The solutions are here!
The solutions are here!, talking about major global problems. Solutions that exist already but are not generally applied. Or that are under severe and undeserved attack and therefore receive insufficient support. We have in mind: renewable energy and energy storage, food for 10 billion people, cleaning up all plastic waste and preventing new waste to
New technology for drinking-water production
Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a new technology for drinking-water production. They use metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that remove ions dissolved in salt or brackish water, producing potable water. The MOFs can be regenerated quickly, under the influence of sunlight. Therefore, this results in a scheme of producing drinking-water from salt water
Vegan leather for sustainable fashion
Mankind has known leather for about seven thousand years, now. Leather is durable and versatile. And biodegradable. But it is produced as a by-product of the meat industry, in a process with much environmental pollution. So here’s the good news for vegans: leather-like materials (vegan leather) can be made from mushroom mycelium. With comparable properties
Energy autarky more difficult than expected
The Dutch Wadden islands aimed to attain energy autarky in 2020. They fail to reach that target. For in order to do this, energy production and consumption don’t just need to match over a year; they also need to match continually, whereas both production and consumption vary considerably over time. That is difficult to achieve.
EASAC: burning biomass often doesn’t reduce CO2 emissions
The European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) urges the European Commission to base its carbon accounting on science and the real effects on climate. The present accounting rules favour energy from biomass. Whereas often, burning biomass doesn’t lower CO2 emissions at all. EASAC suggests a standard based on real emission reductions within 10 years. This
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.
Fast and slow revolutions
In Europe, most people seem to have lost their belief in improvement. A concept of dreamers. But improvement takes place all the time; and the odd thing about this is that many improvements are swift and fundamental in nature, but are never highlighted as such. A story of fast and slow revolutions. Fast and slow
on: 12 October 2020