Description
Systems Transition Engineering is the work of shifting the unsustainable aspects of the incumbent industrial technical enterprise to manage risks, achieve targets, and comply with international agreements and science requirements. Engineering the transitions in unsustainable, yet profitable and desirable engineered systems is challenging work involving navigating complex wicked problems. This course will help you explore counterfactual perspectives through creative narrative, and teaches the Interdisciplinary Transition Invention, Engineering and Management (InTIME) Design approach to dealing effectively with wicked problems, data and analytical tools and problem-solving methods for the work of engineering these transitions.AVAILABLE On-LINE
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
The main objective of the course is to learn how to proactively and productively work through the wicked problems of transition in any sector. The course will use reading, lectures, short example problems, assignments and case studies. Problem Based Learning will be used to gain competence and skills in the important steps of data analysis and scenario modelling. Students will:
•Understand and appreciate fully the un-sustainability implications of the issues of climate change, fossil energy use, economic growth, biocapacity destruction, social capacity erosion, equity disparity, autonomy degradation and resource limits.
•Be familiar with current sustainability approaches, policies and international agreements.
•Learn systems thinking and the wicked problem exercise to approach complex problems with stakeholders.
•Use data and modelling for exploring future scenarios.
•Prepare for communication and consultation with a range of stakeholders.
•Carry out transitional economics analysis as an innovation in economic perspective.
•Understand energy return on energy investment (EROI), carrying capacity and depletion risks, and be able to provide sound engineering advice based on rigorous analysis to a range of stakeholders, e.g. politicians, business people, financiers and the public.
•Learn the InTIME Design methodology to innovate engineering projects that deal with wicked problems in the subsequent lab course A11TE.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
The student will learn how to:
•Define the problems of global sustainability as requirements for local transition projects.
•Use a range of systems thinking and the top-down and ground-up perspectives.
•Identify and investigate a wicked problem and successfully identify the underlying cause.
•Effectively employ sense-making processes through the use of narrative stories, quantitative appraisal and logic argument.
•Learn the 7-step Interdisciplinary Transition, Innovation, Management and Engineering (InTIME) Design methodology.
•Apply transition tools for strategic analysis, EROI, scenario crash testing, and for generating or recognizing ideas, alternatives or possibilities to solve commercial or operational wicked problems associated with fossil fuel turn down.
•Learn from case studies how to foster creativity into innovation that benefits the stakeholder community, builds biocapacity, serves customers and strengthens enterprises.
•Learn from case studies how to assess opportunities and build proposals for shift projects that arise from InTIME Design.
COURSE CONTENT:
Essential Core Knowledge for Energy Transition
1.Understanding the “Mega Issues” of unsustainability: global warming, energy security, freshwater resources, natural resources, minerals constraints, biocapacity loss
2.Quantifying unsustainability using scientific data and mathematical modeling
3.Understanding and quantifying Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI) and Resource Quality
4.Sourcing data and building spreadsheet models for investigations
5.Understanding and modeling growth, transition and decline cycles
6.Contrasting conventional, biophysical and transition economics
7.Sustainability Review – Systems Thinking, Stakeholders, Policy
Principles of Transition Engineering
1.The wicked problem, stakeholders, sense-making narratives
2.The InTIME 7-Step Methodology
3.The Systems Transition Engineering approach and processes
4.Transition Analysis Tools
5.Case Studies of Transition Engineering projects and Stakeholder Journeys using InTIME processes