Coming to Lisbon, Portugal, you see all the joys of the nice sunny weather. Known for its sunny weather throughout the whole year, it’s one of the top tourist destinations in Europe. One blog post is definitely way too short to highlight Lisbon, I will just say that there is something for everyone. 

One of the best known places nearby is the huge beach Carcavelos. After arrival in Lisbon, that will be for sure among the first places that you will visit and will come to it, again and again.

No-one complains about the great climate, and there is interesting things from architecture, art, culture, sport and music events, and many other things. If by some chance you get bores in Lisbon (which is both theoretically and practically impossible :D), you can go and explore some places nearby, such as Sesimbra. Going to a distant beach, can be a nice way to have one lovely day outside the city crowd.

My personal passion are ships, so I take every opportunity to spend time on them, or to go to museums related to them. 

And being known as the country with probably the biggest naval tradition, Portugal is the place where you can find everything you want about ships.

For sure you will find a lot of museums in Portugal on all possible thematics. I will recommend you Museu da Marina in Belem, as a place which can't be missed. It's my favorite one. 

Aa yeah, this post started with football J Well, for all the football fans, you will have plenty of fun around. I got the opportunity to watch a lot of matches in both countries, and was absolutely delighted with that. However watching Benfica matches is just wonderful experience and something that any football enthusiast can't afford to skip.

Well, as I wrote in the beginning of the first part, this is merely a brief preview of the attractions in these two countries. There is much much more to be done and written for. Once again Poland and Portugal are equalized. This comparison reminds me about the football match they played, and once again it's difficult to say if someone is better, or just say that both countries are great.

I hope that the new students from CFAFE program will find this useful and will have an idea what they might expect and do during their studies.

Last times, these two countries played a football match on The European Championship (France 2016), it was so tight that it ended up on penalties. Let’s see how they fare in performance for student life J

As this was meant to be done in one blog post, I soon realized that the space won’t be enough, so I decided to make it in two parts. While doing that, I realized (once again), that I can’t present all what I want and find important, so for sure there will be additional work on this topic, just remains to be seen if it will be again on blog or maybe through some video.

Comparing country from north east of Europe to one from south-west is not an easy task. By default difference is huge here. Perhaps direct comparison might not be so helpful here, so I go by displaying the unique sides of both countries.

I spent one year in the south part of Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship (polish term for province). This region is well known for the vast industrial tradition and the high level of development, due to the competitive industry. It is very well connected with transport infrastructure to all the major cities of the nearby countries such as Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria.

Although we were located in Gliwice, Krakow was quite close, and because of the many events organized, we were going there very often. The Rynek (square) on a sunny day is something that absolutely can’t be skipped.

Before going abroad, it is a good idea to check the local places available first. We were lucky to have the mountains nearby. Ski centers such as Szcyrk, Wisla Malinka and Zakopane, were very close to both centers for InnoEnergy - Gliwice and Krakow.

Although I come from a southern country, I love winter - especially with a lot of snow. The winter period in Poland provided some great experiences and memories.

Being in this region, you are assured to have a lot of snow in the winter – and all the joy that comes with it. Enjoying the snow, and all the winter fun, with prices much lower compared to similar places in other European countries, is something you can’t afford to miss!

This was just a brief display of some of the activities outside of the study program during my stay in Poland. It is up to the upcoming students to decide if they have similar preferences, or they would prefer to experience and share other types of activities. Without any doubt, Poland has a lot of interesting activities to offer, and I am sure that the students from the new CFAFE intake won't be bored there ;) 

Are you a summer or winter type of person? While being on this program (CFAFE), you can be both J

Stay tuned here, to see the case for Portugal ;) 

This is not a post about the popular Facebook option. Still, feel free to share this J

In todays fast and modern lifestyle, quite often we neglect some things which on first sight might appear irrelevant or not significant. Sharing is one of them. Although it is not popular topic, for sure it has importance and affects our lifestyle.

Throughout the history, people shared most of the key resources for their survival – the caves as cover, fireplaces, water wells and many other things. Along with development, the key resources were increasing, but the sharing was decreasing. Since the start of construction of houses, and having private properties, the effect of sharing started to decrease.

Today we live in a world where personal goods/devices are at the highest possible level. Most of the people have their own home, car, electronic devices, cooking equipment and the other necessary things for their daily activities. Why would we need sharing now?

Well, that was a good question and in the same time it was quite difficult to answer – since Uber. Uber is considered one of the pioneers of the emerging sharing economy. Using Uber while being in the cities and BlaBlaCar when you are looking for longer distance travelling have you quite well covered, wherever you may want to travel. By sharing the transport, you care for your budget and the environment. Shared transport means less fuel consumption – which brings double benefit – less expenses and less emissions in the atmosphere. Win-win situation.

