I am often amazed at the amount of lights in the built environment, which only seems to be growing. Everyone thinks they have to illuminate everything. Driveways, stairs, gardens, anything you can think of has a light on it. That… Continue Reading
Last week I published a letter in the Netherlands, in which I indicated that about 800,000 hectares of land would be needed for the construction of new homes. That’s how it works in a transition: We have to significantly reduce… Continue Reading
It is intriguing how the world fundamentally works, with its cycles, driven mainly by solar energy. Which can be traced back mainly to the yields of land, as I found out earlier. [1,2] (Land that has virtually disappeared from economic… Continue Reading
Someone suggested recently to think about a new money standard. Well, thats a challenge, so I did. Since money is a virtual unit of trade, not based on any actual value. Not anymore, at least, since we left the barter… Continue Reading
During the holidays I was philosophizing about the previous article, the biomass growth reference. And look, it is actually very simple: per person there is about 2 ha on earth for each of us. That is everyone’s personal “resource bubble”.… Continue Reading
It is now exactly 10 years ago around Christmas that I struggled with the interpretation of ‘cycles’. Why I wondered, is everyone convinced there are two resource cycles, as promoted nowadays in whats called the circular economy? And why would… Continue Reading
A few months ago I wrote about agriculture, and that the EROI was 0.16: 1 (energy return on (energy) investment) – on average across all agricultural products in the Netherlands, and the EL (Embodied Land) no less than 7.7 ha-year… Continue Reading
Since it looks as if we are going to introduce the climate measures for buildings mainly via municipalities or cities, I have recovered some of my older research material about urban sustainability, developed when I worked at Wageningen University. The… Continue Reading
Before going into agriculture, and the available figures for it, I will briefly summarize how evaluate keeping resource loops closed. Fot this a calculation method has been developed, called MAXergy, with Embodied Land as a measuring unit. To close resource… Continue Reading
How are we going to ensure that buildings will be sustainable, that is to say, with the least impact on the environment, concerning raw materials depletion, loss of biodiversity and, above all, CO2 emissions as the most urgent effect of… Continue Reading