Important: the class session on Nov 29 will be in FAMB 202, instead the usual BuC 305.

The class is organized by Associate Professor Hans G. Ehrbar, Department of Economics, University of Utah, email ehrbar@lists.econ.utah.edu. Hans's office hours are Tuesday 5-6 pm and Friday 10-10:45 am in his office in KDGB 319, and Thursday before class 5-6 pm in the classroom.

Classroom: 305 Business Classroom Building. 3960-002 satisfies the group F policy elective requirement of the Environmental Studies Program.

Textbook is Hermann Scheer, Energy Autonomy: The Economic, Social and Technological Case for Renewable Energy Earthscan Publications Ltd. (February 2007) Amazon. Reserve materials for the class are catalogued here.

Enrollment 3960, 5960 6960. Also offered as non-credit continuing education class ECON 396-002

Each participant has three assignments:

1. Write a book review of one of the current books or white papers about renewable energy. This review will be published on the class web site and, if appropriate, in the book review section of Amazon.com.
2. Attend at least one of the Utah policy meetings or hearings announced at www.deq.utah.gov/Issues/Climate_Change and make a report about it in class. It is important that the students witness the ongoing political process first hand.
3. Students enrolled in 3960 select one specific kind of energy and write an essay about the policies in place in Utah regarding this energy, evaluate these policies and design political strategies which might promote a switch to renewable energies. Students enrolled in 6960 have to write a more academically oriented essay about a research question such as: find all the hidden subsidies for fossil energy, write about the problems of cost-benefit analysis etc. Students enrolled in 5960 TBA (right now there aren't any).

All students are invited to enroll in the mailing list devoted to renewable energy policies in Utah at http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/energy. This is intended to be a low volume high quality list.

1. Aug 23, 2007: the first class has the topic Why Hasn't Renewable Energy taken off yet, with guest speaker Ivan Weber
2. Aug 30: Feed-In Tariffs, the most effective and efficient policy to promote Renewable Energy.
3. Sep 6: Smart Electric Grid, a necessary infrastructure measure which should be started soon.
4. Sep 13: Geothermal Energy, the only Renewable Energy delivering a steady baseload.

These four class sessions touch on important highlights which promise to be relevant for Governor Huntsman's current climat change initiative. We are doing these as early as possible, because there is an end-of-September deadline for the formulation of Huntsman's policy proposals. After this, the class will have a more systematic approach, outlined in the following.

In the first half of the Semester, the class takes a critical look at the assumptions governing the debate around renewable energy and discuss the pros and cons of the following policy alternatives:

• Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) versus Feed-In Tariffs (FIT)
• Carbon Trading versus Carbon Taxes
• How to Get Rid of Entrenched Subsidies for Fossil Fuels.
• Nuclear Energy: part of the problem or part of the solution?

On November 8, Professor Lincoln Davies from the Law School will talk about the legal underpinnings of environmental policies.

On November 15, Michele Beck, director of the Committee of Consumer Services at the Utah Department of Commerce, will speak.

On November 29, Prof. Joseph Moore from EGI will speak about geothermal energy.

In the second half of the Semester, the different kinds of renewable energies available in Utah will be discussed one by one. The order in which they are discussed may be dictated by the availability of the guest speakers. The following kinds of energy will be discussed:

• Photovoltaic Solar Electricity
• Concentrating Solar
• Other Solar: Heating, Salinity Gradient Solar Ponds
• Geothermal
• Wind
• Coal
• Natural gas
• Oil-based fossil fuels
• Biofuels
• Hydroelectric
• Nuclear

We will also discuss energy transport and storage, and the infrastructure needs of a rounded energy portfolio consisting of a variety of energy sources and conservation measures (smart electric nets).

This second part of the class highlights the exciting technological possibilities in the field of renewable energies, and efforts will be made to have those at the forefront of these developments in Utah as guest speakers.

Presently confirmed guest speakers (list in process, others will be asked):

• Thomas Reichler, Professor of Meteorology, U of U
• Gabriel Lozada, Professor of Economics, U of U
• Kyle L. Davis, Manager of environmental policy and strategy of Rocky Mountain Power,
• Ivan Weber, environmental consultant with work experience at Kennecott Copper, United Steel Workers, and the Sierra Club.
• Lincoln Davies, Professor of the Quinney Law School at the U of U
• Tim Wagner, Sierra Club
• Ernie Wessman, energy consultant and former plant manager and overseer of power plants for Rocky Mountains Power
• James Campbell, Utah Department of Environmental Quality

Related courses elsewhere at the University of Utah:

• Mechanical Engineering 5800/6800 (Kent Udell) discusses many kinds of alternative energy
• Physics 3150 (Miguel Mostafa): Energy and Sustainability: a global perspective
• Biology 6964 (Jim Ehleringer) discusses the IPCC report
• The 13th Annual Stegner Symposium on March 7 2008 will focus on alternative energy policy options to address global warming.

The latest version of this syllabus can be viewed at http://gaia.econ.utah.edu/planning/seminar/syllabus