Michigan Energy Efficiency and Ethics 30 PDH Discount Package 1

This online engineering PDH course provides a brief overview of wind turbine technology and its associated components, discusses the financial considerations and the technological improvements that would be required to increase the reliance on wind energy in the future.   

Current turbine technology has enabled wind energy to become a viable power source in today’s energy market. Advancements in turbine technology that have the potential to increase wind energy’s presence are currently being explored through areas of study including reducing capital costs, increasing capacity factors, and mitigating risk through enhanced system reliability.

This online engineering PDH course provides basic information on wireless occupancy for lighting controls.

Lighting use constitutes about 20% of the total energy consumption in commercial buildings. Adding lighting controls is a simple retrofit option than can save on energy costs while helping to meet agency and federal energy savings mandates. Some energy codes and federal standards require the use of lighting controls.

Studies have shown that adding lighting controls can reduce lighting energy use 10% to 90% or more depending on the use of the space in which the sensors are installed. One study conducted on a university campus found that installing wired occupancy sensors to control lighting in more than 200 rooms in 10 buildings provided an annual cost savings of about $14,000 with a simple payback of 4.2 years.

This online engineering PDH course provides information about the energy savings potential for process heating systems in the manufacturing industry.

Process heating accounts for about 70% of all process energy (energy applied to convert material into manufactured products) used in the U.S. manufacturing sector. Past research investments in process heating and related topics have led to innovations that have improved industrial energy efficiency. Although no significant, pervasive process heating breakthroughs have been adopted recently by industry, incremental technology advances have been achieved in a few areas.

Process heating unit operations are fundamental to materials transformations and a wide range of manufacturing operations. Advances in process heating technologies could not only lead to lower manufacturing energy and emissions and associated costs, but could enable the manufacture of improved materials, technologies, and products.

This online engineering PDH course provides information on a wide variety of energy-related topics, ranging from simple weatherization, insulation, heating and cooling system improvements in homes, to installing and maintaining efficient water heaters, home appliances and solar panels.

Every year, a typical family in the United States spends around half of its home energy budget on heating and cooling. Unfortunately, many of those dollars are often wasted, because conditioned air escapes through leaky ceilings, walls and foundations, or flows through inadequately insulated attics, pipes, exterior walls and basements. In addition, many appliances, heating systems and air conditioners aren’t properly maintained, are old and inefficient, compared to models being sold today.

By properly maintaining your existing heating and cooling equipment (or replacing aging units with high-efficiency models), addressing weatherization and insulation issues at your house and getting into the habit of using energy efficiently all the time, you can save 10 to 30 percent (or more) on your utility bills every year. You will also help reduce pollution at utility plants that use fossil fuels to generate electricity.

This online engineering PDH course provides an overview of solar electromagnetic radiation, and presents the fundamental solar parameters and the different methods for calculating them.

Solar energy travels from the sun to the earth in the form of electromagnetic radiation. In this course, properties of electromagnetic radiation will be discussed, and basic calculations for electromagnetic radiation will be presented. Moreover, several solar position parameters, as well as the major methods by which solar radiation is converted into other useable forms of energy will be discussed.

Finally, information will be presented on the use of websites to obtain values for yearly average solar insolation, monthly average insolation, or daily insolation at a specified location in the United States, or anywhere around the world.

This online engineering PDH course presents the fundamental information and necessary guidance required to assist the Manufacturing and Process industries in optimizing their electric motor driven systems which leads to substantial energy / cost savings.

Electric motors are among the least well-managed industrial equipment, even though motor-driven equipment accounts for approximately 70% of the electrical energy consumed by process industries and approximately 90% for electrical intensive industries. Motors that are not properly managed can result in billions of dollars in wasted energy and operating costs to an industry.

A detailed analysis of the U.S. motor systems inventory indicates that this energy use could be reduced by 11% to 18% if plant managers implement all cost-effective applications of mature and proven energy efficiency technologies and practices. It is worth noting that the suggested improvements are not necessarily limited to the U.S., but can be implemented in any industry around the world that utilizes motor driven systems.

This engineering online PDH course will establish conditions under which, when an engineering failure has occurred, it can be attributed to negligence.    

Five causes of failure are proposed: negligence, rare failure mode, overlooked failure mode, new (previously unrecognized) failure mode, and incorrect assessment of a known risk. Negligence is the only cause that involves failing in an ethical duty.  These concepts are illustrated with five case studies of failures ranging from gross negligence to absolutely unforeseeable events: 1) the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, for which a new possible cause was identified 95 years later (2014); 2) a building collapse in Bangladesh in which over 1,000 people died—one of the worst structural engineering disasters in history; 3) a meteorite strike of a private residence; 4) the crash of the British-French Concorde supersonic airliner, caused by an unlikely tire blow-out; and 5) radiation overdoses received by patients treated by the Thorac-25 medical linear accelerator, caused by errors in the software controlling the machine.