Rein Willems, outgoing chairman of Dutch Topsector Chemistry
Sorry, this blog on Dutch innovation policy is only available in Dutch.
Lars Hansen (Novozymes): Europe should synchronize its policy and funding
The biobased industry is going to alleviate the CO2 problem and create rural employment and development. Says Lars Hansen, President Region Europe of Novozymes, one of the main European companies in the development of the biobased economy. But Europe should synchronize its policy and funding in order to reach those goals. And we should never
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?
Mark Bünger (Lux Research): as yet many questions, few answers in the biobased economy
Mark Bünger, author of the recent Lux Research report on biochemicals and biomaterials (see the article on this site), holds the opinion that the viability of a green chemical industry is dependent upon many factors, which renders general judgements rather precarious. Local factors often prove to be decisive. ‘Everyone, from government ministers to protesters in
Use biomass selectively, says Leopoldina report
The recent report ‘Bioenergy, chances and limits’, by the German Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences, is the newest in a growing list of critical reports on bioenergy. On a macro level, the report prefers solar and wind energy to biomass because of higher efficiency per unit of land use, and proposes to use biofuels only
Sustainability: more focus on opportunities, less on threats
Until recently sustainability debates had a strong focus on the environmental effects of our actions. Books like Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent spring’, the Club of Rome report ‘Limits to growth’, and the Rio 1992 agreements were related to the damage mankind does to nature – and through this, to itself. Depletion of natural resources, climate change,
Shale gas, a possible threat to green chemistry?
We all know that ‘Big Oil’ is not fond of green chemistry and the green economy. But biobased chemists trust that crude oil prices will keep rising, dragging along natural gas prices on their way. This would advance the production and use of biobased chemical feedstock. They reckon that in twenty to thirty years’ time,
Top sector policy, a mission impossible?
Government should invest more in innovation in businesses, and less in fundamental scientific research. That is the shorthand notation for the new Dutch innovation policy, ‘top sector policy’. But this policy meets with difficulties, while financing research is increasingly unclear. Until recently, Dutch government paid its R&D share out of natural gas profits. But as
