissions and mitigate climate change. Climate change is the subject of a future lesson, but the project does have some excellent insights on a number of solutions. We will be referring to this work frequently in this class. For this assignment we will focus on the section that talks about solutions for electricity generation in the context of transitioning from fossil fuel to renewables.

Purpose:

This assignment will help you practice looking at specific solutions in the context of the broader energy picture and how solutions need to be reconciled with energy-related needs.

Critical Thinking and Analysis:

This assignment will help you practice reviewing solutions and innovations in the context of accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability.

Successful Completion:

This assignment has two parts to complete.

Part one:

Review the Drawdown website, specifically the section on electricity. It covers both energy sources and solutions for efficiency and distribution. You should pay close attention to unique applications of wind and solar such as micro-wind and concentrated solar and different ways to generate energy from fossil fuels, such as cogeneration. You will note that the idea of Drawdown is to propose proven solutions to address energy challenges. These examples include a wide range of solutions but intend to demonstrate that practical solutions do exist.

Part two:

In 225 words (plus or minus 10%), write an essay which discusses climate change driven solutions and their potential impact. Begin by choosing one of the examples listed below and explain how it addresses one of the four attributes (accessibility, reliability, sustainability or security).

Review the entries for:

• Geothermal Power
• Utility Scale Photovoltaics
• Rooftop Solar
• Concentrated Solar
• Biomass Power
• Nuclear Power
• District Heating
• Micro Wind
• Methane Digesters
• Landfill Methane Capture
• Waste to Energy
• Distributed Solar Voltaics
• Ocean Power
• Wind Turbines- Onshore and Offshore
• Small Hydro
• Solar Hot Water

*You might also be interested in reviewing the introduction material on the homepage to learn more about the project.

In the previous lesson, we learned about the drivers moving us from traditional fossil fuels to renewables in terms of generating electricity to meet the energy demands of society. In this lesson, we will explore some aspects of how we can use the energy provided, regardless of source, as efficiently as possible. We will also learn that efficient use of energy is not only about how well we use it, but also how efficiently it gets to you.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Illustrate application of Energy Efficiency 
• Illustrate how distributed energy and microgrids relate to traditional national grid
• Explain the concept of Demand Side Management 
• Give examples of uses of a Smart Grid

Lesson Roadmap

*Contributions to this lesson by Vera Cole.

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

There are several terms related to this topic that are important to know. For this lesson, we will touch on energy efficiency, distributed energy and microgrids, and the future of the way energy is delivered, which includes smart grids and demand side management.

Eight Electrical Metric Meters

Credit: Eight Electrical Metric Meters by Tim Mossholder is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is the amount of useful energy you get from any type of system. It is calculated as the useful energy output divided by the total energy input. For example, a light bulb converts electricity to light and heat. Typically, the light is the "useful" output, and the heat is a byproduct. Because only five to eight percent of the energy used by a standard incandescent light bulb is converted to light, the rest is dissipated as heat.

Stated another way, energy efficiency generally means how effectively we use energy to accomplish a function. For example, a refrigerator that uses less energy than another model to keep the same amount of food cold is said to be “more efficient” than the other model. Another aspect of energy efficiency is how much of the energy provided is used as compared to that which is wasted. For example, with a steam boiler, the higher the percentage of the heat generated by burning fuel that is translated to the heat output in steam, the more efficient it is said to be.

The traditional grid is relatively inefficient because so much energy is lost in transmission between the power plant and the ultimate user. This is in part due to heat loss generated by the resistance of the transmission lines. Without getting into physics here, suffice to say that long distance transmission and traditional power plants lose energy as waste, usually as heat, between initial generation and delivery to your home. These losses average 6 to 8%, and minimizing these losses, combined with managing how much energy you use, serves as the foundation for the energy use efficiency movement. This doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider the losses at the power plant simply from burning a fuel to generate power, you will start to get a sense of how much energy it takes to make electricity and how important it is to be as efficient as possible from generation to transmission to end use.

The term "energy efficiency" is also used with a more broadly scoped meaning, such as this previously published definition from the World Energy Council: "energy efficiency improvements refer to a reduction in the energy used for a given service (heating, lighting, etc.) or level of activity. The reduction in the energy consumption is usually associated with technological changes, but not always, since it can also result from better organization and management or improved economic conditions in the sector ('non-technical factors')."

In this sense, a programmable thermostat may help with "energy efficiency." Simple steps such as remembering to turn off the lights is a non-technical behavior that can also improve energy efficiency. These are examples of energy efficiency in its broader meaning, related to the smarter use of energy for a specific purpose.

Energy efficiency helps in many ways. Recall our four attributes- security, reliability, accessibility, and sustainability. Energy efficiency, which fundamentally is using less energy when possible, is one of the few approaches that supports all four. By using less energy, there is more in the system increasing reliability and accessibility (in part, due to reduced cost of power from lower demand). Needing less energy means less use of fossil fuels and other environmental impacts. And using less energy makes us less dependent and therefore more secure.

Some content on this page came from an earlier version of this course and was written by Vera Cole.

EGEE 401: Energy in a Changing World by Vera Cole via the Pennsylvania State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

If energy is lost by simply moving it through long transmission lines, then logic tells us that if we can use the energy closer to where it is generated, the better off we are. The concepts of distributed energy and microgrids are based on that notion- that it is better when energy is generated and managed closer to point of use.

Lighted Cityscapes at Night Time

Credit: Life Of Pix from Pexels is licensed under CC0.

According to EPA, distributed energy is defined as follows:

“Distributed generation refers to a variety of technologies that generate electricity at or near where it will be used, such as solar panels and combined heat and power. Distributed generation may serve a single structure, such as a home or business, or it may be part of a microgrid (a smaller grid that is also tied into the larger electricity delivery system), such as at a major industrial facility, a military base, or a large college campus. When connected to the electric utility’s lower voltage distribution lines, distributed generation can help support delivery of clean, reliable power to additional customers and reduce electricity losses along transmission and distribution lines.”

A microgrid is simply a “small scale grid.” It does the same thing as the larger regional and national grids, but on a geographically more limited scale. It can be connected to the main grid, but once it obtains the power, it manages it through a smaller, more localized grid. Alternatively, the microgrid can have its own generation capability.

Electricity is not easily or efficiently stored in large amounts. In an electricity grid, power generation and power consumption must be closely matched at all times. If power generation and power consumption get out of balance, blackouts and other systemic failures occur. Hence, electricity must be produced on-demand, as needed. Naturally, demand changes throughout each day and throughout the year. Demands are met with a combination of power plants that are used all the time (base load) and others that are used when needed to meet peak demand. Together, they must have the collective capacity to meet actual demand, real-time.

Lighted Buildings Near Body of Water

Credit: Johannes Plenio from Pexels is licensed under CC0

Large swings in demand are expensive and problematic. When demand is low, expensive generating facilities (built to meet peak requirements) are sitting offline idle. When demand is high, all available generators are online, running full tilt, stressing the system, and risking reliability. Reducing large swings in demand allows for the more cost and energy-efficient design and operation of the electricity grid and its generators.

To achieve this balance, widespread efforts are being made to involve the consumer in the management of electricity demand. Overall, the umbrella term for working with customers to balance their electricity usage with the available supply is called demand response. The essential component is some form of communication with the customer or the customer’s systems so that they know when a change in their demand is desirable (supply is low, use less or supply is high, good time to use more).

There are many ways to accomplish this using tools and methods described as demand-side management (DSM). EIA defines DSM as follows:

"Demand-side management (DSM): A utility action that reduces or curtails end-use equipment or processes. DSM is often used in order to reduce customer load during peak demand and/or in times of supply constraint. DSM includes programs that are focused, deep, and immediate such as the brief curtailment of energy-intensive processes used by a utility's most demanding industrial customers, and programs that are broad, shallow, and less immediate such as the promotion of energy-efficient equipment in residential and commercial sectors."

Because of seasons and weather patterns, the United States' electric grid is built for capacity we almost never use. A report from Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) finds that 10% of the country's electric system is built to meet demand in just 1% of a year's hours. And reducing those demand peaks – typically met with the costliest, dirtiest electricity generation – can have a significant impact on consumers' bottom lines. UtilityDIVE (Nov 4, 2015)

Other terms related to this topic are load shifting and load leveling (both refer to rescheduling electricity usage to reduce peaks), time-of-day or time-of-use pricing or real-time pricing (customer is charged more for electricity used during peak periods) and smart grid (see below).

