Energy Education: Reality Check, Part 2

In Part 1 of our Energy Education survey, we found that the nation’s top 50 universities overwhelmingly frame energy courses through the lens of climate change. Seventy-one percent of all classes were climate focused. Just 29% were climate-agnostic, i.e., providing information about the real-world nature of energy systems, technologies, or markets. Tellingly, not a single fossil fuel technology appeared in the top 10 terms named in all the descriptions for over 1,000 courses.

That’s a problem. One can aspire to a future, say, without petroleum, but today 95% of the world’s transportation machines run on oil. One can aspire to wind and solar dominance, but coal and natural gas together still provide ten times more energy globally than both renewables combined. Whatever aspirations, it’s important that students, our nation’s future employees and entrepreneurs, understand how the world in fact works, even for those who aspire to change the status quo.

For Part 2, we asked a sharper question: which universities give students the best shot at a real-world energy education—and which give them the worst? The latter we define as those over-focused on policies and technologies animated by climate-change.

The top 10 schools offered balance with roughly half their courses climate-agnostic. The bottom 10 had a climate focus in 89% to 100% of all courses. Studying energy at the latter universities offers students little chance at understanding how global energy systems actually work.

That’s another problem. Most jobs are in businesses that use energy, not produce it. Knowing how the energy world operates is essential even for those who aspire to avoid using hydrocarbons. Universities that fail to provide a useful education are doing students, and society, a disservice.

To read more, read Part 1 of our Energy Education survey.

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