Why I quit my job almost instantly after my sabbatical, and what I will do after.

Why taking half a year off to “do nothing” is both terrifying and marvellous at the same time.

Vegetable oil. According to What I Learned, it’s bad. Real bad. And it’s in everything you eat.

Long-term thinking is largely buried in the past along with the Middle Ages, but it can be revived. This article describes how cathedral thinking, a mindset from the dark ages, can help mankind with difficult issues such as climate change.

Humankind stands at a crossroads to shape tomorrow's world. Increasing population and affluence subsequently increases overall demand, be it in the form of food, water or energy. This article explores the two different paths to escape a humanitarian crisis as described in the book “The Wizard and the Prophet”, so that you can recognize them and place the paths in today's context and political decisions.

Is meat really that bad for the environment? Let’s have a look at the arguments behind the narrative that meat is not so bad.

The US wants the global shipping industry to reduce its CO2 emissions to zero by 2050. That target is considerably more ambitious than that of the IMO, which is to reduce CO2 emissions by at least half by 2050.

The vision laid out in the actions signed by Biden are transformative. The president argues a $2tn clean energy plan will bring millions of new jobs by refashioning the power grid to run on carbon-free sources and offering up a future where electric tanks are operated by the US military. “The whole approach is classic Biden; working-class values, putting people to work,” said Tim Profeta, an environmental policy expert at Duke University.

2021 will be the first year in which investments in European offshore wind will equal investments in oil and gas. Investors in the energy sector are increasingly opting for companies with a green profile. The pressure on fossil companies to limit their CO₂ emissions is now called an 'investment risk'. Moreover, the non-fossil energy companies such as Ørsted have structurally outperformed traditional companies such as Exxon-Mobil.

In September 2020, ice volume in the Arctic Ocean was just one quarter of what it was in 1979. Climate science makes it clear that ice-free summers in the near future are inevitable. Most models suggest that this could could happen around the middle of this century, with more pessimistic forecasts suggesting total melting of the ice cap before 2035.

Microsoft wrapped up Phase 2 of Project Natick, its plan to test the viability of underwater data centers. In the two year the subsea servers were submerged, they have found some amazing upsides. They have higher reliability and uptime, plus act as natural oases for life underwater.

Freaked out scientists and gleeful captains of fossil-fuel tankers are now sailing through climate history in the melting polar region. Physicist Stefanie Arndt claims the Northern Sea Rout will become ice-free this decade or the next one.

There are currently several technologies in development that have the potential to provide the sustainable food of the future. These technologies include the use of insects, ‘fake meat’ made from plants, lab-grown meat, vertical hydroponics bays, genetic modification (GMO), micro-organisms (such as algae) and 3D printing of food in general. Especially the combination of these technologies can virtually annihilate all climate issues related to food within five to ten years.

Oil fueled the 20th century—its cars, its wars, its economy and its geopolitics. Now the world is in the midst of an energy shock that is speeding up the shift to a new order. The main risks of this transition that have the potential to destabilize geopolitics, are petro-states dependent on oil lashing out as they lose income and influence.

Up to 20% of our energy needs could be met by sustainably harvested biomass, in particular food and agricultural waste, as well as manure. Biomass could serve a crucial role in the energy transition by replacing gas and petroleum in (chemical) industry, aviation and maritime shipping.

An interview with GPT-3, an AI that you can talk with.

How much energy do we need and what do we use it for? In this part, it is determined that the world needs 435 TWh per day, of which 87% comes from fossil fuels. This energy is needed in 3 sectors for 3 different purposes (3x3 energy rule). The sectors are transportation, industry and buildings. The purposes are heating, transport and electricity. Depending on the region, most of our energy is required in the transportation sector and for heating purposes.

How much biomass is produced each year and how much can we sustainably harvest? In the first part of this series, we find that the annual global production of land-based biomass is 50 billion tons, of which roughly 8 billion tons of biomass can be sustainably harvested each year. This is determined by dividing biomass into four distinct groups suitable for energy production: wood, agriculture, food waste and manure. For each group, the amount of annual ‘production’ and the amount suitable for sustainable ‘harvest’ is determined, adhering to the ‘food, feed, fiber first’ principle.

A new “wave” of economic disruption and societal change is upon us, driven by renewable energy technologies. Covid-19 acts as an catalyst for this transformation.

Europe and China double-down on renewables, investing hundreds of billions into electric vehicles, solar, wind and hydrogen. Not despite the corona crisis, but fueled by it.