Some content on this page came from an earlier version of this course and was written by Vera Cole.

EGEE 401: Energy in a Changing World by Vera Cole via the Pennsylvania State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)

The Energy Storage Association explains the importance of grid energy storage: "Energy storage fundamentally improves the way we generate, deliver, and consume electricity. Energy storage helps during emergencies like power outages from storms, equipment failures, accidents or even terrorist attacks. But the game-changing nature of energy storage is its ability to balance power supply and demand instantaneously - within milliseconds - which make power networks more resilient, efficient, and cleaner than ever before.” (FAQs)

We also know that electricity is not easily or efficiently stored in large amounts. The Energy Storage Association identifies five categories of Energy Storage Technologies:

• Batteries – a range of electrochemical storage solutions, including advanced chemistry batteries, flow batteries, and capacitors
• Thermal – capturing heat and cold to create energy on demand or offset energy needs
• Mechanical Storage – other innovative technologies to harness kinetic or gravitational energy to store electricity
• Hydrogen – excess electricity generation can be converted into hydrogen via electrolysis and stored
• Pumped Hydropower – creating large-scale reservoirs of energy with water

NSRS Srisailam Dam

Credit: NSRS Srisailam Dam by Munna Aawara at Wikipedia is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Primitive as it may seem, the grid-tied energy storage technology with the largest capacity is simply to pump water to a higher elevation, storing it as potential energy. Called pumped storage, or pumped hydropower, the energy is recovered when the water from the higher elevation is used to drive turbines for hydroelectric power conversion. This process uses more electricity than it produces. So why do it? When a power plant has extra capacity, it generates electricity used to pump water uphill. Then, when the plant is stretched to capacity and electricity is at its highest price, this pumped storage can be used to generate low-cost hydroelectricity.

Some content on this page came from an earlier version of this course and was written by Vera Cole.

EGEE 401: Energy in a Changing World by Vera Cole via the Pennsylvania State University is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)

We have discussed distributed energy that relates to the physical nature of the grid- its geographic expanse and where power is generated relative to the user. But these grids, be they the large national scale or microgrids and distributed energy, need to be able to “think and make decisions” in order to optimize power generation and distribution. We refer to this as a “smart grid.”

Earth at Night

Credit: Earth at Night. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS) C. Mayhew & R. Simmon (NASA/GSFC), NOAA/ NGDC, DMSP Digital Archive (Public Domain)

In this lesson, we learned some aspects of how we use the energy provided, regardless of source, as efficiently as possible. We also learned that efficient use of energy is not only about how well we use it, but also how efficiently it gets to you. To determine how well you understood the points discussed in this lesson, you will create an infographic which relates to your personal use of energy.

Purpose of this infographic:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will create an infographic that illustrates how your home could ideally benefit from concepts of this lesson.

Communicating Visually:

Illustrate points where and how energy efficiency and the smart grid would relate, and how your home could connect to distributed energy features such as microgrids. You can show both the interior elements, as well as how the home relates to the grid in map diagram format. In your illustration, show connections, if any, to the national grid. Illustrate which elements of your home that would be part of the smart grid.

To help you in thinking of what to show, the U.S. Government has simplified energy efficiency shopping for customers with the ENERGY STAR rating system, a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy that awards Energy Star status to highly efficient products. If you'd like more information, visit the Energy Star website or read through How Energy Star Works.

For other ideas, once again go to the Project Drawdown page, click on the Electricity icon, and explore some of the innovative projects dealing with efficiency and distributed energy. Some cases have been around a while, like green and cool roofs, but others are quite cutting-edge like dynamic glass and building automation.

Successfully Completing this Assignment:

If you haven’t done so already, review the foundational resources provided in the Orientation lesson. They are titled Creating Infographics and Overview of Infographic Assignments. The rubric used for grading this assignment is provided on the following page in Canvas.

If you have any questions, please post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion Forum.

Infographic Information Video

In this lesson, we will continue the discussion about energy but will turn to transportation. Other than power (electricity) generation, the largest consumer of fossil fuel and renewable energy is the transportation sector. But unlike the power generation sector, the transportation sector is not yet as advanced or as diverse in terms of alternatives as power generation. For the most part, the bulk of transportation is still propelled by fossil fuels. Even electric cars are indirectly powered mainly by fossil fuels since that is how most of our electricity is generated. Hence, when we speak of future trends in the fossil fuel to renewables transition, how that relates to transportation is critically important.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to

• Identify energy sources used in the transportation sector  
• Calculate your transportation-related carbon footprint
• Find energy outlook information related to transportation  

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

We can explore energy in the transportation sector the same way we looked at power generation. First, energy for transportation is driven by the same four attributes as electricity- accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability. And the definitions of these four parameters are the same as we learned in an earlier lesson, except that they manifest themselves in quite different ways. For example, use of fossil fuels is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore climate change. Striving for sustainability in the transportation sector becomes a key issue.

Second, accessibility takes on a different impact. Even though an area may have adequate access to electricity, unless it is made available in a way that can be used in transportation, such as an adequate network of charging stations, one can argue that it is not accessible.

Third, reliability may be a factor of spacing between charging stations or time to recharge batteries. If the spacing between charging stations is greater than the distance I can get from my electric vehicle on one charge, then the system is not reliable.

Finally, security becomes important as we switch sources of energy. The more electric cars we have, the more important the security of the power grid becomes. If something were to disrupt our power grid, we would not only lose electricity to run our homes and businesses but would then also lose the ability to move about.

Two White and Red Tesla Charging Station

Credit: Chad Russell from Pexels is licensed under CC0

The dual nature of energy in the transportation sector.

With the advent of electric vehicles, we now must deal with two aspects of supporting the transportation sector. There is the direct use of fuels for transportation, such as gasoline or diesel for cars, trucks, planes, and trains. Even compressed natural gas or hydrogen-powered vehicles use a fuel source directly on board the vehicle. However, we now must contend with indirect fuel use. This is true of electric vehicles. The electricity must come from somewhere, and the fossil fuel to renewables transition means that it will impact the transportation sector in terms of how the electricity is generated.

We are also realizing opportunities for direct use of renewables. For example, there are experimental trains, aircraft and seafaring vessels powered by solar energy. As you can imagine, the practicality of powering something in motion with renewable energy sources becomes somewhat of an engineering and logistical challenge. That said, some of the earliest transportation, ships on the ocean, for example, were powered by wind first, before the advent of steam power (fueled by burning coal onboard).

In this lesson we learned about the role of energy in transportation. Now, you’re going to engage in an activity to demonstrate your understanding of the role you, personally, play in the consumption of energy through the creation of an infographic.

Purpose of this infographic:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will create an infographic that illustrates your carbon footprint.

Lesson 6 Assignment

One interesting exercise is to see how you fit in the national averages for carbon footprint resulting from transportation. For this lesson’s assignment, you will calculate your GHG footprint related to your transportation habits using the following equations. Transportation accounts for about 28% of global GHG emissions, and that average applies to personal GHG emissions as well. In other words, the average per capita emissions is about 17 tons of carbon, of which 6-9 tons of carbon come from our personal automobiles.

But first, let us look at an example prepared by the previous instructor, Ed Pinero, by viewing this video (4:20):

The equations we will use for this exercise are as follows:

• CO₂  emissions from a gallon of gasoline = 2,421 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 8,788 grams = 8.8 kg/gallon = 19.4 pounds/gallon
• CO₂  emissions from a gallon of diesel = 2,778 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 10,084 grams = 10.1 kg/gallon = 22.2 pounds/gallon

Based on your driving habits, and your vehicle's city/highway fuel efficiency rating, calculate your annual GHG emissions in pounds. Prepare an infographic that shows the math and the assumptions you used. In the infographic, also note things that you could do to reduce that footprint.

• The assumptions
• Examples of what they could do to reduce that footprint

Infographic Information Video

In this lesson, we will continue the discussion about energy but will turn to the manufacturing (or “industrial”) sector. The U.S manufacturing sector uses a significant amount of energy, emits a large portion of greenhouse gases (GHG) and is a major economic contributor in terms of jobs and GDP. Globally, growing populations and rising middle classes throughout the developing world, will mean new consumers demanding all the products we take for granted in the U.S. That means more natural resources to fuel factories and energy sources to power them. In light of that fact, it is important to understand where the manufacturing sector stands in terms of its own transition from energy efficiency to onsite renewables. How manufacturers consume energy and how policy-makers incentive energy efficiency and use of renewables is of critical importance globally as we seek to build a more sustainable energy future and economic system.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Identify energy sources used in the industrial sector  
• Understand general trends in energy efficiency and typical energy uses within the industrial sector
• Identify general best practices to improve manufacturing sustainability 

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

Ever since the onset of the industrial revolution, manufacturing capacity and output in the US has been nurtured due to its critical importance both in terms of producing what US consumers demand, but also in terms of the key components and products needed to maintain national security. Underpinning that growth has been the relatively easy access to the vast natural resources reserves in the US including abundant fossil fuels to power manufacturing facilities.

