All living creatures require some forms of energy to sustain life and reproduce. Besides the basic needs, human need additional energy to work, leisure, and other activities. As human population grows with the fast industrial development, secure and steady supply of energy resources become key factor in economic development. Currently the major portion of commercial energy depend on fossil fuels and nuclear. The quantities of these energy sources are of limited supplies.

Besides the problem with supply security, almost all major environmental problems can trace their origins to the uses of energy. According to estimates, there is no immediate threat of fossil scarcity, no immediate danger of having disastrous environmental impacts, more and more evidences indicate those are inevitable and will happen in our lifetime. This course means to provide students the fundamentals of energy systems, and their influences on the environment. Their relationships with economic trend and energy policy will be mentioned.