The sun stands on the equator
and we stand wearing blinkers
A Socratic confrontation with the Dutch and European energy route. Five blinkers off. One route that works. And Europe back on the leadership throne — not through domination, but through partnership.
I · The question that is not asked
The European energy transition is stalling. Not for lack of money. Not for lack of technology. For lack of questioning.
We ask: how do we reach 2050. We do not ask: where does the most sun fall, and how do we harvest it there? We ask: how many wind turbines fit in the North Sea. We do not ask: how much solar energy do we lose before the wind reaches us. We ask: how do we divide the shortage. We do not ask: how do we fill the abundance.
The sun stands on the equator. There, two to three times as much solar energy falls per square metre per year as at our latitude. There, Giant Juncao grows to a hundred tonnes of dry matter per hectare per year — eight times what a Scandinavian forest produces, four times what Iowa maize does. And yet we build wind turbines in the North Sea where the sun rarely penetrates six metres of fog.
That is not a technical misunderstanding. That is a choice that flows from five blinkers. We are going to take them off.
II · The five blinkers
Blinker one — the Edison paradigm
We think energy is electricity. Electricity is a form of energy, not a synonym. We cannot store the sun as electricity. We can store it as a molecule. One litre of ethanol contains 21 megajoules. One litre of Tesla battery contains 1 megajoule. Twenty times denser. And a tanker that brings oil from Rotterdam to Singapore loses less than 1 percent. A cable that carries electricity over 9,000 kilometres loses 30 to 50 percent. The sun on the equator is a molecule problem, not a cable problem.
Blinker two — the smokestack trauma
In 2018 a biomass storm broke out in Diemen. Vattenfall was going to burn wood from Estonian forests in a power plant. Citizens were angry, and rightly so. Burning a forest to make electricity is foolish. But with that, every biomass route in the Netherlands became suspect. That is a reasoning error. Burning an Estonian forest is not the same as growing elephant grass on marginal equatorial land, converting it on site into ethanol, and shipping it by tanker to Rotterdam where it is converted into electricity in a fuel cell without a flame. Those who condemn the smokestack may not condemn all of biology.
Blinker three — short-sighted self-interest
We think that depending on the equator is worse than depending on Russia or the Middle East. Until 2022, 35 percent of our oil came from Russia. Ninety percent of our rare earth metals comes from China. Our uranium comes from Niger and Kazakhstan. We are dependent on suppliers who can use their monopoly against us. The equator is no monopoly. Brazil, Mozambique, Indonesia, Ghana, Suriname — ten countries, no cartel, no geopolitical blackmail. And a biogenic molecule that regrows each season is not a scarce raw material. Those who fear dependence on the equator must face the current dependencies.
Blinker four — wind as a new source
Wind is not a new energy source. Wind is solar energy of which 98 to 99 percent is already lost before we try to catch it. The sun heats air. A difference in temperature causes a difference in pressure. A difference in pressure moves air. That is wind. A hundred units of sunlight become one to two units of wind. Those who build wind turbines harvest a second-order effect of solar energy. Those who harvest that same sun directly at the equator via photosynthesis get fifty to a hundred times more. It is not an ethical choice. It is a first-order versus second-order choice.
Blinker five — "it will last my time"
This is the most dangerous blinker, because it is honest. Those now sitting in parliament are on average 45 to 60 years old. Their horizon of responsibility reaches to roughly 2040. Someone who is fifteen today will still be alive in 2070 and must inhabit the world we are now building. A father who sits on the terrace and says "it will last my time" has disowned his own child. That is the honest description of a great deal of European politics today.
III · The route that does work
Discard the blinkers and the route is there. It is not a revolution. It is not a technology that still has to be invented. All components exist and run at lab or pilot scale. What is missing is the decision.
Step one — harvest where the sun stands
On marginal land at the equator — land that cannot produce food due to erosion or poor irrigation — we grow Giant Juncao and related high-yield crops. The numbers speak for themselves.
| Crop | Location | Tonnes DM / ha / yr | CO₂ fixation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beech (production forest) | Netherlands | 4 | ~7 t/ha/yr |
| Maize (food) | Iowa USA | 12 | ~22 t/ha/yr |
| Elephant grass (Miscanthus) | Poland | 20 | ~37 t/ha/yr |
| Sugarcane | Brazil | 35 | ~64 t/ha/yr |
| Giant Juncao | Mozambique | 95 – 100 + 25 roots | ~37 t permanent |
The root mass of Juncao is not the greatest energetic gain, but it is climatically decisive. Twenty-five tonnes of roots to two metres depth means that a significant share of the bound carbon stays permanently in the soil. Highland Mozambique planted with Juncao does what Flemish and Estonian forests do not — actively withdrawing carbon from the atmosphere and fixing it permanently.
