Chicago GSB Offers New Course for a New Era of Energy

Chicago Graduate School of Business is known for creating courses with input from the marketplace. When the world oil market zoomed past $100 a barrel and gas shot up $4-plus per gallon at the pump over the summer, renewable energy became the political and social topic de jour at kitchen tables across the country. Students drawn to the dynamic opportunities that exist in the global energy industry can take advantage of Professor Travis Bradford's new course, "Innovation in Energy Markets and Opportunities in Renewable Energy."

The course provides both theoretical and practical insights into how energy technologies are developed, financed, and deployed. Highlights will include a look at the root drivers of change in the energy industry, the technologies that are emerging, and the factors that will determine their success.

The class will also examine how today's energy providers are adapting to the changes in global energy markets and how emerging technologies could disrupt traditional energy paradigms.

Bradford is the founder and president of the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Institute works to accelerate the deployment of socially-beneficial sustainable technologies, including those of energy, water, and food.

"Having traveled in more than 40 countries, I realized that access to some clean, sustainable resources was available nearly everywhere, and that harnessing them was a matter of applying the right technology when it became available at the right price," says Bradford of what drew him to his field of research. "Change is hard, until the conditions are right -- then change is easy."

(Image by clownfish via Flickr, CC 2.0)