While the overall percentage of the workforce employed in manufacturing has fallen considerably in the past fifty years, the industrial sector still accounts for approximately 11% of US GDP and hovers around 8% of the workforce (NAM: 2022 US Manufacturing Facts). Despite this smaller economic footprint in the US, the industrial sector accounts or 23% of total direct US GHG emissions (EPA) and accounts for 33% of total U.S. energy consumption (EIA). Thus, when looking at the energy transition in the US, as with the transportation sector, improving manufacturing processes and materials use is imperative (EIA: Use of Energy Explained).

Industrial processes use energy in a variety of ways including those similar to commercial and residential facilities: heating and cooling, lighting and office-related needs. But manufacturing also requires energy to turn motors and power industrial equipment, generate steam for process heating and even use fossil fuel derivatives for feedstocks (e.g., chemicals, plastics). Natural gas and petroleum account for the majority of energy use with renewables seeing a slight increase in the past 20 years. One area where manufacturing has made significant gains is in energy efficiency. In fact, data from the most recent Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey from the US EIA (2018) revealed that “from 1998 to 2018, manufacturing energy intensity decreased by 26%. During this same period, manufacturing gross output increased by 12%, indicating continued energy efficiency gains.”

Not surprisingly, accompanying the efficiency gains have been a general trend of declining GHG emissions from US manufacturers in terms of both direct emissions (produced at the facility) and indirect emissions (produced offsite but associated with the facility’s use of electricity). The EPA reports that “total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from industry, including electricity, have declined by 14% since 1990.” Even with all the positive momentum in this sector toward greater energy efficiency and a lower carbon footprint, there is still ample opportunity for improvement due to the variety of ways the industrial sector consumes energy and the vast amount of resources required as feedstock and inputs to production.

Due to the overall importance of manufacturing to the US economy, the federal government devotes a significant amount of resources toward ensuring the strength of the sector but also toward continued improvement of its energy efficiency and use of clean energy (through incentives, tax credits, grants, etc.). Importantly though, manufactured components are needed to build wind turbines, solar panels, battery storage devices, variable speed motors and other finished products that collectively contribute to the energy transition. Using lighter materials and recycled materials in the manufacturing process also means final products that are themselves potentially more energy efficient and sustainable from a resource standpoint. Thus, as the US and other countries incentivize the development of the products and technologies that result in more renewables and more energy efficient products, the efficiency and sustainability of the manufacturing process itself can convey multiple co-benefits to society.

Overview:

In this lesson, we explored energy use in the industrial sector and the general trends overtime in its improved energy efficiency and lower GHG emissions. However, there is still ample opportunity for improvements in multiple types of manufacturing processes across all industrial sectors. Considering how dependent the US economy is on spending on consumer products, improving the sustainability of high demand/widely used goods can result in big wins for energy and the environment. There are also many incentives at the federal and state levels for improved industrial energy efficiency. Improving the energy use profile of manufacturing while also utilizing new materials in the manufacturing process itself, can yield multiple co-benefits for society at large. To pull these concepts together, we’re going to engage in a creative activity.

Purpose of this Essay activity:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will write an essay which reflects the ideas and concepts presented in this lesson, specifically answering the questions provided below.

Successfully completing this assignment:

You will need to pick one manufactured item from your home (piece of furniture, an electronic device, bathroom fixture, etc.) and research the typical manufacturing process for that item and how facilities that produce that item (or its component parts) typically use energy.

In your submission of 325 (plus or minus 10%) word or less, please answer the following questions:

• Describe in general the typical method for manufacturing or assembling the product you chose
• How is energy generally used in the facilities that manufacturer and/or assemble the product you chose?
• How might you improve the energy efficiency of those facilities?
• Are there ways to swap out key material inputs for new materials that would improve the sustainability of the product and its end use?
• How might you incentivize these energy and material improvements?

Hint: the US Department of Energy, EPA and EnergyStar all have good resources to understand basic manufacturing processes, related energy use as well as incentives and best practices.

In this lesson we will look at some examples at how other regions deal with energy issues. For example, we will touch on Europe, Asia, and North America. We will learn that there are different drivers that lead a country to do what it does in regard to energy, and we will see how markets and politics play into these decisions. We will also explore the role of renewables in national energy development. Finally, we will explore a market-driven approach separate from policy or regulation.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to

• Evaluate the factors that influenced regions to make the decisions they did regarding energy, using natural gas as a case study  
• Identify the impact of renewable energy policies in global regions using case studies
• Identify whether accessibility, reliability, security, or sustainability are the priority in national policy of other regions by comparing the definitions of these factors with specifics of the policies

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

The entire global society needs energy, and therefore each nation and region need to make decisions regarding how it provides energy to its people and economy. But not everyone is starting from the same point, and not all countries have the same priorities. In other words, even though at the end of the day we are talking about providing fuels and electrification, the pathway to get there and what drives decisions will vary. For example, we will learn that for the United States, the primary element is energy security and independence, whereas for others, it is simply providing accessibility to more of their population. And for yet others, it may be more about political positioning and leverage.

There are several aspects to consider when thinking about providing energy. We need to recognize that providing energy means not only electrification but also fuels to generate the electricity, as well as fuels for transportation and industry. Natural gas becomes an important variable in that it is relatively plentiful, cheap, and on the lower end of fossil fuel carbon footprint. And of course, renewables are playing a bigger and bigger role in national energy markets. But in more developing markets, coal and oil will continue to play a big role. While there is action in some areas to reduce or eliminate coal use, in other areas, like India and China, it is even growing in use. Before we get into details of regions, it is important to also recognize that there are two ways to transport natural gas: via pipelines from gas fields, or delivered via tanker as liquefied natural gas (LNG). You will see that this dual option plays a major role in the geopolitics of energy.

Why is the natural gas story so important? Natural gas is a fossil fuel that is relatively clean (especially compared to coal or oil) and can be used to fuel power plants to generate electricity as well as to create heat to generate steam. Natural gas is also growing in use as a transportation fuel. It is a pivotal fuel source and plays a key role in nearly all global settings. It is likely that the transition from fossil fuels to renewables as a way to reduce carbon emissions will need to go through a natural gas phase. In other words, it is not practical to go from a coal and oil economy to an all-renewable economy without natural gas as a transition fuel.

As we heard from the interview with Bob Barkanic in Lesson 1, developing areas of the world without established energy infrastructure actually have an advantage when it comes to uptake of renewable energy. This is because they can essentially “leapfrog” to renewable energy and not have to first build, then adapt and retrofit, traditional fossil fuel powered national electric grids. We also learned in prior lessons that renewable energy systems can be more diversified and distributed, thereby making deployment easier. Of course, we will not be able to do an exhaustive analysis of renewable energy policy of all countries. But it is useful to explore a few examples from different regions.

Silver and Black Solar Panels on Snow Covered Ground

Credit: Pixabay from Pexels is licensed under CC0

We will learn about the USA and renewable energy policy in a later lesson, but we see on a global scale that although renewables bring much benefit, there are challenges on a national and regional scale. For example, in places like Africa and Latin America, while the overall lack of a reliable energy grid and infrastructure brings opportunity to start with renewable sources, there is also the diffuculty of regional-scale cooperation and coordination (necessary in order to benefit from economy of scale) across the continents' collections of independent nations. Without this cooperation and coordination, you will end up with a series of country specific, and disconnected systems.

To this end, IRENA (recall IRENA from our review of energy outlooks) has been working in several areas supporting development of strategy and capacity building to incentivize regional cooperation through a concept they call Clean Energy Corridors. These corridors will help connect efforts into broader networks that will work together more efficiently and add market stability.

Renewables will figure prominently in national energy policy of developed economies as well. These will be different than with Africa and Latin America in that developed countries tend to have fossil fuel-dominated grids already in place, and renewables will need to be integrated into this existing infrastructure. As an example, let us explore what is going on in our northern neighbor, Canada.

As you can imagine, Canada is quite different in terms of grid maturity and economic development than we saw with developing areas. How Canada address renewables and plans to integrate these sources into their energy grid is quite different than Africa.

