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
Food loss and waste to be reduced by better management and new technologies
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 an economic crisis but also a major humanitarian one. It has led the United Nations to set a goal of reducing global food loss and
From solar panel monoculture to multiple land use
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 than from any crop. But this is an unfortunate development; it may do a lot of harm to the public perception of solar energy. Multiple
Biomedicines are coming
The major pharmaceutical industry is going through a difficult time. Industry should find a new track. Biomedicines could open up a new chapter. This is the third of four articles on the pharmaceutical industry. Biomedicines, yes or no? For over 20 years, biotechnology and gene therapy have hold the promise of determining the future of
New superpowers in the pharmaceutical industry?
The major pharmaceutical industry (big pharma) is going through a difficult time. Industry needs to come on track again. Can the new superpowers India and China lead the way? This is the second of four articles on the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical industry relocated to India and China Nowadays, India and China are the major producers
Has big pharma lost track?
Major pharmaceutical companies (big pharma) are having a difficult time. Shareholders complain about falling profit margins; governments, insurance companies and patients complain about sky-high medicine prices. Industry should find a new direction – but which one? This is the first of four articles about the pharmaceutical industry. Big pharma’s old model has become obsolete The
Directed evolution: a Nobel prize winning innovation
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 best enzymes for industrial applications. As Arnold summed it up: ‘In directed evolution we provide a new niche in the laboratory, so to speak, and
Manifesto ‘Waltzing with Nature’
Biobased Press published its manifesto ‘Waltzing with Nature’ on May 1, 2020. In this manifesto, we testify to the importance of science for solving mankind’s major global problems. Like global heating, plastic littering everywhere, insect decline, nutritional diseases because of bad diets and risks of pandemics like the corona crisis. A new kind of
on: 1 May 2020