No
life without water, nor without energy. Sustainable energy is
energy made from sustainable sources like biomass, wind, sun and water. For Belgium and The Netherlands there are some eight
sources for sustainable energy.
These are bio-energy, wind energy, environment heat (heat pumps),
thermal sun energy, photovoltaic sun energy, water power, energy
storing and earth heat.
The use of sustainable sources is important to prevent CO2-exhaust and
to be less dependent on the terminable fossile stores ( earth
oil, earth gas and coal ) and nuclear fuel.
Again, the United Nations rang the alarm-bell years ago. Energy,
even more than water, is big business.The
American oil and energy
sector and their by them sponsored government, refuse adamantly
to sign the agreements of the UN, and will certainly not carry
them out.
The European Union has already issued the necessary directives,
which must be applied by the member states. Special attention
is given to the sustainable use of electricity, the so called
Green Current.
Once again it is obvious that the Dutch approach is much more
thorough and systematic than the Belgian. We do not have a hundred
percent equivalent of an organisation like the Dutch Project
Bureau for Sustainable Energy.
“The Project Bureau Sustainable Energy (PDE) is an initiative
of the government, the energy sector and the Dutch trade and industry.
Its main purpose is to promote the publicity, the production and
the consumption of sustainable energy. This is being done by PDE
as they act as driving force, bridge maker and national reference
point .”
For those who want to know more about this subject: www.duurzame-energie.nl
Everyone can make use there online of BioWizard.nl, a calculating
programme to get a simple and global indication of the attainability
of applications of bio-energy in a specific situation.
In Belgium we have another problem: we use much more nuclear-produced
energy. The previous government, put under pressure by the Greens,
decided to stop this gradually, at least when they find an alternative.
A job for Freya…
Nuclear energy will of course be on the agenda of the SDIT training
at Mol, when we visit the company Belgoprocess. As a matter of
fact, the first nuclear reactors of Western Europe were built
at Mol, and almost all nuclear experts were trained there in
the European Centre for Nuclear Energy.
VITO too has expertise in the field of sustainable energy, namely
Heat Power Coupling (WKK) and Cold–Heat storage
A WWK-unit produces as much power (electricity) as warmth. Essential
for the idea WWK is that both products are being applied usefully
and that the warmth is not cooled off.
Cold-heat storage uses the available winter cold and the summerwarmth
of the air, which is stored in the ground water. It works as
a closed system that uses ground water but does not consume it.
This sustainable energy can be used for cooling in summer and
for pre-heating ventilation air in winter.
In the project meeting of SDIT partners at Messina, volcano
experts will illustrate how the Italians have plans and experiments
to get energy out of magma. Although it will be more difficult
to transport Etna than oil!
