Why it is so hard to sell sustainability
Sustainability is a difficult subject. Many conversation partners are willing to accept that mankind pursues activities which endanger the planet, ecosystems, future generations, plants, animals. But they have a hard time accepting that human activities, worse: human thought, will have to change. For sustainability is about human thought, too. The paradigm that we ‘know the
Debrief Rio+20
Disappointment and resolve. Those were the general feelings in the Rio+20 debrief meeting, July 19 in The Hague. Disappointment because results had been meagre: merely the affirmation of previous agreements, without emphasis on their importance. As Kitty van der Heijden, Dutch delegation leader, put it: ‘Problems are clear, but we do not want to hear
An avalanche on wheels
Having been the owner of a little house in the French campagne, visited each year, I had not been in the mountains for some twenty years. But finally we went there. Somewhere in the French Alps, near Morzine, we were going to roam the mountains; sturdy shoes and a rucksack belonged to the outfit. As
Shale gas, a possible threat to green chemistry?
We all know that ‘Big Oil’ is not fond of green chemistry and the green economy. But biobased chemists trust that crude oil prices will keep rising, dragging along natural gas prices on their way. This would advance the production and use of biobased chemical feedstock. They reckon that in twenty to thirty years’ time,
Agro rock, agro lit, agro fashion
It seems to be an article like many thousands that are published each year; a scientific and technological article of the sort that scientists have got to publish for their careers. And yet, this article by Jean-Paul Lange (a Belgian engineer who works with Shell in Amsterdam) will probably change the world more profoundly than
Why PEF is better than PET
Biobased PEF (polyethylene furanoate), the new feedstock for soft drink bottles (Coca Cola and Danone) is not only green, but also cheaper to produce than both fossil and drop-in green PET (polyethylene terephthalate). It also has better properties. Tom van Aken, Avantium’s CEO, explains it again and again. PEF is six times a better barrier
