Stimulating Renewable Energy Education in the U.S. and Globally

I review the current status of college-level renewable energy education in the U.S., why physicists are uniquely positioned to contribute to this effort, obstacles that such programs face, and one approach being taken by the speaker for eliminating one of those obstacles. The obstacle is the lack of knowledge on the part of many faculty new to the renewable energy area of appropriate educational resources that can support programs and courses. The solution is a social-educational networking web site www.rev-up.org that is also a compendium of resources in many different categories that can be sorted to yield information well-suited to user's specific needs. The web site is unique in the renewable energy education arena in that users can edit and review all content, upload images and videos, search for resources, get advice from experts, share ideas with others, and suggest changes in site. These features ensure that it remains up-to-date, and reliable.