As someone with an electrical engineering degree, I know an embarrassingly little amount about energy and power.

During my senior year of undergrad when I was doing full-time job interviews, a common question was “what’s your least favorite class and why?” I always said “Power.” I took the one required power systems course (& its accompanying lab class) and it was definitely the class I struggled with the most! I felt like on a certain level, I understood the math, and the labs were straightforward enough, but I never really grasped the real-world applications of what I was learning. We did all the math to prove why 3-phase AC power is 3 times more efficient to transfer than DC power, but I could not explain that in layman’s terms to anyone, and I may even be remembering this wrong… it’s been 6 years…

Anyways, my questions about the energy crisis are mostly related to developing countries. Every time I travel I notice that climate change and sustainability are a much less crucial issue when you look at third world countries, and I wonder what kind of policy would be able to make these countries able to prioritize sustainability more. Maybe first world countries need to help?