Interview to A. Maartens

On the 3th of December we talked to Maartens from Urgenda about his opinion on mobility on Texel. Urgenda is the organization for sustainability and innovation in the Netherlands. They work together with companies, governments, community organizations and individuals, to make the Netherlands sustainable. Theye do this with concrete action plans and projects. Maartens is project leader of different projects on the Wadden islands. He can give a boost to feasible sustainable projects, this by using his knowledge and subsidy from Urgenda. For example the energy-neutral homes on Texel.

We record this interview, but because of personal reasons, this record is not available. This reflection is made about the interview, but the reader has to take into account that some information can be explained differently from the reality. The focus during this interview was about mobility. By talking about the different mobility possibilities on Texel, we talked about the ferry, cars and trucks.

Ferry

He thinks the new ferry is a nice step towards becoming sustainable. The new ferry, called the Texelstroom, will be much more sustainable, this by using Compressed Natural Gas, a battery will manage the peaks in the energy demand. the water will be reused for flushing the toilets and the heat from the cooling water will be recovered. Solar panels on the deck. Besides all this positive things on the ferry, he mentions that the size of the ship will be bigger, so more vehicles can be transported. This is opposite of the vision of Texel. There will be more pollution of the air and nature by this cars.

Cars

Urgenda worked on Texel about electrical cars. There are around 29 electrical cars and almost 40 charging points are realised. Urgenda wants to make Texel totally driving on electrical cars and this is the first step they made. Maartens also told us about an example of electrical cars on Terschelling. There is a guy who introduced the cars to the island for renting. The cars can be rented per minute and you can get them at different stations at Terschelling. The project works, the cars are used by tourists, but mostly by the students of the Scheepvaartschool (English: Shipping school). He said to us that this guy also wants to try it on Texel, but he doesn’t know how this ended up. Besides this he made a note to this. The economic strategy can be better by asking money per month and not per minute. So people need to have an abonnement and this secures the owner of the cars money all year long and not mostly in the summer, during the peak months.

Trucks

By talking about the trucks, he immediately made a remark on this. The trucks on the ferry are half of the time empty. They go empty to the island or back without goods. Hereby he especially said something about the waste transport. The waste is now brought to Alkmaar, but he has the opinion it should also be possible to process the waste on the island itself. He thinks the problem is because Texel is one of the biggest owners of the factory, so they also make money with it. If the process will not be in the factory in Alkmaar anymore, they will get less money.

Conclusion

People have to get used to ideas and dear to make them. In the beginning it is hard to convince people to chance, but if you believe in the project it just takes some time other people also believe in it. People have to change their lifestyle for example and this takes some time.