Koos Termorshuizen is an active rower, author and co-owns the market research company, Arachnea. He recently went on a bike trip around the North Sea with Jos Wassink to investigate sustainable energy projects along the coast line. On North Sea Cycling they documented their journey. What follows are three questions about his views on sustainability.

- What was the most inspiring sustainable solution you found along the North sea route? 

There were hardly any. Wind energy is a very fine solution but a disaster for the landscape. Offshore wind parks may be the best solution. I don’t believe in tidal or wave energy as it seems to be very hard if not impossible to come over technical problems due to the extreme forces of sea currents.

- In what way did your bike ride change your views on sustainability?

The political standpoints in the area of sustainability are unrealistic and populistic. Large scale carbon storage e.g. is not possible at all yet, and the costs will be extremely high. So, if politicians say that CO2 emissions of a new coal fired electricity plant will be very low because of carbon storage, in the best case they don’t know what they are talking about.
In fact, the trip made me even more pessimistic. I think the global change cannot be stopped anymore. Glaciers will disappear worldwide.

- You wrote a book on the river Eem on which you row and you cycled around the North Sea, what draws you to water that you not only do sports on it but also write about it?

Writing is nice to do, and the river Eem – the landscape, the history – inspired me to write the book. I’ve always loved rivers and ships; my Rotterdam background – where I grew up very close to the river will have helped. I’ve never been a lover of the sea or the beach, but the coastline is in many places wonderful.