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Curtin University
Courses Handbook 2014

This handbook contains information for courses and units at Curtin in 2014.
Information for the previous year's courses and units is available at Courses Handbook 2013.

308371 (v.4) Sustainable Energy 603

Area: Sustainable Engineering Group
Credits: 25.0
Contact Hours: 3.0
TUITION PATTERNS: The tuition pattern provides details of the types of classes and their duration. This is to be used as a guide only. Precise information is included in the unit outline.
Tutorial: 2 x 3 Hours Quarterly
UNIT REFERENCES, TEXTS, OUTCOMES AND ASSESSMENT DETAILS: The most up-to-date information about unit references, texts and outcomes, will be provided in the unit outline.
Syllabus: The unit is divided into five learning modules. The first learning module (‘Energy and sustainable development’) provides a summary review of the role of energy in society, both in stationary as well as mobile applications, including global energy use and supply, its role in sustainable development, as well as the environmental and social impacts of conventional energy sources such as fossil and nuclear. It briefly introduces the sustainable energy agenda, including energy efficiency, switching to low impact energy sources (renewable, hydrogen), and clean technologies for fossil fuels. The second learning module (‘Principles of energy use and industrial processes’) presents the thermodynamic underpinnings and engineering aspects of current energy use in energy generation, industrial processes and transport. This includes: the thermodynamic principles of energy conversion, electrical energy generation, transmission and storage. It looks at two thermodynamic based approaches or methods for gauging and improving the performance of energy generation and conversion systems. The third learning module (‘Clean fossil fuels’), looks at ways of making fossil fuel use more sustainable. This includes the operation of current fossil-fuelled power plants, ways of improving the energy conversion efficiency of fossil-fuel based energy supply systems, various ways of ‘cleaning-up’ fossil fuel combustion and energy conversion devices that can extract energy directly from fossil fuels, avoiding combustion and its associated emissions. The fourth learning module (‘Renewable energy’) deals with the development and deployment of low impact energy sources such as renewable energy on a much wider scale. The last learning module (‘Energy management, technologies and policies) looks at ways to make major improvements in the efficiency of energy conversion, distribution and use. This includes energy efficiency and energy management, utilising both technological and social approaches to reducing overall energy use. Nuclear-fuelled power plants, although important in many countries, will not be studied in more detail in this module due to not being used in Australia, the limited energy conversion efficiency and emissions reduction opportunities available for the technology, and the many sustainability issues related that limit its expansion. Module 1 will include a brief discussion of the sustainability aspects and issues of the use of nuclear-fuelled power plants.
Field of Education: 030399 Process and Resources Engineering not elsewhere classified
Result Type: Grade/Mark


Availability

Year Location Period Internal Partially Online Internal Area External Central External Fully Online
2014 Bentley Campus Semester 2 Y        
2014 Bentley Campus Semester 2     Y    

Area External refers to external course/units run by the School or Department or offered by research.

Central External refers to external and online course/units run through the Curtin Bentley-based Distance Education Area

Partially Online Internal refers to some (a portion of) learning provided by interacting with or downloading pre-packaged material from the Internet but with regular and ongoing participation with a face-to-face component retained. Excludes partially online internal course/units run through the Curtin Bentley-based Distance Education Area which remain Central External

Fully Online refers to the main (larger portion of) mode of learning provided via Internet interaction (including the downloading of pre-packaged material on the Internet). Excludes online course/units run through the Curtin Bentley-based Distance Education Area which remain Central External


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