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Fresh water is scarce in the Dutch coastal area. Climate change and salinisation are putting freshwater availability under even more pressure. This is a problem for agriculture and horticulture in coastal areas, especially in dry summers. In the AGRICOAST project, led by Boris van Breukelen of TU Delft, a consortium of knowledge institutions, companies and social organisations aims to increase the availability of fresh water in the Dutch coastal area. The project has been awarded a grant of 1.5 million euros from NWO to appoint five PhD students.

Meteorites are samples from space that can be found as stone-like material on the surface of the Earth. Once recovered, meteorites provide crucial information on the formation and evolution of our Solar System. Which in turn is important for research into the origins of our planet, and of life on Earth. The scientists’ new calculations suggest that more than 300,000 meteorites are still present, with enormous scientific potential, but until now they have been difficult to find.

Sukanta Basu (GRS) has won the Solar power prediction challenge – a hackathon organised by Shell and many other partners to develop machine learning-based solar energy forecasting.

Of the many renewable sources of energy currently being explored, it was geothermal energy that caught the imagination of Cas Verweij. Geothermal energy, which is produced by pumping up hot water from reservoirs far below the Earth’s crust, has many uses. One of which is heating homes. Cas is studying the CO2 bubbles in the sub-surface to see if the rocks are suitable for geothermal energy.