Photo Of Windmills During Dawn

Credit: Laura Penwell from Pexels is licensed under CC0

You might be surprised to see exactly how their renewable portfolio is balanced. Canada by far depends on hydroelectric power. This is an excellent example of a situation where a country wants to leverage renewables and utilizes their best resources to do so. Canada does use solar, wind, and others, but for them, moving water is the primary option. You might also find it interesting that up to 80% of Canada’s energy is generated by clean, low to zero emission sources. But this is in large part due to nuclear being part of the mix.

We also see with Canada something typical with developed nations with mature traditional fossil fuel powered electric grids. The most effective way they can grow renewables is by replacing part of this fossil fuel-dominant energy portfolio with renewables. Recall this differs from areas where there is no established grid where they can integrate renewables from the start. To make this “retroactive integration” feasible, there is a need to have a mix of regulation where it is required by law combined with incentives to create the technology and practices that will make the transformation feasible.

In Canada, the government requires there be a certain percentage of renewables in the energy mix of power production. This percentage may differ from province to province, but, in all cases, there must be a renewable energy component in the total electricity generated. Canada also has a transportation component where the federal Renewable Fuels Regulations require fuel producers and importers to have an average renewable content of at least 5% based on the volume of gasoline that they produce or import, and at least 2% of the volume of diesel fuel that they produce and import.

In parallel with the geopolitics of energy, there is the market sector, driven by supply and demand and competition. These forces are in play across national boundaries and although clearly sensitive to what governments and government policy do, the markets are more influenced by competitive positioning and market share. This market-driven, energy related action concept is evident when it comes to companies, and energy consuming industries in particular. These entities are looking for an advantage to leverage energy use. This may mean reducing energy use or becoming more efficient to save money, thereby increasing profitability. Or they may wish to actually sell this improved efficiency to gain more market share and/or be able to sell a product at a premium. An excellent example of this would be a company who switches to renewable energy sources. Such a switch can improve efficiency, reduce their carbon footprint, and improve their brand.

Concentrated men working together near solar panels

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Companies strive to integrate concepts and strategies through effective management processes. Doing things ad hoc without logic, organization, and follow up poses risks and introduces inefficiencies. As a result, a company will look for management techniques, which they can combine with technology, to increase performance in a given area. This is quite true with energy use. In searching for such approaches, companies, especially multinationals, will look for global scale, recognized standards, and protocols. By creating an international standard, it provides an approach that could be replicated, and would be recognizable to others, thereby increasing understanding, transparency, and awareness. A common way to create such global processes is through international standards. And the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is the premier organization for developing standards. ISO standards are market-driven, voluntary standards created by groups of experts and stakeholders. If you wish, you can learn more about ISO at their website.

The importance of these standards is that they help provide a pathway for organizations, typically companies and industry, to improve their performance in a variety of areas using voluntary, market-driven pathways in lieu of, or in conjunction with, policy and regulation driven by government. Over the years ISO has developed thousands of standards to help bring consistency across the globe. ISO standards cover a wide array of topics from management approaches to specific products. You depend on the consistency offered by ISO standards every day and may not even be aware of it. For example, it is because of standardization that a credit card magnetic strip is in the same place on the card and configured in such a way that card readers around world can recognize nearly any type of credit, debit, or charge card.

Specifically, ISO 50001 addresses energy management. ISO 50001- “Energy management systems – Requirements with guidance for use” was initially created in 2011 and updated in 2018. This is a management system standard, not a technology system. In other words, it provides a framework for organizations to manage their energy use in a way that brings efficiency and enhanced performance. Whether it is to improve energy efficiency, expand the use of renewables, or reduce energy use overall, some contend that allowing organizations to set their own goals, procedures, and approaches will lead to better performance than “one size fits all” policy or regulation. In reality, the answer is a mix of the two.

Lesson 8 Assignment 

In this lesson, we discussed Canada’s renewable energy strategies and resources. Now you are going to have an opportunity to explore the strategies, policies, and resources used by a country of your choosing (other than the U.S.). The goal is to create an infographic that summarizes this information in a visual format.

Purpose of this infographic:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will create an infographic that describes the renewable energy approach and policies for a chosen country.

Communicating Visually:

To begin creating your infographic, select a country that is of particular interest to you and review their policies for renewable energy. Then create an infographic which describes the renewable energy approach and policies for that country. As done above, note what renewable sources are emphasized, what policy approaches they use and so on. Identify whether accessibility, reliability, security, or sustainability are the priority in your country of choice, with specifics of the policies that informed your answer.

You’ll need to spend some time thinking about the various connections and how to demonstrate them in the most concise and effective manner possible. You’ll need to illustrate all this information in a manner that is easily understood ‘at a glance,’ meaning there shouldn’t be any additional resources or information one should need to read in order to understand what you are trying to communicate. In other words, try to visually show the connections between policy goals- do renewable energy requirements connect to climate change goals? Your infographic may include factoids and even selected screen shots to demonstrate a point; but make sure to input your own interpretation of how these individual facts can relate.

Successfully completing this assignment:

If you haven’t done so already, review the foundational information on creating infographics. You can view those resources through the links provided below. The rubric used for grading this assignment can be found on the Infographic Activity webpage as well as the Infographic Drop Box for Lesson 1 on Canvas.

Infographic Information Video

The U.S. is a complicated place in terms of regulations, and it is no different when talking about energy markets and options. The energy-related industries are for the most part private sector entities that are covered by a wide assortment of regulations and requirements. The oil and gas sector that provides fuels for transportation, industry, power generation, and personal use is one of these sectors. We also have power generation public utilities which are entities that maintain infrastructure on behalf of the public. These can be government entities, or private companies which are heavily regulated and under some form of public control. For this lesson, we will focus on the power-generating utilities, including the transmission and distribution of the energy.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to: 

• Describe the differences between regulated and deregulated energy markets
• Discuss how renewable energy policy and RPS compare and contrast within regulated/deregulated markets
• Discuss how to use information about your local market to make informed choices about your energy use

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

To get a good understanding on how the energy markets work in the USA, it is first important to understand the differences between the types of markets. For example, we have fuel supplier markets, like oil and gas companies and coal producers, who are private sector companies that compete for customers to whom they sell their products. If you use propane or fuel oil to heat your house, or are looking for a gas station to refuel your car, you get to choose from a number of suppliers who are all competing for your business.

Landscape Photography of Factory

Credit: Pixabay from Pexels is licensed under CC0

We also have electricity providers who generate power and manage the grid. Parts of this grid include power producers who use fuels to run turbines and generate electricity and who are also private sector companies. This power then gets put into the transmission and distribution system to get the electricity to users. It is an understatement to say that this system and the relationships between players is quite complex, and there have been major changes in how this works over time.

One of the fundamental concepts to begin to understand these complex relationships is that of regulated vs. deregulated markets. To an extent, the entire energy sector is regulated in one way or another. So before discussing regulated vs deregulated, we should first define the key segments of the energy sector. For now, we will focus on the power generating sector, and the aspect of getting electricity generated and distributed. For this lesson, we will not be looking at regulation of the fuel sources themselves such as oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric. Each of these fuel types has its own, unique, myriad regulations. Also, we are not going to get into the intricacies of the legal and business elements. The goal is to understand how these regulated and deregulated markets relate to energy security, accessibility, reliability, and sustainability.

Energy generation is what power plants do. Whether they are coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, or a combination of these sources- these plants generate electricity by consuming a fuel and putting that electricity into the transmission and distribution grid (the power lines and power poles that crisscross the country). With the advent of renewable energy, power is also generated at wind and solar farms, biomass-to-energy plants, waste-to-energy plants, and others. All of these power generating options wish to add their power into the national grid.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulates the transmission of electricity across the national grid. This includes setting standards for reliability and security and putting some controls on pricing. Price control was intended to address the risk of unfair charges that would prove detrimental to the public at large. Referring to our four attributes, FERC is most concerned with accessibility, reliability, and security. Whereas FERC does not actively focus on energy sustainability, they do indirectly support it by allowing renewable energy to be put into the grid, as well as allowing provisions for demand response. As we discussed before, demand response is allowing the generation sector to work with consumers to optimize efficiency of energy use.

Interestingly, when one speaks about regulated and deregulated markets, they are usually not referring to many of the complexities described above. In reality, when their state is unregulated, they usually mean the concept of consumers being allowed to choose their own power producer. You can imagine that having thousands of independent grids with their own generation units, transmission lines, distribution points, and wires right to your home would create an unreliable, tenuous mess. Blackouts would be common and the ability to meet demand when and where needed would be almost more by luck than by planning.

