The European Commission’s alcohol problem
The European Commission may renounce its former renewable fuel directive, and plans to lower the required renewable fuel percentage from 10 to 5%. The ethanol industry is furious, and accuses the Commission of an ‘irresponsible U-turn on biofuels policy’. Could this also harm green chemistry? What is more common than alcohol in our daily lives?
SeaGriculture
Seaweed for human consumption. In the Far East, it has been on the menu for ages. In our bioshops it is quite expensive nowadays – but in the Western world, seaweed harvested in the wild, was poor people’s food, and otherwise used as fodder and as fertilizer. People looked upon it as inferior to fish,
Long live Europe, trend 5: decentralisation of industry in a biobased society
The environmental movement of the seventies, precursor to the present movement for sustainability, was largely anti-technological. Technology seemed to be inherently large-scale; it produced nuclear power stations and polluting chemical complexes. But technology has taken a turn into the opposite direction. In sectors like automotive, energy supply, agriculture and chemistry almost all R&D is devoted
EuropaBio’s Most Innovative Biotech SME Award 2012
The Austrian healthcare Biotech SME ProtAffin AG and the French Global Bioenergies are the joint winners of the Most Innovative Biotech SME Award 2012. EuropaBio names three other outstanding runners up: Green Biologics Ltd, from the UK, Promethera BioSciences from Belgium and to-BBB from the Netherlands. There were 37 applicants in total this year, coming
Shale gas in Europe
Item in the discussion series on shale gas on this site. The European Parliament Environmental Committee is of the opinion that member states should be prudent in drilling for shale gas, until better data are available about risks. According to the European Green Left news letter. According to Bas Eickhout, European MP for the Green
Sustainability and the bonobo
Upon hearing the word bonobo, many (in particular intellectual males) exclaim: sex!, and they beam all over. Yes, it is true: sex is important in the life of the bonobo, much more so than in that of our other nearest relative, the chimpanzee. But the bonobo also is a compassionate ape, a characteristic much less
No chemistry
Sorry, this column about a discussion in The Hague, 17 September, on biobased business opportunities, is only available in Dutch.
China plans to gain top 3 spot in biomedical materials industry
China’s 11th Five-Year Plan contains plans for development of the next generation of biomedical material applications, as the nation seeks to meet the growing demands of an aging population. Its declared goal, according to a Lux Research report China’s Expanding Biomedical Materials Industry: Where Societal Need and Market Growth Collide, is to become a top
