First-Year Writing Seminar (105-8-02)

Topic

Energy, Compute, and Material Abundance and the En

Instructors

Edward Sargent

Meeting Info

Technological Institute LG72: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

Energy, Compute, and Material Abundance and the Energy Transition

Electricity demand in the US and globally has entered into a new regime of growth, powered by rapid scaling of data centers in light of AI, combined with reshoring and electrification of manufacturing. Abundant compute has become a prerequisite for progress across science and industry, and abundant compute rests in turn on abundant energy and on abundant materials: the metals, chemicals, and manufactured components from which generation, storage, transmission, and the chips themselves are built.

This considerable demand growth will need to be fulfilled rapidly; with firm guarantees re: the dependability of the electricity; and affordably. More and more of this energy will have to be lower in its CO2 intensity than has been legacy energy production. The same applies on the materials side, where supply chains for critical minerals, and for bulk industrial materials such as steel, cement, and silicon, will need to grow quickly, securely, and at lower carbon intensity.

This will entail rapid progress in solar and wind with storage; geothermal; nuclear; and blue power. Looking more broadly across sectors, it will require innovative sustainable fuels and chemicals to power transportation, to feed the needs of industry, and to fulfill the growing energy requirements of individuals, including in high-growth emerging economies. It will also require new materials, and new routes to making and recycling familiar ones, since materials constraints bind as tightly as do energy constraints.

We will explore issues of a scientific and engineering nature; as well as of systems, economics, and policy; relating to achieving the needed growth in energy, materials, and compute across the course of the energy transition. We will study the global potential, as well as the realistic technical capacity, of the major current and future contributors to the energy mix, together with the materials and data-center buildout that these depend on; look at areas of science and technology that require advances to enable sustainable growth and maintain global competitiveness; and consider the links to national and international economics and politics.

Class Materials (Required)

Course materials will be provided in Canvas

Class Materials (Suggested)

None

Class Attributes

WCAS College Seminar
WCAS Writing Seminar

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Weinberg First Year Seminars are only available to first-year students.
Add Consent: Department Consent Required