Hence, the power sector had to be regulated to ensure consistency and reliability across the country. The ability for these systems to interconnect and work together was the only way to ensure reliable power. But we know that there are hundreds of power generation and transmission entities in the U.S. With the advent of renewable energy generation, there are thousands of additional sources of electricity trying to get connected to the grid. There was a need for government-driven oversight of the system.

Over time a situation evolved that proved to be unfair to consumers. Historically, the electric utility was a single entity that owned and controlled the system from the power plant to the end user. These utilities had their service areas, and they were the “only game in town.” As a user in that market you had no choice.

Even though there was a growing number of power producers, including a growing amount of renewable energy available, there was only one set of wires available in a given area. In order to allow consumers to shop more competitively for electricity but recognizing that it would need to come to their home or business through the transmission system available, several states opted to decouple energy production from transmission. This decoupling is what is commonly referred to as a “deregulated market”. In reality, only the power production is deregulated. The transmission and distribution are still regulated.

In a deregulated market, you can shop around for a good electricity price, or you may be willing to pay more than average to ensure your energy comes from a renewable source. By keeping the transmission and distribution regulated, regardless of from whom you buy your power, you are assured that it will be delivered to you without undue cost markups, at high levels of reliability. Those who move the energy to your home are required to cooperate with the generation players to ensure enough power is in the system and reliably delivered to you at a fair price.

In essence, the entire issue of deregulation was an attempt to break up power utility monopolies and allow for more choices and therefore better and more competitive prices, but still keep enough regulation to not compromise accessibility and reliability. We shall see below in the Kim et al assigned reading paper how the element of deregulation affects renewable energy choices. But it is important to note that integration or promotion of renewable energy was not a driver or reason for deregulation. Before we discuss what the relationship actually is between deregulation and renewable energy, we need to understand what we mean by renewable energy policy.

In addition to regulated vs deregulated aspects of states, there are also a wide variety of ways states encourage, or require, renewable energy as part of the state’s energy supply. The way RPS are implemented varies, and there are specific types of approaches. In other words, there are many ways to generate renewable energy, and then there are various policy options to getting this energy into the state’s energy mix. Generating solar energy for your home or a building is fine, but it does not help to build commercial scale solar, like a solar farm, if there is no way to get that power into the grid. And to get that power into the grid not only requires the right technology and spatial logistics, but it has to be allowed by the regulations. How that is allowed, and actually encouraged is through a state’s renewable energy policy.

One example is the Renewable Portfolio Standards program, or RPS, which require utilities to include a certain percentage of renewable energy in their power mix. How these are reflected across the states varies quite dramatically, and not all states have RPS. As of 2023, 29 states including the District of Columbia had some type of RPS, with additional states having some type of voluntary goals or objectives. Pennsylvania is one of the 29.

The deregulation of the power sector and introduction of renewable energy policies has proven to be positive from all four attributes’ perspectives- accessibility (includes affordability), reliability, security, and sustainability. The end consumer, whether your home or place of work, now can choose where they buy their electricity, but are still assured reliable delivery. It is, in essence, the “best of both worlds”.

Lighted Brooklyn Bridge during Nighttime

Credit: Kai Pilger from Pexels is licensed under CC0

Currently, 29 of the 50 states have some degree of deregulation in their markets. Note that because natural gas is so integral to energy consumption in the home and in industry, it is also regulated with deregulated parts. In other words, in some states, you also have a choice in who sources your natural gas, even if it is not the same as the distribution. Unlike with electricity markets where you may decide to choose a supplier based on how they generate the electricity, with natural gas, it is more about price competition.

Let us use an example not too distant from the PSU campus in southeastern Pennsylvania near Lancaster. The electric utility is PPL. This is the only utility that services the area, so they own and are responsible for the transmission and distribution of electricity, whether residents buy it from them (PPL also generates power via a sister generation company), or from another producer of their choice. Pennsylvania has several utilities that cover various parts of the state so someone living in Pittsburgh does not use PPL infrastructure; they have their own utility. Until the state deregulated in 1996, that meant buting electricity from PPL. But today, residents in this part of the state have no less than 20 options for buying electricity. In Pennsylvania there were advantages and disadvantages of deregulation. One positive change was that the utilities were required to allocate part of their income towards energy efficiency and renewable energy awareness and programs. Another major advantage was the ability to shop around for good rates. But that also introduced some disadvantages. First of all, the price caps that were in place in the regulated market (to avoid a single monopoly provider from high prices) were eliminated and many saw big changes in their pricing. Another disadvantage was that now the consumer was faced with a large number of choices and complex payment plans. It was suddenly possible to accidentally put yourself in a situation where you actually paid more than you used to, even in the more competitive market.

Fortunately, in Pennsylvania, a new state authority, PA Power Switch, was established to provide a wealth of information and guidance to residents and businesses in navigating the deregulated market. Feel free to visit the Power Switch website.

Now that we understand more about deregulated markets and renewable energy policy, let us revisit the question of how they relate, if at all. For this, we will read parts of an interesting study done by Columbia University and published in 2016.

Overview:

In this lesson, we explored the concepts of regulated and deregulated energy markets and the factors that impact each. We also discussed renewable energy policies as it related to regulated and de-regulated markets. We also discussed the current state of the energy marketplace and how it pertains to your geographic location. To pull these concepts together, we’re going to engage in a creative activity.

Purpose of this Essay activity:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will write an essay which reflects the ideas and concepts presented in this lesson, specifically answering the questions provided below.

Successfully completing this assignment:

You will need to research your own options regarding the electricity market. You present the information in the form of an essay (300 words plus or minus 10%). Even though some of you live in Pennsylvania, not all replies will be the same because we learned that market choices are not the same statewide in many U.S. states.

In your submission, please answer the following questions:

• Is your state deregulated? If so, to what degree (electricity only? Natural gas?)
• [If not, focus your comments on if there are plans for deregulation. Also discuss what options you do have to choose a power producer.]
• Do your choices include renewable energy options? Do you think it would be different if you were deregulated/regulated (as compared to what you are)?
• Can you identify the specific renewable energy program approach(es) used in your state?
• Are there programs for consumers to learn how to choose their energy provider?
• Does your local utility offer educational material on energy efficiency and saving energy?
• Does your utility have demand side options (such as smart metering, etc.)?

As we continue our review of energy in the U.S., we now turn to the role of Energy Policy legislation and Executive Branch actions. In a previous lesson, we learned specifically about the role of deregulation and how it relates to renewable energy policy. But on a much broader scale, there have been several times in history when global and national events and conditions led to the creation of overarching energy policy legislation that had significant, cross-cutting impact on energy development and markets. There have been five major, relatively recent policies. In this lesson, we will review those policies and what the key impacts were for each. We will also touch on executive branch actions that have affected the marketplace.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:   

• Identify the key aspects of the seven pieces of energy policy legislation 
• Describe how the Federal government leverages its energy use to impact the energy marketplace
• Describe the role of Executive Orders in driving Federal government energy use
• Explain how these policies affect energy accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

Federal Government Energy Use and Executive Branch Actions

We speak often of legislation and regulations, but the executive branch of government- the White House and federal agencies, also play a significant role in energy. For the purpose of this discussion, we consider the government not as the developer of legislation or implementer of law and regulation, but as an organization with energy-related impacts and demands. The U.S. government is one of the largest procurers of the energy in the world, and the single largest user and purchaser of energy in the U.S. The purchasing power of government to simply maintain its operations is large enough to affect and, to an extent, actually shape markets and pricing. Also, goals for improvement in energy performance can have a big impact on the overall energy use in the country.

One type of approach commonly used by the Federal government is the Executive Order (EO). An EO is a directive from the President to the Federal agencies and those entities under Executive Branch jurisdiction. An EO is not binding on the general public. However, EOs do impact the general population by the actions, or lack of actions, of Federal agencies in response to an EO. EOs do not have the force of law and remain in effect once issued until it is revised or revoked by the issuing President or a subsequent President. Congress can memorialize all or part of an EO into legislation, as happened with the energy efficient Federal buildings part of EO 13423 into the energy act of 2007 (see below). Once this happens, the EO or the portion memorialized now has the force of law and can only be changed or undone by Congress.

In the realm of energy, EOs are important in that they drive Federal use and procurement of energy which in turn affects the energy markets, in part because of the great use of energy by government operations.

