Energy use in electronic devices: Why it's an issue, and what we can do about it? An introduction to energy, estimation, and engineering

The Fan research group in the Applied Nanophotonics Laboratory at Stanford focuses on the development of high performance and compact electromagnetic devices, combining new developments in materials science with new concepts in device and system design to produce new electromagnetic hardware. A driving force behind this research is sustainability and improved performance.
This is a 2-day lesson centered around the theme of energy use in electronic devices, especially computers. The goal is to raise awareness in students about how much energy our current technology use is actually consuming, to physically demonstrate equivalent amounts of energy, and to acquaint students with current energy production approaches and research into materials at the nanoscale that will help create more efficient devices. Students will perform order-of-magnitude calculations to estimate amounts of energy that come from different sources, and will see how engineers use order-of-magnitude estimation to determine the feasibility of ideas.