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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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. … Read more
‘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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
We met Wijnand Schonewille many times at biobased economy conferences – we, the late Paul Reinshagen and I. And we talked, because Wijnand had refreshing ideas and innovative views. He … Read more
In the neoliberal climate that has reigned the past two decades, better efficiency was the ultimate goal of economic policy. So important that it could hardly be challenged. Competing concepts … Read more
PHAs are versatile, biodegradable and promising, we wrote a few years ago. There was just one problem: they were not competitive. So demand didn’t develop. And therefore, they remained not … Read more
It its latest report, Boston-based Lux Research investigates a global and sustainable energy infrastructure. Can areas with high energy demand but not endowed with much domestic wind and solar energy … Read more
Sustainable biomass is a subject dominated by strong and enduring disagreement. Michael Moore’s latest film Planet of the Humans is a recent reminder of that. In the Netherlands, always looking … Read more
In the 100th year of his life, James Lovelock wrote an important book: Novacene, The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence. A book that astonishes by the broad view of the author. … Read more
Frances Arnold won the 2018 chemistry Nobel prize for her research on directed evolution. Directed evolution speeds up nature’s variation and selection process, and researchers use it to find the … Read more
Reductions in resource use, emissions, and waste production are key strategies for corporate success. Sustainability is crucial, says Lux Research, a Boston-based technology development and advisory company. Sustainability is crucial … Read more
Recently, Knowable Magazine devoted an article to the question how far conventional agriculture is on the way to becoming more sustainable. The problem is: conventional agriculture pollutes too much (fertilizer … Read more
Quietly, industry is perfecting the art of using mycelium as a construction material. Mycelium is the invisible part of mushrooms: their ‘roots’ that consist of minuscule threads called hyphae. There … Read more
Crises are an opportunity to review our present structures and habits; and to create new ones. Many observers judge that we wasted the 2008 financial crisis: the mechanisms that caused … Read more
Whereas the artificial hamburger has been launched with a lot of fuss a few years ago, artificial seafood has been developed in relative quiet. But it may come to the … Read more
At present, the world is under the spell of a new influenza virus, Covid-19. One region after another goes into complete lockdown; in particular to prevent the virus to spread … Read more
Chemical and Engineering News recently ran an article that sheds light on the importance of traditional Chinese medicine for modern scientific development. Traditional treatments inspire the discovery of insecticides and … Read more
Last month, Chemical and Engineering News devoted an article to biobased aromatics: aromatic compounds derived from biobased resources. Much is going on here. This developing sector holds the promise that … Read more
As plastic waste can now be found in the remotest areas of the Earth, plastic recycling becomes urgent. We know that biodegradable plastics are a niche solution, so we need … Read more
The decline of insects has been well established now. It concerns both their abundance and their diversity, and spans all continents. If they decline even more, we will run into … Read more
A publication in Science last year triggered a debate: can we stop climate change by planting billions of trees? These trees would capture CO2 and in so doing, save the … Read more
Figures on global 2019 climate have come in and global warming does not seem to slow down. Many new records were set, like that on ocean water temperatures. That 2019 … Read more
The report The better job (in Dutch) by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) is ground-breaking. For the first time in forty (!) years, there is attention for … Read more
By the end of last year, Dutch Rathenau Institute produced a thought-provoking report on the energy transition (in Dutch). We need artificial intelligence, sensors and other data applications in the … Read more
The Conversation, that invaluable source of balanced information, ran an article on carbon storage in the soil. Potentially, one of our main instruments for controlling the rise of CO2 concentrations … Read more
Antibiotics resistance of harmful organisms becomes a major problem – in agriculture, in human and veterinary medicine. Scientists now try to come up with new methods. They think that CRISPR … Read more
Quickly, the world gets critical of plastic waste. It litters land, waterways and oceans. Until quite recently, rich countries could export their waste to poorer countries – for them to … Read more
When researchers discovered the CRISPR-Cas mechanism, it was looked upon as the perfect instrument for genetic modification (GM). But it appears to have its flaws. Flaws that might be inherent … Read more
When talking of technology, many people nowadays have ICT in mind. But then they neglect the major steps forward taken by the life sciences: all chemical and biological knowledge of … Read more
Evolved by Nature has developed pure liquid silk; properly speaking: silk in solution. This substance will enable yarns to be covered with silk. They will then have the properties that … Read more
Last month, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation completed a series of reports on climate change with a strong message. Don’t just reduce emissions; restructure the economy as well, from a once-through … Read more
This month, NNFCC’s newsletter highlighted the launch of two biobased leather products. Isn’t all leather biobased then? Yes, but here we mean leather of vegetable origin. The synthetic leather market … Read more
Michael Carus, managing director of the German nova-Institute, has stirred up the plastics debate. While plastic waste is piling up and the seas get filled with plastic soup, Carus makes … Read more
Most of the time we don’t realise it, but there is an antibiotic crisis going on. Our present families of antibiotics become less effective, and each year many people die … Read more
Science rests on reductionism: the reduction of complex issues to digestible bits. From there, researchers try to piece together the bigger picture. But in the life sciences we now see … Read more
In Asia, banana leaves were always used for food packaging. But they quickly deteriorate. They have been overtaken by plastics, that now often clog the waterways and pollute the oceans. … Read more
Pesticide resistance is a brand new phenomenon, historically speaking. It was first reported in 1914, just a century ago. A result of chemical, and later biotechnological methods of pest control. … Read more
Am I mistaken, or is there really a gradual shift taking place among opinion leaders in favour of genetic modification? Or is it just my perception that changes? Meaning: do … Read more
The strongest natural material ever found is part of, surprisingly, a mollusc. Its name is Patella vulgata, or in everyday language, the common limpet. An edible sea snail found all … Read more
Fish farming is increasingly important. More than half of the fish consumed by mankind is farmed fish already, and its share is on the rise. Without fish farming, we would … Read more
Over the past ten years, the methane level in the atmosphere has risen to unexpected highs. Methane gas, CH4, is a 25 times times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon … Read more
At the moment, the Netherlands suffer from the oak processionary. Or, as one commentator put it: it has been causing a lot of trouble over the past few years, but … Read more
In comparison to wood, tree bark is a very versatile resource. It consists of several layers, each with their products. It contains anti-microbial and anti-oxidant compounds that could be used … Read more
Eco-friendly personal care is one of the topics in the coming BIO World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology in Des Moines, Iowa, July 8-11. Other topics include of course biotechnology and … Read more
Medical and recreational cannabis is becoming big business, according to Lux Research, a Boston-based international research company. The size of the cannabis market in the Americas is $ 12 billion … Read more