By Junling Huang

This field trip, consisting of lectures and site visits in Brazil, offered us lots of valuable opportunities to explore the energy system in real world. The well prepared lectures provided the very essential background for understanding energy technologies. For instance, the second day’s lecture covered the many aspects of hydropower including its history, current technologies as well as its cost, and there was also a lively exchange of ideas between professor and students, as shown by the picture above. The followed-up site visits gave us a very explicit illustration on how scientific theory and engineering design could be put into practice, and the real projects never cease to amaze us. On the third day, we visited a hydropower plant located at on the south side of Sao Paulo. The 700 m height of the dam, the associated large scale artificial lake, and the entire system’s contribution to Sao Paulo’s economic growth impressed everyone, and convinced us the powerfulness and importance of engineering. 

Junling Huang is a Ph.D. Candidate in Environmental & Energy Sciences at Harvard