Engineers in Aachen aim to completely reinvent the car so that it is environmentally friendly and stops polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide emissions. That is the goal of the renowned Institute of Automotive Engineering (ika) at RWTH Aachen University. Researchers there are working on an emission-free electric propulsion unit that could one day replace environmentally harmful internal combustion engines. “Germany has traditionally been a technology leader in the automotive world,” says institute director Jan-Welm Biermann, “and we would also like to achieve the same in the field of electromobility.” Automotive engineer Biermann outlines the various challenges. Car design will have to change fundamentally if battery packs need to be fitted instead of fuel tanks. Furthermore, practically all parking spaces in front of homes and places of work would need to have electricity sockets installed to permit recharging, “and all this would have to be acceptable to customers,” stresses Biermann.
The Federal Government will be funding the development of electromobility to the tune of 22 million euros over the next three years, with 10 million going directly to the automotive and electrical engineers at RWTH Aachen. The other half is going to their business partner, namely car manufacturer Audi. Biermann emphasizes that this public-private partnership is having a direct impact on academic teaching – for example, in the international English-language Master’s programme in automotive engineering.
However, the vision of a wonderful new world of zero-emission vehicles is rather deceptive, because it is very important from the environmental perspective that clean energy comes from clean sources. That’s why the future must lie in green electricity from renewable sources such as water, wind and the sun. And the universities in Flensburg and Oldenburg are offering the appropriate English-language Master’s programmes: sustainable energy systems and management in developing countries (SESAM) and the postgraduate programme renewable energy (PPRE). The German Academic Exchange Service supports both programmes with scholarships. The courses are targeted at international postgraduates from all over the world who have already gained two years of work experience and later aim to take on management positions in their countries of origin.
The SESAM programme in Flensburg lasts 18 months and mainly focuses on energy economics, project management in development cooperation and renewable energies. The programme in Oldenburg covers the fields of wind and solar energy, photovoltaics, biomass and fuel cells. The 16-month programme includes placements and case studies in the energy industry. More than 380 applicants from some 80 countries have completed the course since 1987 and many former students today hold executive positions in their native countries. “Without the course I wouldn’t have been able to work professionally in my job,” says Wisdom Togobo, who is responsible for alternative energies at the Energy Ministry in Ghana and regularly teaches in Oldenburg as a visiting professor.
Another international Master’s programme began concentrating on renewable energies and energy efficiency in the Middle East and North Africa region in 2008. The 20-month course with ten German and ten Arab scholarship-holders is held at Cairo University in Egypt and at the University of Kassel. The joint programme is also intended to foster intercultural competence within a multinational framework.
Flensburg, Oldenburg and Kassel represent just three of the now more than 250 study programmes in renewable energies at German institutions of higher education. The roughly 20,000 students in this field have excellent career prospects. Moreover, because most German universities now offer courses in energy-related subjects, students also have the chance to specialize. One example is the postgraduate programme for engineers specializing in building climate science. Experts in this field do not only know all about conventional heating technology, but also about heat pumps, local combined heating and power generation and solar electricity. Another specialization that is becoming increasingly important involves optical technologies, without which there would be no lasers, no mobile phones and no CDs – and no light emitting diodes (LED), which are replacing the traditional light-bulb and are already set to reduce Germany’s electricity needs by 8%. Light is the most environmentally friendly energy by far and today Germany is the world leader in this technological field.
Ecological energy technology is in effect becoming an all-embracing multidisciplinary science as well as a job creation engine for the whole of industry, which is looking for efficient and environmentally friendly energy supplies across the board. Despite this, traditional fuels like coal still hold a great deal of innovative potential. The first zero-carbon coal-fired power plant is scheduled to go onstream in 2014. Engineering students who now deepen their knowledge of carbon capture and storage (CCS) at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in Saxony will become sought-after experts in the future.
Despite the political agreement on the phasing out of nuclear energy in Germany, civilian nuclear research still has a future in German higher education. Innovations in high temperature reactor technology are in great demand, for example, in China, explains Stephan Jühe of the Institute for Reactor Safety and Reactor Technology in Aachen. He adds optimistically: “Five years ago, there were two or three students sitting in lectures; today, there are twenty or thirty from Germany and abroad.”