Step two — making an intermediate liquid
Transporting raw biomass across the sea is foolish. It is mostly water and fibre. The right intermediate step is decentralised densification at the equator itself. Two technologies are ready.
Fast pyrolysis — biomass is converted at 500°C in the absence of oxygen into bio-syncrude. Roughly five to seven times higher energy density than the raw biomass, 35 percent mass yield.
Fermentation to ethanol — biomass is converted enzymatically and biologically into ethanol. 21 MJ per litre, liquid, transportable in conventional tankers.
Both liquids travel by VLCC tanker to European ports. The CO₂ emissions of the transport itself are less than 5 percent of the chemical energy being carried.
Step three — Europe as refinery and scientific heart
On arrival in Rotterdam, Delfzijl, Antwerp, Hamburg or Marseille, the bio-syncrude or ethanol is converted into the end fuel Europe demands: sustainable aviation fuel via Fischer-Tropsch and Alcohol-to-Jet, a diesel replacement for shipping, chemical building blocks for the petrochemical industry without Russian or Saudi oil, and direct conversion into electricity via fuel cells at room temperature.
This is not music of the future. The KIT Bioliq installation in Karlsruhe has been running since 2014. INERATEC in Frankfurt has been producing commercial PtL-SAF since 2024. CARE-O-SENE reached a catalyst milestone in October 2024 with 80 percent kerosene yield from syngas. The ASTM certification for SAF from ethanol has been in place since 2018.
Step four — closing the circle
Where we made the smokestack error in 2018, we thought burning biomass was the final step. Carbon-Alert and related research lines are now developing the next step: direct chemical conversion of bio-liquid into electricity via fuel cells that operate at room temperature, with polyoxometalate as catalyst and without platinum. Theoretically 97 percent of the chemical energy as work — above the Carnot ceiling of any combustion engine.
The circle: sunlight at the equator is converted by Juncao into biomass (3 to 5 percent), the biomass is converted into ethanol (50 percent), the ethanol is converted into electricity (60 to 80 percent), and the electricity drives every industry from Rotterdam to Rome. Net efficiency from sun to final work: around 1.3 percent — nearly twice as good as sun via Brayton turbines on natural gas. And the entire chain is biogenic.
IV · Europe leading again, in partnership
Europe was the engine of industrial revolution in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Watt's steam engine from Scotland. Diesel's engine from Bavaria. Bell's telephone from Scotland. Pasteur and Lavoisier from France. Marconi from Italy. We built the world in which every other nation could find its industrialisation.
In the twenty-first century we have lost that. Semiconductors go to Taiwan and Korea. Automotive electrification to China. Smartphone software to California. We became a museum with good education and beautiful cities, but no new technologies.
The biomass-equator route gives Europe its industrial core back. Not through domination — the equatorial countries are not colonies. But through partnership where Europe deploys its comparative advantage: advanced chemistry, maritime expertise, scientific education, rigorous regulation, mechanical engineering.
For the equatorial countries this is finally an industrial partnership instead of raw-material exploitation. The countries do not only deliver raw material; they deliver biomass that is already densified on site into bio-syncrude — a semi-finished product worth ten to thirty times more than the raw biomass. Employment, export revenue, technology transfer. Both sides win.
V · What we must do immediately
One — an EU Equatorial Energy Agreement. Negotiate with ten equatorial countries (Brazil, Indonesia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ghana, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Malaysia, Suriname) a multi-year framework contract for biomass trade under clear sustainability and certification requirements. This is not development aid. This is a trade treaty between equal parties.
Two — a Rotterdam Bioliq Hub. Build, in parallel with the Maasvlakte petrochemical complex, an industrial cluster for bio-syncrude refining. Five to ten billion euros of investment, fifty to a hundred billion euros of turnover per year at full capacity. No subsidy needed — only the right political permit.
Three — patent protection for European breakthroughs. Glasgow (Cronin), Groningen (Feringa), Karlsruhe (Bioliq), Wageningen — European research groups are working on level-3 and level-4 technologies. A fast track for climate-critical patents, with processing within 12 months, gives Europe its IP position back relative to China and the United States.
Four — education and youth participation. Those who build the future energy transition are now fifteen or twenty years old. A European Youth Energy Council with a formal advisory position to the Commission and the Council would ensure that decisions about 2050 are made with input from people who will genuinely be at the helm in 2050.
The sun stands on the equator. It is time we looked in that direction.
Europe can once again become the place where industry and science together build something the world has not seen before. Not through copper on the seabed, not through wind turbines that stand still for half the year, not through biomass from Flemish forests, not through nuclear plants that no young person wants to work in. But by taking the equator seriously, taking the sun seriously, and finally recognising biomass as an energetic intermediate liquid for the solar route it is.
— Het Open Vizier · June 2026
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