Categorie: exergy

climate calculation vs financial calculation 1/2

In projects with students, it regularly clashes between economic and environmental cq climate objectives, and thus also between real estate and building physics tutors. Or between ‘the project developer’ and the ‘energy calculator’. And the battle is fought over the heads of the students ; they have to find a…

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light pole materials compared…

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 started yeas ago with the introduction of energy saving light…

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Retrofitting houses: from object approach to a source approach 2/2

In the Netherlands most houses are heated by natural gas, but now we want to phase out that gas heating. Which of course is in principle easy: just close the tap, which is in the gas-fields in the North of the country. What would happen then, apart from a lot…

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People vs Resources, update and annex (Max Power)

It has been a year since the Dutch version of the book was published, Gebroken Kringlopen (Broken Cycles). I handed out the first copy to Marjan Minnesma, who is on top of the required transition with NGO Urgenda. The English translation came out last month under the name “People vs…

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A 0-marginal resource society does not exist

Rifkin some time ago wrote about the 0-marginal cost society. The book had a lot of attention. But cost is a complete different measuring unit as energy or greenhouse gasses. A 0-marginal cost society is not the same as a 0-marginal resource society!! On the contrary. A small example: At…

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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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From Tetra Materia, to Trias eXergetica 2/2

The Tetra Materia (see previous article) approach might be useful for practice, its not the whole story. It guides direction, but does not set targets. And our system has an overall limit as well. Materials, even renewables, come exclusively from within our own system, while (renewable) energy is available in…

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