Pour un monde viable / For a viable world

The book written by Michel Griffon and his son Florent, presents an interesting worldview from a sustainable development perspective. The authors prefer to consider what they call a viable development, refering to the work of the mathematician Jean-Pierre Aubin. The theory of viability, already presented in this blog, defines the conditions to fulfill for a system, in order to remain during all its evolution within the area of viability. For achieving a viable development at a global level, the authors propose to ensure 1) the capacity of renewal of the resources, 2) the capacity of resilience 3) the capacity of evolution. In order to perform the required transformations, they consider that it is necessary to implement a new attitude or "ethos". they described what might be a viability ethos, wfich would be an ethos of knowledge, consciousness and confidence. As a result, a new era remains to be invented, the era of the "viabilis homo".

---

L'ouvrage écrit par Michel Griffon et son fils Florent, présente une intéressante vision du monde dans une perspective de développement durable. Les auteurs préfèrent parler de développement viable, en s'inspirant des travaux du mathématicien Jean Pierre Aubin. La théorie de la viabilité, dont il a été question dans ce blog, étudie les conditions à respecter pour qu'un système puisse rester tout au long de son évolution dans son domaine de viabilité.  Pour parvenir à un développement viable à l'échelle de la planète, les auteurs préconisent d'assurer 1) la capacité de renouvellement des ressources, 2) la capacité de résilience et 3) la capacité d'évolution.  Pour provoquer les changements nécessaires, ils estiment qu'il faut parvenir à créer un nouvel état d'esprit ou "éthos" et décrivent ce que pourrait être un éthos de la viabilité, un éthos de la connaissance, de la conscience et de la confiance. Il s'agirait ainsi d'inventer une nouvelle ère, celle de l'"homo viabilis"

Vers un nouveau Moyen-âge / Towards a new Middle-age?

Our civilization, and more specially the western civilization around the United-States, has been often compared to the Roman Empire. This Empire is not bounded by borders and its power extends worldwide through the globalization, with language, media, science and technology. Still, it is threatened and challenged. Even democracy and liberty which were emblematic of this Empire seem in danger. Economic tensions rise everyday end therefore the decline and the fall of the Empire cannot be excluded any more. If it happens, the situation might become very similar to what happened to the Roman Empire. The major turbulences created by such an event might open a "dark age", during which complexity and knowledge would recede. New feodalities would emerge and create some  restricted safe areas, surrounded by  miserable and dangerous territorities. Still, new vertical values might emerge, similar to those which had been instaured by christianity during the middle-age, when money was despised and honour was the supreme value, which might help to build a new promising era. It is perhaps the only way to achieve such a transformation of values. Still, the risks involved are such, that it seems much preferable to anticipate the dangers ahead, in order to avoid such a fracture.

---

Notre civilisation et plus particulièrement celle qui peut être qualifiée de façon quelque peu schématique comme la « civilisation occidentale », a été souvent comparée à l’Empire romain. Les États-Unis sont au centre de ce nouvel Empire, comme Rome l’était au centre du monde ancien. Cet Empire, qui n’est pas délimité par des frontières, englobe la totalité du monde [1]. La mondialisation est un moyen d’étendre son pouvoir et d’imposer sa logique. Sa domination est assurée par la puissance des armes, mais aussi au moyen du soft power de la langue, des média, de la science et de la technique [2].

Le Grand Basculement / The Great Swing

The book "The Great Swing" is inspired by "The Great Transformation" written by Karl Polanyi. The comparison is quite instructive. The "Great Transformation" lead to the welfare society in Europe, after the second world war, in order to avoid a comeback of the crisis and totalitarism as a consequence. The authors of the "Great Swing" observe that this path is no more followed and appeal for a new great transformation at a global level, linking economy and social policy, for avoiding major fractures. Still an ambiguity remains. As the authors have point pointed out, the "Great Swing" corresponds to the ascent of emerging countries, which have strongly reinforced theit position in economic and political terms. Therefore the overall balance becomes difficult to appreciate. Can the present situation be explained by a failure of the liberal policy or by a success of emerging countries through globalization? The lack of vision and anticipation of the policies lead by the old industrialized countries, which are now moving a path which may be fatal for them, seems obvious. Still, the issue of a decline of the previously dominent countries in the North and the West is not analysed , which is one of the limitations of this otherwise stimulating book.

---

Le titre de l'ouvrage de Jean-Michel Severino, directeur de recherches à la Fondation pour la Recherche sur le Développement International (FERDI) et de Olivier Ray, économiste à l"AFD, est inspiré par celui que Karl Polanyi avait donné à son ouvrage de référence: "La Grande Transformation". "Le Grand Basculement" est donc présenté comme le pendant actuel à l'ouvrage de Karl Polanyi, ce qui en situe l'ambition. La comparaison entre la situation que décrit Karl Polanyi et la situation actuelle est en effet fort instructive. La "grande transformation", c'est celle qui a conduit à mettre en place la société sociale-démocrate et l’État providence après la seconde guerre mondiale, pour éviter de retomber dans la crise et l'arrivée au pouvoir du totalitarisme. 

