Today started off with a delicious breakfast that felt to me like something I would eat in France. The croissants were some of the best I have ever had and the other pastries were very good.

We then visited a nearby university to hear a lecture from Karel, who was previously an executive at KLM royal airlines. He discussed sustainability with reference to the airline industry and detailed multiple future technologies and their possible future impact. He explained how, while the airline industry is currently highly energy efficient, it is still extremely energy intensive, meaning its use has a large impact on the environment. He explained that to reduce its negative impact, either the number of flights has to decrease, which is not a viable option, or the fuel used for flying has to change. He explained the different alternatives for kerosine fuel in depth, outlining the reasons why some are more viable than others. I found it intriguing how his industry experience enabled him to notice these simple but important details in the engineering issue of flying. 

Karel also talked about some complicated issues related to supply chain of these fuels. He discussed how biofuel is not viable at a large scale because of the amount of crops it would require a country to grow. On the other hand, he discussed how hydrogen solutions would not be beneficial until there was greater green energy capacity in the countries extracting the hydrogen. I found it intriguing how complicated changing this industry sounded, with how many other things that would also have to change. The interdependency was overwhelming and made me understand why industries often resist change and move so slow when they do change. The conversation, though upsetting in how it displayed the extreme difficulty of change, made me excited for the future and engineering. It made me realize I had a passion for sustainability and how well that passion fits in here. While I never felt like I wanted to live in Italy when I visited there, the lecture this morning made me feel like I would really enjoy moving here.

Then we toured Anne Frank’s house which was really impactful and sad. It made me think about how many more people like her were unable to tell their stories. It also made me think about current world issues and how, though we say “never again,” similar oppression is still occurring with few people discussing or doing anything about it. For example, I think about Uyghur’s in concentration camps that sound similar or worst than those in Germany during World War 2 yet very few seem to feel that anything needs to be done about it.

Finally, the word of the day is Achterhuis, which means secret annex, what Anne Frank referred to their hiding place during world war 2 as.