Before we delve into what goals and commitments the Federal government has made over the years, let us explore how the U.S. government figures into national energy use.

Now that we have a better use of how and how much energy is used by the government, let us explore how the government has addressed their energy usage over time. The best way to explore this is to review the various EOs in the past 20 years. EO 13423 issued in 2007 was the first one that consolidated the various environmental and energy goals of the government into a single, coordinated, and integrated sustainability strategy.

During the same periods of time when the EOs were being conceptualized and issued, Congress was busy developing pieces of legislation. Although there is no set interval for these actions, there have been some key events and conditions that led to the development of the legislation. Beginning with the 1978 act prompted by the severe Middle East oil crisis that resulted in long lines at the gas pumps, we see legislative actions attempting to solve a problem. We also see a pattern from the early acts to the later ones of first trying to address inherent flaws and weaknesses in our energy infrastructure, and then evolving into trying to further protect the consumer and incentivize more sustainable solutions such as renewable power and more fuel efficient and alternative fuel transportation.

Below are links to the key acts since 1975. For each, there is a summary of its key provisions and why they came to be. Also provided below are some useful links to read more about the legislation. If you are extra ambitious, links are also provided to the legislation itself. You do not have to read the acts themselves, but briefly scanning them will give you some good insight into how complex these pieces of legislation are. Also keep in mind that this Federal effort is superimposed on state level legislation and regulation. As the power sector became more deregulated at the Federal level, it forced the states to take on more responsibility, as we saw in the previous lesson.

Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975

The primary goals of EPCA are to increase energy production and supply, reduce energy demand, provide energy efficiency, and give the executive branch additional powers to respond to disruptions in energy supply.

• Public Law 94-163

Energy Conservation and Production Revenue Act of 1976 

The Energy Conservation and Production Act of 1976 (P.L. 94–385) took the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 one step further by including incentives for conservation and renewable energy and providing loan guarantees for energy conservation in public and commercial buildings.

• H.R.6860 - 94th Congress (1975-1976): Energy Conservation and Conversion Act
• A good summary of the 1975 and 1976 actions are found on pages 4 and 5 of the FEA Report

1978-National Energy Act of 1978

The National Energy Act (NEA) of 1978 was passed by the U.S. Congress in response to the energy crisis of the 1970s. It was designed to resolve a disjointed national energy policy and empower the United States with greater control of its national energy destiny. The NEA and its progeny established energy efficiency programs, tax incentives, tax disincentives, energy conservation programs, alternative fuel programs, and regulatory and market-based initiatives. Results of the NEA have been mixed. Most of the market-based initiatives have been retained, but many of the regulatory initiatives have since been abandoned.

• National Energy Act of 1978

Energy Policy Act of 1992

The Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 1992 (Public Law 102-486(PDF)) aims to reduce U.S. dependence on petroleum and improve air quality by addressing all aspects of energy supply and demand, including alternative fuels, renewable energy, and energy efficiency. EPAct 1992 encourages the use of alternative fuels through both regulatory and voluntary activities and approaches the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) carries out. It requires federal, state, and alternative fuel provider fleets to acquire alternative fuel vehicles. EPAct 1992 also defines "alternative fuels" as: methanol, ethanol, and other alcohols; blends of 85% or more of alcohol with gasoline (E85); natural gas and liquid fuels domestically produced from natural gas; propane; hydrogen; electricity; biodiesel (B100); coal-derived liquid fuels; fuels, other than alcohol, derived from biological materials; and P-Series fuels, which were added to the definition in 1999. Under EPAct 1992, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has the authority to add more alternative fuels to the list of authorized alternative fuels if certain criteria are met. DOE's Clean Cities initiative was established in response to EPAct 1992 to implement voluntary alternative fuel vehicle deployment activities.

• Alternative Fuels Data Center
• Energy Policy Act of 1992

Energy Policy Act of 2005

This act was intended to further promote coal, oil, and gas development, but also provided for incentives such as tax credits for renewables. This act also had several provisions for clean fuels and alternative fuel vehicles. Another key component was a continuing effort to address the public utilities’ issues with power generation. This included provisions to fix problems caused by earlier legislation that deregulated parts of the power generation sector.

• Energy Policy Act of 2005
• Energy Policy Act of 2005 Fact Sheet
• Impacts of the Energy Policy Act of 2005

Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007

Signed on December 19, 2007, the act aims to increase U.S. energy security, develop renewable energy production, and improve vehicle fuel economy. Additionally, the act strived to increase the production of clean renewable fuels; protect consumers; increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles; promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options; improve the energy performance of the Federal Government. Regarding the Federal government performance, the act memorialized as law portions of Executive Order 13423.

• Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
• Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (Summary)
• Summary of the Energy Independence and Security Act

Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015

Overall, this bill continues the pattern seen throughout the development of legislation of increasing renewables, providing for more energy security by promoting domestic oil, gas, and coal production, and ensuring more reliable and affordable energy. This bill amends the Energy Conservation and Production Act, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 with respect to energy efficiency in buildings and appliances.

• Energy and Natural Resources: Energy Policy Modernization Act
• Alliance to Save Energy: The Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015

The Energy Act of 2020

The Energy Act modernizes and refocuses the Department of Energy’s research and development programs on the most pressing technology challenges — scaling up clean energy technologies like advanced nuclear, long-duration energy storage, carbon capture, and enhanced geothermal. Crucially, across all of these technologies, DOE is now empowered to launch the most aggressive commercial scale technology demonstration program in U.S. history. The bill sets up a moonshot of more than 20 full commercial scale demos by the mid-2020s.

• The Energy Act of 2020

Executive Order

• Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability (White House press release)

The Energy Provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed into law in August 2022, will cut Americans’ energy costs, create good jobs and transform U.S. efforts to address the climate crisis. It is the largest single step that Congress has ever taken to address climate change. The IRA includes nearly $370 bilion in investments in disadvantaged communities, prioritizing projects that repurpose retired fossil fuel infrastructure and employ displaced workers, setting the U.S. on a course toward a fair, equitable and economic clean energy transition. 

• Overview of Energy and Climate Provisions in the IRA

Overview:

In this lesson we learned about energy policy in the U.S. and the role of deregulation in renewable energy policy. In this assignment, you will draft a summary discussing key aspects of these policies.

Purpose:

This assignment will help you practice synthesizing your knowledge and presenting a concise written summary of key principles relating to energy generation and the four factors.

Successful Completion:

For this lesson’s assignment, imagine you are an expert providing consultation to the Congress in developing the “EGEE 401 Energy Policy Act of 2025.” You are tasked with writing the summary section identifying key provisions of the act. In 325 words (plus or minus 10%), write this summary, with an opening statement of the overall intent of the act, and continue with statements or bulleted points of the key provisions. For example, what would you say about power generation and the grid? Renewable energy? Climate change? Coal, oil, and gas? As part of your introduction, comment on key aspects of earlier legislation that informed your approach. In your essay, include something for about how your new legislation will support accessibility, security, reliability, and/or sustainability. You might want to review the most recent Acts to get a sense of how these are structured and for some content hints!

Climate change is the topic of its own course, and you will have dealt with it in several of your other classes. For this lesson, we will focus on the energy-climate change nexus. We know that a big part of the issue with climate change is the greenhouse gas emissions from consuming fossil fuels, and most of that occurs to generate energy. Hence, energy and climate change are intricately linked.

We will focus on climate change but from the perspective of energy. We have learned this semester that there are four drivers for energy decisions and policy- accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability. And we have realized that a large part of the sustainability attributes relates to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to: 

• List the conflicting priorities between climate change-driven policy, and energy-driven policy
• Identify how the four attributes of energy (accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability) relate to climate change

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

Energy production, or more specifically, use of fossil fuels to generate energy is one of the largest, if not the largest, contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and hence anthropogenic-induced climate change. We need to make this distinction about anthropogenic sources in that there are naturally occurring sources of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, that fluctuate over time and also contribute to climate change. We know from the geologic record that the earth has been experiencing climate change for billions of years. So clearly climate change is not a new issue coincident with the advancement of society. However, our widespread use of fossil fuels has surely changed the natural balance of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

If the biggest anthropogenic contribution to climate change is use of fossil fuels, then energy production becomes the key activity. We consume fossil fuels to generate electricity, power transportation, and run industry. We also use fossil fuels commercially and residentially for heating, cooking, and other uses. We have learned this semester that simply switching away from fossil fuels is not practical in the short term, and would compromise goals of accessibility, reliability, and security even though it would help towards energy sustainability. The answer will be rooted in the ability to find an optimal balance of key activities- shift to renewables and alternate fuels, increases in energy efficiency, and finding ways to capture and sequester the carbon dioxide that is emitted.

