History of Energy Technology

At the risk of sounding like a west coast surfer, energy is like, everything, man.

But seriously, it is. We're not exaggerating when we say that all technological history was about 1) finding new kinds of energy, or 2) using the energy we have more efficiently. Before we can get to the crossbow and the radio, we have to discuss all the clever ways we used technology to harness the energy around us.

Don't know what "energy" is? We'll get to that, too.

This course starts with human muscle-power and ends with semiconductors, covering all the messy details in between. It will shock you. It will spark a new understanding of technological progress. It will electrify—okay, we're done.

Via readings and activities, you'll 

• describe the most important transformations in energy technology throughout human history.
• understand pre-industrial energy as an effort to get the most bang for our energy buck. 
• see why the Industrial Revolution changed not just technological history, but all of human history forever.
• explain the major energy innovations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (electricity, fossil fuels, nuclear fission) and the effects they had on our everyday lives.
• understand how energy-creating machines actually worked, from watermills to engines to reactors.
• analyze information like a real, objective historian, and present your own original arguments.

So stop worshipping your light bulbs—they're not magic—and let's get going.

Unit Breakdown