Open Letter to Nicolas Hulot
Open Letter to Nicolas Hulot
December 15, 2006
http://www.savoir-sans-frontieres.com
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http://www.jp-petit.com/science/Z-machine/papier_Haines/papier_Haines.htm
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Jean-Pierre Petit Former Research Director at CNRS Physicist, astrophysicist to Mr. Nicolas HULOT, care of Calmann-Lévy Editions 31 rue Fleurus 75006 Paris Sir, Your crusade is relevant and praiseworthy. We all know that.
I bought your book "For an ecological pact" as soon as it came out. I read the solutions you mention. I also read, pages 58 to 60, the list and the skills of the people, the scientists with whom you have worked.
I found no physicist among them.
I greatly appreciate your approach and your human qualities, your physical courage. I myself have traveled a lot in my life (leading safaris in Kenya, skydiving, mountaineering, piloting, caving, diving, paragliding, etc. etc.).
I have written 30 books, including the series of scientific comic books about the adventures of Anselme Lanturlu, which you can now download for free and translated into ... 32 languages!
Like you, I believe in utopia, as the late René Dumont did, who wrote "Utopia or Death". Like you, I believe that "planetary civilizations are highly perishable".
Therefore, our characters have common points and if I had to define myself, it would be as a "savanturier" (a scientist-traveler).
Your book is courageous, well written, but it is a myopic book.
Ecological issues are planetary. They require a drastic and urgent revision of energy, social, demographic, etc. policies.
Your French-French suggestions come from a good intention, but they will prove ineffective. Currently, the two future economic giants: China and India are rising. If, in particular in China, a few rare people boast about caring about ecology, don't imagine that this concern (shared by the United States) extends beyond their national territory.
China and India have a huge revenge to take on the rest of the world. They had advanced civilizations at the time when we, Europeans, were just leaving our caves.
These countries have been economically attacked, pillaged without mercy by the Western countries emerging from their industrial revolution, drunk on this new power, imperialistic, which allowed them to collapse internal activities, artisanal, to create serious economic disorders in their "prey", famines, and to complete this frontal attack on the political and social system by introducing ... opium.
These people will not be ready to give us gifts. Our social problems, our employment problems, the degradation of our living conditions, they don't care at all. If you knew the aspects of Chinese pragmatism, the absence of soul of these people, it would give you chills.
So, an ecological revolution, without China, without India? Does it make sense?
You will not be able to limit the insatiable energy appetite of these two monsters. It is therefore one of the central problems that people who want to escape from the catastrophe that is approaching at full speed must take on urgently. However, this part of your book is poor (two pages, 87 and 88).
It's normal. Everyone has their own skills.
For the field ecologist that you are, renewable energies are solar and wind, the old-fashioned version. Solar panels on roofs, windmills here and there.
It's tinkering.
In terms of solar energy, all countries that live in the proximity of vast desert areas coexist with incredible energy reserves. The techniques exist and have been successfully tested in Spain. For example, concrete towers, as high as possible. Today, the construction of towers of a thousand meters in height, braced and guyed, would pose no problem at all. These fools and all-category waste champions, the emirs of Dubai (who "invest in luxury") are building a residential unit whose total height will reach 800 meters.
At the base of these towers, a vast circular greenhouse. That's why they call it "deserts", because to power these "wind towers", you need space, an area of 2000 meters in diameter. In these greenhouses, air at 80 degrees. Thus, a powerful upward current in these chimney towers, exploited by a set of turbines located at their base. Power capacity: thousands of megawatts.
Another advantage: Under the greenhouse, a lake, a vast area of water, without a free surface, in contact with the hot air through a metal wall. It serves as a heat well. During the day, the excess heat is used to raise the water temperature. At night, this heat accumulator, with an apparently unlimited capacity, powers the tower. Since the temperature at altitude drops as soon as the sun sets, the night-time efficiency is even better.
Imagine Egypt, flanked by vast desert areas, producing its electricity this way. Imagine the United Arab Emirates setting an example in this regard (one can always dream).
I learned that Australia is considering equipping itself with nuclear power plants, with a strategic thought, of course. Bombs need plutonium, provided by plutonium-producing reactors. And this, even though Australia could, thanks to its vast desert areas, produce its electricity exclusively through solar energy!
Have you thought that the inhabitant should be rethought in order to maximize the use of wind energy, not by erecting a noisy three-blade wind turbine on every building (now a new lobby), but by channeling air flows towards streamlined, silent and compact turbines (and by the way, you noticed that since the invention of aeronautics, we have gradually moved from propellers to turbines. I would like to point out that as a former student of Supaéro, I am an expert in fluid mechanics).
Do you know the fantastic solutions implemented in the North Sea, regarding the exploitation of wave energy?
Etc... etc...
That is just one aspect of the problem, and of the solutions. At the same time as we must think about preserving the environment, fighting waste, pollution, living frugally, we must invest heavily in the energies of tomorrow.
You write: "The golden age is over."
I would not be as sure of that as you. Before a certain Drake, in the United States, discovered the fantastic possibilities offered by oil, what was the primary energy source?
Wood.
Imagine our current world, without the existence of oil, this substance through which Nature has stored Himalayas of solar energy, through its biochemistry.
There would not be a single tree left on the planet...