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Local democracy and taxation in a biobased society

There is a firm trend for centralization in decision making in our society. National governments increase their power at the expense of communities and counties; and Europe acts for more ‘harmonization’ of national regulation. As a result of this process, local democratic power diminishes. A trend that will be radically reversed in the circular economy

By:
on: 28 March 2013

The quagmire of Dutch innovation policy

Sorry, this column on Dutch innovation policy is only available in Dutch.

By:
on: 24 March 2013

The circular economy, a society without infrastructure?

If telecommunication systems fail, the entire society grinds to a halt within 24 hours

Even though our highly technological society is vulnerable, this state of affairs is not much addressed by politics or societal debate. And vulnerable we are indeed. Think of the millennium bug. We depend completely on infrastructures on a regional, national and even worldwide scale. For instance, all social achievements depend on the uninterrupted supply of

By:
on: 22 March 2013

Solve the financial crisis, be straightforward

In 1933 there were bank runs, too

Five years after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, nothing has been done yet on the set of measures which were thought to be essential at the time; measures which boil down to reinstalling the protection of financial markets, installed after the major 1929 crash. Politicians do nothing about complex financial products, the virtual economy grows at

By:
on: 20 March 2013

CO2 will substitute sugars as an industrial feedstock, in due time

In our minds, Photanol is one of the potential winners among start-ups, the company owned by professors Joost Texeira de Mattos and Klaas Hellingwerf of the University of Amsterdam. Their ‘third generation’ company produces all kinds of chemicals, like lactic acid and many other base products, using cyanobacteria, a kind of algae. For the time

By:
on: 20 March 2013

Thinking in opportunities

We are not heading for the biobased society as a part of the sustainable economy because the fossil era is nearing its end, or because we would be short of alternatives. We are heading for the biobased society because that is where the opportunities are. Opportunities for new, sustainable industrial activities. We need people who

By:
on: 19 March 2013

Biobased polymers will make a breakthrough within ten years

Biobased polymers will triple in capacity to 12 million tons by 2020. That will equal 3% of total polymer production. The most important biopolymers will be biobased drop-in PET and PE/PP, and new biopolymers like PLA and PHA. Hardly any new production capacities will be constructed in Europe – we are too costly – but

By:
on: 14 March 2013

Shale gas is an opportunity, for Europe too

Diagram of shale gas deposits

Shale gas is not a threat, it is an opportunity. The whole world will benefit from US coal fired power stations to shift to natural gas, thereby appreciably reducing their CO2 emissions. And Europe should act appropriately in return: by decoupling gas prices from oil prices, and make headway in its own direction, the biobased

By:
on: 13 March 2013

Innovation, will we ever see it coming

9 March 2013

Cold recovery of potato proteins, a wonderful innovation

6 March 2013