Greg de Temmerman

#11 most read in

Greg De Temmerman is managing director of Zenon Research, a think tank studying the links between energy and the economy. He is also associate researcher at MINES ParisTech PSL. He is a physicist by training, specialised in plasma physics and materials science. From 2014-2020 he was coordinating scientist at the ITER Organization.

Greg de Temmerman

Feb 16 2023

Of Materials and Men

Illuminem Voices

Energy Transition · Energy

On a planet with a diameter of 12,700 km, a mass of 5.9 trillion (1 followed by 21 zeros) tons, moving at a speed of 107,000 km/h around the sun, an average human weighing 62 kg can feel very small. Yet humanity affects the composition of Earth's atmosphere and climate and mobilizes huge amounts of matter every year. Indeed, if the total mass of humanity (500 million tons) is insignificant, the mass of its infrastructure is far from it.