{"id":427603,"date":"2022-12-18T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=427603"},"modified":"2022-12-18T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-18T12:00:00","slug":"the-paradox-in-groundwater-level-and-biomass-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/the-paradox-in-groundwater-level-and-biomass-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"The paradox in groundwater level and biomass policies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Dutch government wants to raise groundwater levels, to prevent dehydration and oxidation of peatland. That is a good plan. Marshiness is the natural state of our country, good for biodiversity and CO2 reduction. The recent water shortages are a.o. caused by our system of ditches, canals, and water pumps that drain the available fresh water to the salty sea too fast. There is, however a paradox in the government\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About this column:<\/summary>

In a weekly column written alternately by Eveline van Zeeland, Eugene Franken, Katleen Gabriels, PG Kroeger, Carina Weijma, Bernd Maier-Leppla, Maarten van Andel<\/strong>, Willemijn Brouwer and Colinda de Beer, Innovation Origins tries to figure out what the future will look like. These columnists, sometimes joined by guest bloggers, are all working in their own way to find solutions to the problems of our time. You can find previous episodes here<\/a>.<\/p><\/div><\/details>\n\n\n\n

Peat is biomass, plant residues. When these oxidize, they do indeed emit CO2. We have known dried peat for centuries as an important biofuel in The Netherlands. Burning peat is polluting however, the reason why we have replaced it by natural gas since the sixties. Today, our government wants to prevent peatland oxidation, a good plan as said. But if we would dig up that same peat and burn it in power plants, that would be fine according to the official EU renewable energy Directive<\/a>. Peat is after all \u2018biomass\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>
<\/div><\/div>
Biomass set to become much cheaper thanks to upgrade of British turbine<\/div>
By Marc Seijlhouwer Drax Energy, the company that operates Europe’s largest biomass power plant, is working on an upgrade of the reactor.<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

Burning peat or any other biofuel is fast oxidation. That emits more CO2 than our government aims to prevent by raising groundwater levels. Natural slow oxidation of peat through dehydration is against climate policies, and human fast oxidation by burning biomass is favored by climate policies. It is time that our government pushes back all forms of biomass oxidation, starting in power plants and district heating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Dutch government wants to raise groundwater levels, to prevent dehydration and oxidation of peatland. That is a good plan. Marshiness is the natural state of our country, good for biodiversity and CO2 reduction. The recent water shortages are a.o. caused by our system of ditches, canals, and water pumps that drain the available fresh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2477,"featured_media":515951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7809],"tags":[31897,75077,7811,68879],"location":[6763],"article_type":[55242],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-427603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-biomass","tag-peat","tag-tomorrow-is-good","tag-wetlands","location-netherlands","article_type-column"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"It is high time for the Dutch government to reduce all forms of biomass oxidation, Maarten van Andel believes.","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Maarten Van Andel","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/maarten-van-andel\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/meadow-3807461_1920.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Opinion<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opinion<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["biomass<\/a>","peat<\/a>","Tomorrow is Good<\/a>","wetlands<\/a>"],"unlinked":["biomass<\/span>","peat<\/span>","Tomorrow is Good<\/span>","wetlands<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on December 18, 2022","modified":"Updated on December 18, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on December 18, 2022 1:00 pm","modified":"Updated on December 18, 2022 1:00 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427603"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=427603"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=427603"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=427603"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=427603"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=427603"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=427603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}