Categorie: Embodied Land

Let nature do the work… EROI in agriculture

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 / ha year. Much more goes in than comes out,…

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Circular cities..? Real time material flows for London

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 urban approach makes sense, buildings are not isolated functions, they…

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Every agriculture hectare requires 7,7 ha input…. Embodied Land

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 cycles, or to keep them closed, a number of conditions…

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Lowering building impact

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 our construction and consumption drive? Earlier I wrote that the…

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Building wind turbines to dry laundry…?

Do we really want a CO2-neutral society, or even a society with closed cycles? If yes, a lot will have to change and we will need to become extremely creative. And not directly with the input of a lot of ’technology’, in the sense of high tech, but back to…

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A Circular road…. ?

( picture: borrowed  from: Agent Bob) … Well, then, what is a circular road? was a question that was asked , after the previous article. To answer, lets first analyze what happens when constructing a highway with current approach. Then somewhere in the world , a mountain is dismantled, like…

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The real capital is : Land

Henri George, during the end of the 19th century, was a renowned thinker and writer. His central theme was Land. He saw land as a vital good, to give everyone a basis to live from. But he also saw that it was sold or given away by the government, by…

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A product cycle is not a resource cycle: a double agenda

There are many misunderstandings , when it comes to evaluating resource cycles. As well as in daily practice, as in science. A problem in this is the human perception to focus on things that seem relevant for mankind. For instance the building or a house. Without questioning if that’s also…

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Technology : from fuel-tech to human-tech, and to Bionology…?

Policies, (financial-) economy , technology, religion, and even science to some level, are all human thought up constructs, that are not grounded in physical reality, but in human perception of life and how to live it. There is no natural law that has to be followed, they all can be…

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Planet(Resources) & people : the R/P balance

When I was born, there were only 2.75 billion people around… Nowadays there are 7,2 billion. Imagine, it tripled over the course of my life, no wonder it seems a bit crowded now and then. And if I will become hundred, it will be 10 billion, 4 times as much…….

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