17-07-2009 om 16:22 by Stafford Wadsworth

Although the general dependency on fossil fuels is still about 60 percent, the range of sustainable energy projects in this region is very considerable. Solland Solar Energy is producing photovoltaic cells at the Avantis Cross-border Science and Business Park. The same park is also home to Energy Hills, the leading cross border energy center in the EU. The construction of a silicon plant - the Silicon Mine (TSM) – is also planned for the Chemelot site in Sittard-Geleen and this is to cast a glance at solar energy alone.

Heerlen has been home to the Minewater Project. It works like this. In the idle shafts and galleries of old coalmines, constant temperatures are maintained; and, when these passageways are filled with water and linked to large housing or building projects, this is a very effective way of both heating and cooling interiors. Underground temperatures increase by around 30º for every kilometer of depth, starting at 10º, at a depth of 10 meters. The temperature then rises to 85º C at 2,500 meters. Filling these shafts and galleries with water allows you to raise the heat to the surface. The result is heating or cooling, which is about 65 percent cheaper than that provided by fossil fuels.

Then there is wind power and the plan to introduce a project for underground power storage in pump accumulator power plants (pumped hydro accumulation storage) in the region. There is an example of this operation at the Coo reservoir in our Euroregion, just south of Maastricht. Pumped storage hydroelectric power is a method of storing and producing electricity to supply high peak demands by moving water between reservoirs at different elevations.

If you feel that wind power should go offshore, you will soon discover that this region is involved there too. A south Limburg company, SIF BV has produced Mono Pile foundations for almost all ongoing North Sea wind power projects. They are now producing 48.000 tons of Mono Piles and Transition pieces for the British Thanet Offshore Wind Farm (TOW), the biggest operational offshore wind farm in the world (300MW).

On the nuclear front, The Jülich Research Center, one of Europe’s biggest, and based in the Euroregion, has a unit for neutron Science, searching for the holy grail of fusion power. Maastricht also has its choice of nuclear power expertise in the person of Jacques van Geel, a leading international specialist whose pedigree goes back to contact with Robert Oppenheimer, post WWII, and who knows all about thorium for the nuclear reactors of the future.

If this is not enough, there is still coal about and lignite - which does use up rather too much good water - or the strange world of bio-ethanol that could reduce the EU’s agricultural subsidies, as well as depriving Mexicans of affordable tortillas.

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