News in Brief - Delta 10

Rent hikes
The rental prices for student rooms rented via kamernet.nl have increased by an average of fifteen euro compared to last year. Including gas, water and electricity, a student in the Netherlands pays an average of 365 euro per month for a room. In Delft the average price is 26 euro lower than the national average, but prices are up 3.1 over last year. Amsterdam remains the most expensive student city: the average rental price is 465 euro per month. Enschede meanwhile offers the lowest rental prices: 248 euro per student room. The largest rent hikes were in Den Haag and Maastricht, where prices were up by 9.4 and 8.2 percent respectively. In Den Haag - now the second most expensive student city - the average rental price is 397 euro per month. The average size of a student room for rent on Kamernet is 17.96 square meters.

kamernet.nl

Abstinence rising
For first time there are more people who abstain from drinking alcohol than there are heavy drinkers among highly educated people in the Netherlands. In 2000, there were approximately twice as many heavy drinkers than abstainers among Dutch people who have polytechnic or university degrees. At present one in ten higher educated people do not drink alcohol at all, compared to 5.7 percent in 2000. During the same period, the number of heavy drinkers dropped from 12.3 to 9.4 percent. For beer and wine, higher educated people drink on average 1.3 glasses per day. But 8.2 percent drink three or more glasses of alcohol daily, which qualifies them as alcoholics. These figures come from a survey conducted by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), which qualifies a heavy drinker as one who, once per week, drinks six or more glasses of alcoholic beverages in one day. Among young people aged 18 to 25 years old, one in five were regarded as heavy drinkers, while 11 percent abstained.

Drilling starts
On March 9 drilling for terrestrial heat in the Delft-Pijnacker region commenced at the Ammerlaan Land & Hydroculture Company. The drilling work conducted over the next few weeks is expected to reveal whether the drilling will release enough warm water to provide sustainable heating for local greenhouse businesses. Ammerlaan also intends to be the first Dutch town to heat a local swimming pool, school, fitness centre and sports hall with geothermal energy. Students working on TU Delft’s Delft Geothermal Project are closely involved in this drilling project, which will drill into a sandstone layer at a depth of 2,000 metres and pump hot (70°C) groundwater to the surface. Ammerlaan Land & Hydroculture hopes this will be enough to provide sustainable heating for its five-hectare business. If the drilling is successful, other local horticultural greenhouses and homes will also be connected to the geothermal energy supply. It is hoped that the first terrestrial heat will be found by early May.

Times ranking
The world-renowned Times Higher Education (THE) ranking of universities will be completely overhauled. The publication is scrapping its previous ranking methodology, according to its editor, Phil Baty. Writing on the THE website, Baty said: ‘I have a confession. The rankings of the world’s top universities that my magazine has been publishing for the past six years…are not good enough.’ Because the previous methodology was found lacking in many areas, THE’s entire rankings methodology is now open for a complete review. Baty added: ‘So much rests on the results of our rankings - individual university reputations, student recruitment, vice chancellors’ and presidents’ jobs in some cases, even major government investment decisions. We have a duty to overhaul the rankings to make them fit for such purposes.’

Wood waste
TU Delft researchers have made a substantial leap forward in the production of biochemicals and biofuels from waste wood. The researchers not only discovered that the bacterium cupriavidus basilensis breaks down the harmful by-products produced when sugars are released from wood, but they also managed to incorporate the degradation process in bacteria which are in common industrial use. Consequently, costly and environmentally unfriendly methods for removing by-products are no longer needed.