Le darwinisme économique n'a pas besoin de vision d'avenir / The Darwinian economy does not need any vision of the future

Darwinism has become the main feature of the present neo-liberal paradigm, despite the fact that Darwin himself rejected such an interpretation of his theory. As a worldview, it is very convenient for those who detain the wealth and the power. It is appropriate at a certain level for adusting supply and demand, but becomes clearly inadequate, not only when general interest is involved, but also when anticipating innovative options becomes necessary. Still, it remains the basic ideology of present-time economic system. As a result, there is a lack of anticipation and prospective thinking about the future, which becomes useless, if everything is driven by the invisible hand of the market.

---

Le darwinisme est devenu le paradigme dominant en économie  et sert de justification au néo-libéralisme, bien que cette interprétation ait été récusée par Darwin lui-même.  En effet, celui-ci peut ainsi proclamer que le laisser-faire est la meilleure des doctrines puisqu'il conduit au triomphe des plus aptes. Une telle doctrine est particulièrement séduisante pour les riches et les puissants, car, non seulement elle permet de ne pas remettre en question leur situation, mais elle leur confère un brevet de supériorité comme faisant partie des plus aptes et des plus intelligents. 

Le stockage d'énergie, condition de déploiement des énergies renouvelables / Energy storage as a prerequisite for renewable energy sources deployment

An extensive use of renewable energy sources requires finding an appropriate solution for energy storage. Renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, are intermittent, and therefore some kind of back-up is needed for meeting the demand.  It can be provided by a gas-fired combibed cycle power-plant, but for increasing the penetration of renewable energy sources, while reducing the use of fossil fuels, some kind of energy storage system is needed. Large capacity storage is provided by pumped hydro-storage systems, but they are limited by the number of appropriate natural sites and the large size of the installations. In such a case, the storage location is generally located far from the production site. Therefore, large electricity transport costs are involved, together with resulting energy losses.  Such systems are clearly not appropriate for short duration intermittencies.  Other storage systems , such as batteries or flywheels,  are then required. Energy storage is quite costly. As practised now, it can represent 50 to 150 €/ MWh. These figures do not include the cost of electricity transportation. It is therefore a priority to develop new more cost-efficient energy storage systems. It is especially important to develop systems which could be cost-effective while being displayed near the production site. Liquid phase chemical systems, compressed air storage systems are potential candidates, but no option can  be considered as wholly satisfactory and energy storage remains until now the main hurdle to overcome for developing renewable energy sources.  

---

Un recours très étendu aux énergies renouvelables implique de résoudre un problème particulièrement critique qui est celui du stockage d'énergie. En effet les énergies renouvelables, éolien et solaire sont intermittentes. Le vent peut s’arrêter et souffle à des vitesses très variables. Le rayonnement reçu du soleil est aussi très variable et s'annule la nuit. L’intermittence des systèmes de production d’électricité utilisant une énergie renouvelable (solaire, éolien), peut être compensée en modulant la puissance d’une centrale thermique opérant en back-up (telle qu’une centrale au gaz à cycle combiné). Pour augmenter le niveau de pénétration des énergies renouvelables, il faudra dans l’avenir recourir à des systèmes de stockage d’énergie de grande capacité. 

Pearltree pour préparer l'avenir / for preparing the future

Internet links for "Future at stake"

---

Liens internet pour "L'avenir en question"

Pétrole contre nourriture? Oil against food?

Biomass is already ensuring roughly 10% of the primary energy supply in the world, i.e. 1 G toe from 11 Gtoe. Wood is the main contributor. A large proportion of this biomass is used nder poor conditions and contributes to deforestation. Human food represents the equivalent of 600 Mtoe, and clearly the energy demand might threaten a proper access to food if biomass is extensively used for energy production. Biomass used for firing boilers can be provided to a large extend by waste (waste from wood constructions, biogas from organic waste). This is not the case with biofuels, which are produced from sugar extracted from sugar plants or derived from starch crops. From 419 Millions tons of cereals produced in 2009 in United States, 119 Millions have been transformeinto ethanol for producing biofuels. This production of biofuels competes then directly with food needs.  For this reason, R&D work is aiming at the production from biomass fraction which cannot be used for food, such as lignocellulosic biomass. Attemps are made also fopr prodicing biofuels from microalgae in bioreactors. These different options are costly and it is still difficult to know if they might be developed at a large scale and when.  

---

C’est dans le domaine de l’énergie que la demande pourrait être potentiellement la plus importante. De toutes les énergies renouvelables, la biomasse est celle qui est la plus facilement substituable aux énergies fossiles. En effet l’énergie issue de la biomasse est utilisée sous forme de combustibles solides, liquides ou gazeux, qui peuvent remplacer dans certaines conditions des combustibles fossiles tels que le charbon, le pétrole ou le gaz naturel.