<p>I have a personal interest in energy, but the trouble comes when I have to decide a major. I have no idea which engineering major is energy!</p>
<p>Materials and aerospace engineering seem to have a lot of general energy courses, chemical engineering has a lot of the fossil fuels aspect, materials engineering has PV cells and catalyst manufacturing, environmental energy has pollution and energy sources. Meanwhile, Electrical energy, which is what I originally thought would have a lot to do with energy, has very few courses I've found that relate to energy.</p>
<p>So...which one is it?! Looking at it right now, if I choose only one major, I will only know a small, specific part of something, like power plants! This is really causing me a lot of trouble on my essays.</p>
<p>That is just it… nearly every branch of engineering has some branch that deals with energy. You are pretty much “doomed” to learn only a fraction of what there is to know, especially since, in saying you are interested in “energy”, you have pretty much narrowed your interests down to practically everything that engineers do.</p>
<p>EE doesn’t seem like the degree to get if you want to go into the energy industry, it seems like it mostly deals with circuits, digital design, and stuff like that. Are EE’s even required to take thermo?</p>
<p>As others have pointed out, “energy” is rather broad.
All engineering disciplines are, or can be, involved in “energy” in one way or another, to some extent. Heck, civil engineers design the foundations of power plants.
Even non-engineers do “energy”, finance types are involved in financing energy projects, many lawyers are involved.</p>
<p>IMO the best degree, for the widest range of energy-related activities, is mechanical engineering. But there are aspects of the broad area where other disciplines are as or more important.</p>
<p>Thank you for bumping a 2-week old post… but not necessarily just EE or ME.
Energy-related engineering is an incredibly inter-disciplinary field that draws on engineers from every department. Example is Princeton: [Related</a> Programs - Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/acee/programs/]Related”>http://www.princeton.edu/acee/programs/)</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, the energy minor at my school is interdisciplinary - approximately equal parts electrical&systems, mechanical, and chemical. But the way it’s structured you could, for example, only take classes in 2 of the 3; if I were to do it under electrical&systems, there would only be 2 additional classes outside of my major (thermo, and then a required elective outside of your primary major).</p>
<p>It depends on the school you are at. EE should be an obvious possibility, but many EE departments have de-emphasized their energy-related curricula in favor of information-related curricula, and it will take years for them to correct (by hiring new faculty). Suggested litmus test: does your EE department have several courses in power electronics and electromechanics? More than 1 or 2 professors working in those fields? If not, look at Mechanical. The field is changing so fast that you want a grounding in basic principles.</p>
<p>I would actually say that chemical engineering is the most clearcut choice. Other engineering disciplines may discuss the use of energy once it has been provided. But chemical engineering discusses the *creation<a href=“or,%20more%20accurately,%20the%20conversion”>/i</a> of energy from principal sources. For the foreseeable future, the bulk of the world’s energy demand will be met through chemical sources.</p>
<p>Electrical energy can be used for career in power plants.
My alternative energy professor has a phd in thermodynamics. And specializes in geothermal energy. He is almost done writing his book on alternative energy. Thermodynamics and fluid concepts can be used for almost all the alternative energies. For nuclear energy, I am guessing maybe chemical engineering covers it. Mechanical figure out how the plant fully operates.</p>
<p>Have you looked into Penn State’s “Energy, Business, and Finance” major in their college of earth and mineral sciences? Not really engineering, but it sounds pretty cool to me.</p>
<p>i think any type of engineering would have considerable emphasis on energy conservation, using renewable sources of energy, etc. i think environmental would have a lot of it, but since today’s world will be hitting an energy crisis in the future if engineers don’t have new ideas to maximise efficiency, most engineering courses should devote a lot of time talking about these issues.</p>