Battery recycling: we need to step it up
Battery recycling is an area long neglected by battery producers. Performance and cost were much more important. So now we are stuck with a rapidly growing heap of worn-out batteries of which we don’t know how to treat it. Or even how to retrieve the valuable materials this heap contains. We need to step up
Battery technology in fast development
Much excitement in the universe of battery technology. Battery storage is rapidly growing world-wide, important for the energy transition. Batteries are improving and their costs are falling, all the time. And the million-mile battery might be coming soon. Meaning that the battery would far outlive the car and could have a second and third life.
Performance and sustainability, drivers of demand for biobased chemicals
‘Biobased materials and chemicals are driven by performance,’ we wrote in 2016. They do not compete primarily on cost, but on the new functionalities they offer. Now, in the middle of record low oil prices, this principle receives support from an article in Chemical and Engineering News, CEN. They highlight three companies whose biobased chemicals
Food loss and waste to be reduced by better management and new technologies
Food loss and waste currently causes an estimated $1 trillion in economic losses globally each year, according to Lux Research, a Boston-based tech and advisory company. This constitutes not just an economic crisis but also a major humanitarian one. It has led the United Nations to set a goal of reducing global food loss and
From solar panel monoculture to multiple land use
Solar energy is rapidly becoming so cheap that it can crowd out other land uses, like agriculture. The farmer may earn a lot more from a monoculture of solar panels than from any crop. But this is an unfortunate development; it may do a lot of harm to the public perception of solar energy. Multiple
Scale issues in the energy transition
The energy transition has progressed quite a bit. To the extent that we can predict the outcome: renewable energy sources will win. But the real problems are surfacing now. The old energy system and the new energy sources have a scale mismatch. That will prove to be the source of much misunderstanding, conflict, and finally
The potential of bio waste in Europe
In Europe, just 16% of bio waste is processed to some form of useful application. Meaning: food and garden waste. An upcoming report by the Biobased Industries Consortium and Zero Waste Europe calculates the potential, and maps interesting and successful policies. Useful application of waste The Biobased Industries Consortium (BIC) is an association of European
