Incorporating Cost-Benefit Analysis and Business Databases as Part of an Interdisciplinary Course on Energy Resources

In order to fully appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of energy resources, there is a need to understand pertinent issues from other viewpoints besides a purely chemistry perspective. In this paper, the teaching of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and business databases as part of CM4282: Energy Resources at the Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore (NUS), is described. For teaching of CBA, in two 1h sessions, topics such as net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), discount rate, payback period, and sensitivity analysis were introduced in the context of capital budgeting. With collaboration from NUS libraries, in another 1h session, students were instructed on searching business databases for conducting strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis as part of their end-of-semester group presentation. Exposure to CBA and business databases enables chemistry majors in CM4282 to understand energy resources in an interdisciplinary light and enables the application of classroom knowledge to real-life scenarios in energy resources.