Let us go back to the previous two lessons where we learned about national energy policy development and revisit the information, but now through the lens of climate related implications. Review the summaries and scope of the energy deregulation and renewable policies at the state level, and the several national energy policy acts to find where the climate change issue is represented. Note that it may not be explicitly referred to as climate change; but instead, may appear as renewables, efficiency, and sustainable aspects. But we know that renewables, energy efficiency, and other sustainability related aspects more often than not actually refer to greenhouse gas emission reductions as the purpose.

Now let us go back to the early lessons where we learned about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially Goal #7 on energy. But this time, also review Goal #13 Climate Action. Whereas Goal 7 has several reference and targets for clean and sustainable energy, Goal 13 is not explicit that sustainable energy is part of the climate solution.

• United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Overview:

In this lesson we learned about the energy-climate nexus. In this assignment, you will write a brief essay discussing important energy-related policies and the four factors.

Purpose:

This assignment will help you practice synthesizing your knowledge through a written essay discussing the SDGs, global climate change policies, and the four factors.

Successful Completion:

For this lesson, you will prepare a 325 word (plus or minus 10%) essay that answers the following questions:

Taking the viewpoint of the U.S., do you feel that an SDG and global climate change policy approach, or the current U.S. domestic approach in energy policies and legislation is better for accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability? In other words, would an energy policy-focused approach, or one more driven by SDGs and climate change goals get the U.S. closer to having the energy we need and want, but also minimizing the climate-related impacts associated with energy? What are some of the conflicting priorities?

For this lesson assignment, you will need to draw on what you learned in the lesson about the SDGs, and the lessons on U.S. energy approaches. Feel free to review the summaries of the energy policy acts, other legislative actions on energy regulation and renewable polices, as well as progress on SDG goal #7. You can revisit the energy outlooks to refresh your memory on trends and patterns.

Throughout the semester, we focused on energy in terms of fuel sources and electricity generation. We learned about the importance of energy accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability. In a previous lesson, we focused on the relationship between energy and climate. In this lesson we will focus on the role of energy in regard to water and food. Why these two? While having electricity is necessary for advancement of societies and growing economies, having food and water is essential to life itself. Understanding the relationship between energy and water, and energy and food, is an important aspect of understanding the true impact of energy. But we will also realize that there are times when energy comes in competition with water and food. How then do you determine which gets priority? We will see that the answer is not always clear cut.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:   

• Relate the key aspects of the energy-water nexus and energy-food nexus
• Compare and contrast how the four attributes of energy (accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability) relate to priorities around water and food
• Describe some of the efforts and innovations to address the nexuses

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

This nexus is rather straightforward, and we see this has two components- it takes energy to manage water, and it takes water to generate energy. Because with water, we have the same attributes to contend with- water accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability. The difference is that for the most part, any lapses in these attributes, especially the first three, can mean life or death. One of the biggest reasons for deaths in developing countries is poor quality drinking water and access to sanitation.

Energy for water- We also need to recognize that when we talk about energy and water, we mean the energy needed to transport, collect, treat, and distribute water; as well as the energy needed to collect, treat, and discharge water. When there is a power outage, it is more than the lights going out. It means water supply and treatment plants cannot operate unless they have emergency power sources. To them, energy reliability is paramount.

Water for energy- From the other perspective, we know it takes much water to generate energy. Whether it is cooling water for power plants and solar farms, flowing water for hydropower, or water in the manufacturing process of renewable energy equipment, water is an integral part of power generation and energy supply. Interestingly, in terms of water use for power generation, a great amount of water is used, but very little is actually consumed. In other words, at a power plant, water is used to cool, but then is returned to the same local watershed. As we will see below in the food discussion, in agriculture much water is consumed- meaning it becomes part of the product and leaves the watershed.

A relatively new and contentious issue in the water-energy nexus is the concept of hydraulic fracturing for gas production. This is the practice of injecting water into a subsurface formation to force open fractures, or cracks, to allow the trapped natural gas to flow to the wellhead more freely. Ironically, this is not new technology and use of water for secondary fossil fuel recovery has been around for decades. But with the expansive growth of fracking, and the growing awareness of the sensitivity of water supplies, it is much more in the public eye than ever before.

This is a unique relationship. We can imagine that it takes energy to provide food. Whether it is fuel for farm equipment, electricity for food processing facilities or the transport, storage, and sale of food, energy is present in the entire life cycle of food production, as it is in nearly all other manufacturing sectors. Food also has additional nuances around energy needs, such as the nexus of water and energy in regard to irrigation. Agriculture consumes approximately 61% of freshwater used in the world, and much of this water use takes energy, such as for irrigation and treatment.

With the advent of biofuels as part of the renewable energy transition, energy and food come together again in a different way. The use of a traditional food source for fuel production is a key debate in regard to corn for ethanol. This competition for corn between the fuel sector and the food sector is one of the more contentious aspects of the food-energy nexus.

Purpose of this infographic:

To successfully complete this assignment, you will create an infographic that illustrates either how water and energy relate, or how food and energy relate.

Communicating Visually:

To pull together the concepts learned in this lesson, develop an infographic that illustrates either how water and energy relate, or how food and energy relate. In your illustration, show sources of energy, how it is used by the water or food sectors, and how those sectors in turn support energy generation. Include the results of your water footprint calculator. Illustrate or note how your footprint relates to the concepts in the Infographic. Note points where innovation can help address a conflict.

Successfully completing this assignment:

If you haven’t done so already, review the foundational information on creating infographics. You can view those resources through the links provided in the Orientation Module in Canvas. The rubric used for grading this assignment can be found on the Infographic Activity webpage as well as the Infographic Drop Box for Lesson 1 on Canvas.

Infographic Information Video

In the previous lesson we explored the interconnected and interdependent nature of energy, water and food. We learned about how our lifestyle decisions regarding energy and food impact our overall water footprint. We also touched on how water is needed for energy production and energy is needed to extract, clean and distribute drinking water. In this lesson, we will explore in more detail how water-related impacts of climate change will affect the energy transition. As our freshwater resources face greater challenges as the result of climate change (not enough water when we need it, too much when we don’t, or water of poor quality), policy makers will need to balance the trade-offs between cleaner energy provision, expanding water services to the developing world, greenhouse gas emissions and sustainable supplies of freshwater. While the transition to EVs, in particular, will help address one aspect of our climate crisis, it may inadvertently place undue stress on our dwindling readily available freshwater supplies. Systems thinking is a concept that will help policy makers and other decision makers work through the complexities of these trade-offs in the face of climate change.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to:   

• Identify the connection between climate change and increasing incidence of stress to global freshwater supplies
• Compare and contrast how the four attributes of energy provision (accessibility, reliability, security, and sustainability) relate to easy access to freshwater supplies
• Describe potential trade-offs between cleaner energy provision, provision of water and wastewater services and climate goals

Lesson Roadmap

Questions?

If you have questions, please feel free to post them to the Questions about EGEE 401 Discussion forum in Canvas. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help a classmate.

It has been said that “if climate change is a shark, then water is its teeth.” In other words, how most of us will feel the impacts of a changing climate will occur through our relationship with water. Due to the warming of the atmosphere caused by manmade greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since the industrial revolution, more water vapor is now held. According to NASA, that water vapor then amplifies the effects of climate change leading to more frequent and intense, water-related events such as floods, droughts and extreme storms.

Perhaps the most immediate threat to water availability from climate change is the impact of drought, both in areas historically prone to it and in new locations where extreme weather events are suddenly occurring with more frequency. According to the UN, approximately 2 billion people today do not have safe access to drinking water and by 2030 global freshwater demand will exceed supply by 40% (according to the World Economic Forum). Complicating the picture further is that studies estimate that nearly 80% of wastewater is returned to the environment untreated.

While we briefly touched on the energy-water nexus in the previous lesson, let’s now build on that initial understanding. When it comes to our drinking water, the monthly bill we pay is almost entirely a reflection of the amount of embedded energy per gallon of water. Extracting water from surface or groundwater supplies requires energy (pumps, wells, distribution system); cleaning water to potable standards requires energy (turbines for removing impurities, reverse osmosis); and then finally distributing clean drinking water to residents requires energy (pumping water through a municipal system).

