Name: Emma Cripe
Home University: Northwestern University
Summer Session 2 Course: Emerging Markets
Summer Session 3 Course: Windmills Constructed: Energy in Scandinavia
My Session 3 class is Windmills Constructed: Energy in Scandinavia. My two teachers, Carlos and Hans, both have experience in renewable energy and in particular wind energy. Carlos focuses more on the policy discussions in class, while Hans leads the technical wind turbine lectures. I decided to take this class because of the technical/engineering aspects of it, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the additional policy, history, and economic aspects of it was well. We’ve had almost two weeks of class, but I feel like I’ve learned so much about wind energy and wind turbines (we do have 5 hours of class each day and additional readings on top of that, so I’m sure that has something to do with it!)
Last Friday, our afternoon class was a field study to Lynetten Wind Farm. After learning about the components of a wind turbine and how it works in the morning lecture, we got to experience first hand what the inner-workings of a wind turbine look like! But in order to do that we had to climb the 50 meter tower, which consisted of about 6 or 7 ladders inside the tower. Once we were up there, we got to see the components of the turbine, and as an added bonus we got excellent views of the city! The field study helped put what we learned in class into practice and it was a great way to bond with my 6 other classmates!