Categorie: resources

GDP=GDE, Gross Domestic Exhaustion.

“The EU must invest more, to avoid falling behind”, economists warned this week. “Otherwise, in 50 years we will be the open-air museum for the rest of the world”. Well, if we do, invest more, society might end in a collapse, and in 50 years we will have to go…

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Paying the fish? Yes and no. And yes…!

After writing about “paying the fish,” it kept on nagging me. [1] Because it remains a search for the true essence of money, or in other words, the essence of compensating each other for labor and services without ruining everything. I’d like to share this here and am open to…

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Everything that doesn’t last at least 50 Years, is system degradation

Everything that doesn’t last at least 50 years is a step backward. It signifies a decline in the physical-biological system potential. If that system—Earth—is already fully burdened, beyond regeneration capacity, or I other words: if we are living above our personal resource bubble (beyond our physical-biological means), it becomes extremely…

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There is no Space for Cork…

Cork. Lately I regularly come across publications and buildings with Cork. Ideal insulator, it seems, and weatherproof, And quite a decorative material, recently saw some nice applications in construction design. Well, that could be so, but is it a serious option? For that, we have to dive into some figures….

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High-rise (again): If it needs an elevator, don’t build it.

The discussion keeps coming back: high-rise buildings or not. Cities and towns can’t resist falling in love with high towers.that is, the project developers and politicians. Last year I had the opportunity to explain to a council committee in Utrecht and to a mixed political audience in Eindhoven what is…

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We need yearly a land-budgetting

The Netherlands is grappling with its land. With its land management and spatial planning. From all sides, there’s a demand for scarce land: by livestock farmers for pasture and spreading manure, they want to expand more and more. But also for construction, roads, and solar parks. And data and distribution…

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Sheep (and wool and land and etc.)

Regularly questions and discussions arise about wool and sheep [1]. Is it effective and/or useful, is it better/worse than alternatives, and so forth. Time to delve into that and try to put it into perspective. First, let’s look at some numbers: There are approximately 800.000 sheep in the Netherlands, producing…

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‘transgressive ‘ projects: the architect 3/3

Last time I wrote about about project development, and how everything was optimized within project borders, but the effects outside the project boundaries were neglected. But between architect and client, it’s just the same, and even worse, as became evident once again when I attended a presentation about a new…

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Ourworldindata: on resource quantity and the energy transition

I was forwarded an interesting column, written by a researcher from Ourworldindata, with a comparison in quantity between fossil fuels, and materials extraction. And then the thesis is more or less that the extraction of raw materials to build a renewable energy supply costs many times less raw materials as…

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Critical look at graphics illustrations.

Graphs are powerful images, and unlike written assertions (“opinions”), there is often little discussion about graphs. But they also claim things, and, I notice it myself, I am more inclined to accept something from graphs than from words. Probably because it is easier to recognize your own opinion in them;…

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