On the wastewater side of the equation, significant energy resources are needed to clean wastewater before it is released into the environment; and wastewater utilities emit significant amounts of methane from anaerobic digesters that help breakdown organic matter in waste. In fact, the World Economic Forum estimates that water and wastewater utilities account for 5% of GHG emissions globally; but additional research estimates that could increase to 10% as the global gap on providing sanitation services narrows (World Economic Forum: How tackling wastewater can help corporations achieve climate goals).

Thus, in order to meet the drinking water and wastewater demands of a growing population globally where freshwater resources are under greater stress (UN SDG 6), more water utilities will need to be built, requiring more energy resources and resulting in GHG emissions that could possibly work at odds with global efforts to reduce such emissions (UN SDG 7). From the water footprint exercise in Lesson 12, we learned first-hand how our lifestyle choices can impact our water footprint. As the availability of freshwater supplies is stressed, and in some cases locally threatened, this will place pressure in those regions or sectors that rely on water resources like the energy sector and the food and beverage sector.

Reference:

World Economic Forum. How tackling wastewater can help corporations achieve climate goals. Retrieved Dec. 8, 2023 from Weforum.

The energy transition within the overall context of sustainable development would benefit strategically if policy makers and other decision makers regularly employed systems thinking. The UN has defined systems thinking within the context of meeting the SDGs and is particularly instructive to our short discussion on potential energy transition water-related impacts:

System Thinking is a way of approaching complex issues by acknowledging them as an interlinked network of subsystems and elements…Taking a Systems Thinking approach in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development allows practitioners to visualize how improvement in one area of the system can either positively or adversely affect another area of the system, and how to turn trade-offs into opportunities for the benefit of the entire system while reducing the possibility of producing unintended responses and consequences. The systems framework allows policymakers and stakeholders to shift from a conventional, siloed and linear policy and decision-making approach towards integrated planning scenarios (UN ESCAP: System Thinking).

Reducing GHG emissions and decarbonizing aspects of the global economy is a priority to ensure we meet global climate goals and reduce the negative climatic impacts on future generations and the environment. Applying systems thinking can help us understand how different policy outcomes we seek can impact other parts of the system (energy accessibility vs. sustainability), or how that system can then interact and change directions vis-à-vis other systems (energy provision vs. clean water). Before this gets too esoteric, let’s apply systems thinking to better understanding potential water-related impacts of the energy transition.

One aspect of the energy transition that could (and in some cases already is) have a negative impact on water outcomes and is still being studied and assessed, is the move to electric vehicles (EVs). As we learned from using Energy Outlooks earlier in the semester, ICE vehicles will still be dominant in the marketplace for some years to come. That being said, all US automotive manufacturers are producing EVs and several, including Ford and GM, have committed to moving toward an all EV fleet. That means the very nature of the automotive supply chain will change and adjust to source the materials that are unique to EV manufacture (i.e., the need for lithium ion batteries). For instance, as the automotive industry transitions to EV production, McKinsey & Co. predict a nearly 30% annual growth rate for lithium-ion batteries between now and 2030 (McKinsey & Company, Battery 2030: Resilient, sustainable, and circular). Further, the IEA estimates that over 50% of lithium production is concentrated in areas of high water stress in countries like Argentina, Bolivia and Chile (IEA, Reducing the impact of extractive industries on groundwater resources). With recent discoveries of extensive lithium reserves in the US, threats to groundwater and wetlands as a result of the extraction process could have significant negative impacts on local communities and drinking water sources. More study is needed on the water impacts within the EV metals supply chain (including nickel and cobalt). Similarly, assessing the renewable energy supply chain for water-related impacts is still in the earliest stages. And while moving away from fossil fuel extraction and use will certainly have an overall positive impact on water resources, metals and mineral extraction associated with components for wind and solar manufacturing may still have extreme local impacts in areas already facing water stress.

Briefing Memo Exercise

In this lesson we explored more deeply the energy-water nexus as well as water impacts from climate change and how that could play out during the energy transition. In this assignment, you will draft a briefing memo discussing possible trade-offs between water and climate goals as the energy transition progresses.

Purpose:

This assignment will help you apply systems thinking by practicing synthesizing your knowledge and presenting a concise written summary of key trade-offs and potential outcomes relating to the energy transition’s water-related impacts.

Successful Completion:

For this lesson’s assignment, imagine you are an expert providing direct consultation to the UN secretariat for the SDGs about potential negative impacts on freshwater resources as a result of some aspect of the energy transition covered in this lesson. In 250 words or less (plus or minus 10% on word count), you are to outline the issue (e.g., GHG emissions impacts from building new wastewater treatment plants); identify the relevant UN SDG goal(s) associated with the issue; and then describe in some detail using bulleted points as needed the potential pros and cons of your policy choice with regard to freshwater resources and on global GHG emissions trends (e.g., recommendation to build significantly more wastewater treatment facilities). When describing the water impacts be sure to reference at least two of the four factors of energy provision.

Goal:

The goal of this assignment is to synthesize the required readings provided in Canvas with at least one external resource through the creation of an infographic. Doing so provides you with practice in synthesizing information and communicating it in a concise format.

Purpose:

The purpose of this assignment is to allow you to think critically about the key points from the online readings and how they apply or relate to how energy is used in our world today. By applying the course concepts to energy consumption, energy policy, or environmental considerations you will have a strengthened understanding of how our choices impact our world.

Creating Infographics

Step 1: Getting Started

The best way to begin working on your infographic is to start by reviewing the assigned online readings. As you work your way through the lesson, pause to write down key points you feel are especially important. (You may also find it beneficial to create a quick drawing or sketch to visually support your learning and retention of the information. This process is called sketchnoting. You can watch this Youtube video which provides a quick overview of sketchnoting if you would like to employ that method as part of your note-taking process.)

Step 2: Conducting Independent Research

Once you have completed the online chapter, you will need to conduct your own investigation on a topic relating to the information discussed within the online lesson. Use the online readings as a starting point. You may consider the following questions to help you begin your independent research:

• Is there something you found interesting in the assigned readings and want to learn more about?
• Is there a point on which you wish to gain further clarity?
• Are you interested in seeing how the statistics may have changed over your lifetime? (example: comparing the data from today to the year you were born?)

After you have found at least one suitable article, follow the same process of note-taking/documenting that you implemented when you reviewed the online readings. You may review as many articles as you wish to further your understanding of the topic, but you are required to submit an infographic that includes a reference to a minimum of one external source.

Step 3: Synthesize Key Points

In reviewing your notes/sketches, find the points you feel are the most important and want to ensure you remember beyond this semester. The infographics should be more than simply recapping the online readings. These points will likely be the most interesting or thought-provoking aspects of the various articles and readings you reviewed.

Distill those key points down to approximately 10 (plus or minus a few is perfectly acceptable). This will help you narrow your focus on the points you want to convey in your infographic. Following this strategy will also give you the ability to quickly identify connections between the course readings and other sources of information. Your submissions must include a connection between the course content and another source.

Step 4: Create your infographic

Review the page titled Creating Infographics to determine which layout, color scheme, and graphics are suitable for the information you wish to convey. All of these elements should work together to effectively communicate a message in a clear and concise manner.

*Please remember there are templates available in both Adobe Spark and in Canva.

A few additional considerations:

Getting Creative:

This assignment was designed to maximize your engagement with the materials in order to help facilitate long term retention. It offers a more creative option and greater value over a traditional multiple-choice quiz. With that in mind, you should explore your creative freedom while working on these infographics. All graphics included in the work should be original. In general, a maximum of one screenshot from an external source may be used (see 90/10 rule below), but the use of that image must adhere to the guidelines of academic integrity. (Meaning you must use a graphic that is in the public domain or be able to provide documentation indicating you have permission from the original creator to use the artwork.)

Academic Integrity:

As the infographic assignment is a creative project, your work should be a personalized reflection of your learning in this course. Since you are expected to be using information from other sources, you will need to cite these sources. Plagiarism (using someone else's ideas or words without giving them credit for their work) will not be tolerated in this course. There is a module in this course titled Academic Integrity. If you are unsure of how to cite works properly or even what it means to plagiarize someone else's work, you will find detailed information within that module.

*An additional note on plagiarism – Submitting a work that is comprised entirely of images, text, or other media which has been created by someone else is also considered plagiarism. In order for a submission to be considered an original work, it must follow a 90/10 rule. Meaning 90% of the work must be words and graphics of your own creation. 10% of the overall work may be a screenshot or quote from an external source.