Module Catalogue 2026/27

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

To provide students with a critical geographical perspective into understanding contemporary energy issues.

Demonstrate the connections between energy issues and broader economic, political, social and environmental processes and their geographies

To provide students with an advanced understanding of the key themes, concepts and theories in the growing field of energy geographies within the social sciences.

To provide a particular focus on the geographical dimensions of contemporary energy transitions (carbon intensive to low carbon/renewable sources of power) and to explore and understand their multi-scalar drivers and development implications for localities and regions

Understanding the key geographical actors involved in shaping, and being shaped by, the energy-economy interface

To understand the broader and varied global energy landscape before focusing in on the UK and its world leading policy ambitions around Net Zero and Clean Power.

To examine a range of UK localities and regions at the heart of the energy transition and understand their uneven development trajectories and emerging ‘place-based’ policy lessons.

More broadly the module, will relate directly to SDGs, specifically goal 7 (Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all) and is an area of increasing employment opportunity in which the teaching team have substantial professional networking footprints across industry, policy and academic research networks. The module will connect with local and international external professional networks and with the internal networks within the university through the NU Centre for Energy to offer leading edge experiences for students.

Outline Of Syllabus

The course is organised around 4 inter-related Sections, which may include some of these indicative lectures and sessions:

Section 1: Approaches to Energy Geographies
Introduction
Resource Geography      
Energy Systems, Infrastructures and Materialities      
Energy Transitions
Energy Geopolitics      
Geographical Political Economy of New Energy Spaces      
Green Path Development

Section 2: Energy Geography Actors
State
Industry and Firms      
Labour
Consumer and Community      
Industry and Policy Interactive Workshop

Section 3: Global Energy Landscapes
Europe
North America
Asia            
Africa            

Section 4: ‘Placing’ Energy in the UK
UK State and Strategy
UK: Mapping Energy and Economy
North East Scotland      
North East England
Humber
South West      
East Anglia      
Urban and Community Energy

Alongside the lectures, the course will also involve an Interactive Workshop; a local non-residential Fieldwork Activity (Tyne and Blyth) and an Assessment Surgery

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

Upon completion of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate and critically appraise knowledge of research and scholarship in the energy geographies sub-field of human geography

• Analyse and explain the evolving geographically varied ways in which energy shapes, and is shaped by, broader economic, social and political processes.

• Demonstrate enhanced levels of energy literacy (e.g. sectors, actors, policy contexts) and identify and discuss energy issues

• Describe and explain the structural and empirical dynamics of the so-called energy transition and its geographies, developed through conceptual frameworks and detailed empirical examples and case studies.

• Compare diverse global energy transition policy contexts, exploring multi-scalar policy frameworks from Europe, America, Asia and Africa.

• Examine the comparative energy related development trajectories of a range of UK regions and evaluate the policy implications

Intended Skill Outcomes

• The ability to critically evaluate and learn from energy transition case studies, policies and political contexts.

• Ability to form coherent arguments by engaging with and understanding relevant academic and policy research

• Synthesise and present energy-related evidence and to interpret and analyse its significance.

• Capacity to identify, analyse and synthesise comparative policy contexts, opportunities and challenges for energy related development

• Communicate by means of written, visual and orally narrated materials

• Students will be enabled to become future focused, engaged and globally aware critical thinkers, all attributes valued in the university’s Graduate Framework

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures introduce, develop and illustrate the core conceptual, theoretical, empirical and policy content of the module.

The interactive Policy and Industry workshop will enable students to encounter the leading edge of the energy transition. Students will be in dialogue with stakeholders involved in the energy sector, providing learning for upcoming case study and policy analysis and alongside broader insights into energy related career opportunities.

Local non-residential fieldwork activity allows student to visual, experience and encounter the evolving nature of energy related development along the banks of the rivers Tyne and Blyth. The local North East region offers one of the richest field sites in the UK for this activity, including Newcastle University's own activities on Walker Riverside and Blyth's Energy Central.

Guided learning through set readings and tasks deepens student knowledge and discussion, enabled through online discussion boards.

The drop in/surgery provides an opportunity for discussion and problem solving in addressing course material and assessment.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

This module provides students with two different types of assessment.

First, students will produce a pre-recorded oral presentation, which applies some of the energy geographies approaches to an issue around the energy transition. The presentation aims to assess students’ ability to make connections between academic literature and contemporary energy-related events, to effectively analyse, summarise, assess, explain, and critically reflect on the coverage it has received.

Second, students will write a policy brief aimed at expert stakeholders involved in the local and regional dimensions of the energy transitions in the UK. The assessment will draw on the approaches and contexts introduced in the module. The assignment assesses students’ knowledge and understanding of energy geographies concepts and their application to real world examples, and tests their ability to summarise, assess, explain, and evaluate through comparative case study analysis and identify policy lessons.

General Notes

N/A