Course Description

 

Energy resources are essential for any society, be it one dependent on subsistence farming or an industrialised country. There are many different sources of energy, some well-known such as coal or petroleum, others less so, such as tides or the heat inside the Earth. Is nuclear power a salvation or a nightmare? This free course, An introduction to energy resources, provides background information to each, so that you can assess them for yourself.

 

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

- Understand the difference between energy and power, and their units and prefixes

- State the relative contributions of different natural energy sources to the global energy budget

- Describe the contribution of photosynthesis to the carbon cycle, and distinguish the terrestrial and marine parts of the cycle

- Discuss the issues involved in concentrating, storing and transporting energy

- Recognise which energy resources have a low energy density, and which have a high energy density.