While Uber is worldwide known, there are some very interesting ideas growing that haven’t got that much attention yet.  First in the line is – the sharing of tools. This “library of things” is growing fast, and most of their customers are delighted with their innovative approach. Being able to rent a specialized tool which you can’t afford to buy and/or don’t use often, is a great way to have your work done, keeping your budget safe and your storage place not overfilled in the process. Globally, this should result in decreased production of certain devices, leading to smarter use of resources, and decreased energy consumption for production and reducing the waste. This is a growing trend, displayed in several different ways around the global, according to local preferences.

Next coming are the smart cities. This is quite fancy term, used frequently in this period. But what about sharing cities? This initiative in Europe is concentrated on sharing experience in the effort of implementing smart solutions in several cities, with shared funding. Sharing the costs and the risks, comes as a mutual benefit for all the participants in the initiative.

In today’s world, driven by innovation and entrepreneurship, the question arise – Is there a limit in the sharing world? All the positive examples show that it can find its place in many different situations, and most of the time the benefits are multiple. Sharing comes as one more approach directed to improving life quality of citizens, due to decreased costs for same services, and in the same time decreasing the impact of our modern lifestyle on the environment. Once again, win-win situation.

Energy transition, a term, an idea, a movement or however we classify it, looked highly unlikely several years ago. However, slightly, shy, it gathered pace and momentum, and here it is. It is not a desire or a wish, but a necessity, a must! Although still it is not clearly defined how exactly this process will be executed, it is ongoing and we have to reevaluate which energy sources will stay there and which will need to be changed. The main goals here are to: reduce greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions, reduce pollution and environmental impact from energy use, to develop energy sources which will be renewable and sustainable, to improve energy efficiency etc.

Natural gas, as part of the energy mix, roughly covers 1/3 of primary energy consumption. Compared to other fossil fuels, natural gas has a trend of constant stable growth and the predictions are this growth to continue in the future. Natural gas is regarded as the most practical fuel because of its advantages compared to other fossil fuels - more environmental friendly, easy to transport, high calorific value, and compared to renewable sources – it gives stable power output and is used to cover intermittency of renewables to avoid blackouts. Natural gas is used for: power generation, heating, hot water generation, cooking production processes in industry and transport.

Similar as oil, natural gas reserves are not evenly distributed around the world. Very often gas fields are located next to oil fields. Because of this, international trade of natural gas is very important factor, when we evaluate the possible use of the fuel. Gas transport in the past was price competitive only through long pipelines, but recently the trade of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has the highest increase and it is predicted to be one of the main factors that will contribute to higher natural gas use. Although LNG terminals require huge investment, many ongoing projects around the globe verify its price-competitiveness.

Additional advantage of natural gas is the possibility to conversion to liquid fuels and to store energy from renewable sources. Gas-to-liquids (GTL) is a technology to use gas feedstock to produce liquid fuels such as diesel and gasoline. Power to gas is a conversion technology which utilizes electricity to generate gas, and it is used to store energy.

Natural gas, with all its advantages, is a fuel that will play strong part in every scenario for energy transition. It will be used together with renewable energy sources in the drive for clean, renewable and sustainable energy supply in the world. 

As the New Year arrived, it is time to start working on the to-do-list created for 2017. For those of you, that this list contains joining InnoEnergy Master School, you are on a great path, and below you will read why.

Your energized journey usually starts with a team-building weekend, open studio or something similar, depending on your university. It can’t hurt to start the new academic year in a friendly relaxed atmosphere, right? But don’t get too comfortable. After the welcome package, you will slowly see all the features coming from your new environment. They will come to you in the form of more travel, attending conferences (and participating in them), additional courses/training and much more. By the time you notice that you were too fascinated by all the events previously mentioned, it’s already November, which is generally known here as the Kick-off month. This is a great opportunity to meet all your new colleagues, which are on the same journey as you. Regarded as a motivational event, through different activities you will get the opportunity to see what InnoEnergy stands for. You will get to know that except from your contribution as a student and future engineer, you can significantly contribute as a member of community. In order not to spoil your whole journey, I stop here. Just as a brief hint, the remaining of your program will be fulfilled with a lot a lot of activities. One of your main doubts may be what works best: reduced time for sleep, increased coffee intake or most probably both combined?

With all the effort put in to facilitate your application and integration process, the ball is passed to you. When you get surrounded by people with high determination to help and contribute, you will see the importance of good aura around you. Then it comes up to you, your desire and your vision to contribute in all the work done here. It is up to you in which way you will contribute – through engineering, innovation, entrepreneurship or as a community member. All counts, every contribution from new members gets us closer to our targets. 

Sincerely, I wish you find your place in this network, the Master School is one of the best journeys you take in life and to make your 2017 a year to remember.