Le Tour des Possibles

WHAT OBJECTIVE?

Ecourage and facilitate citizen action in the energy transition.

HOW?

Through a behavioural and technical study of alternative ways to produce and consume energy at the local scale.

WHO?

Paul et Thibaut, 2 engineering students, fond of adventure and positive engineering.

WHAT?

A video documentary on local initiatives, tutorials and technical sheets on the visited projects to prepare their reproduction.

WHERE? In 9 countries around the world in order to obtain a broad sample of our planet.

WHEN?

During six months from August 2017, during our gap year.

Inspired by the Transition Towns movement, by the film Tomorrow and by a lot of local initiatives which have been developed in favour of the environment, we asked ourselves how we could give a hand within our capacity to people who want to take actions as well. We got the feeling that current solutions are too big, cost too much and require too deep knowledge so that everyone can get involved.

During Le Tour des Possibles, we will collect ideas and methods which will be aimed at citizens in our cities. The identification and the study of the key factors of these projects in their context will be an innovative achievement and a will help to build new initiatives in France.

Such a research requires an overview of the local practices. It is therefore necessary to go through diversed regions in order to collect information specific to different socal, political, economic and environmental contexts.

During the trip, we will go to meet citizens who have developed innovative ideas regarding energy production and consumption at the local scale.

There are three main domains for the local projects:

- energy efficiency: optimize existing facilities to reduce energy consumption

- production and utilisation of renewable energies, especially with the use of Low-Tech objects.

- energy sobriety: adopt a responsible behaviour to minize energy consumption.

For each project which will be encountered, an analysis grid will be prepared to answer several questions such as the key factors depending on the context, the maturity of the project, the people involved... This will enable us to study its reproductibility in another environment. We will do tutorials and technical sheets on the projets to give the means to motivated people to reproduce these initiatives.

We will also release a video documentary which will give an overview of our study and will stimulate grassroots initiatives. It will be made of local projects presentations, interviews, and a lot of images of the diverse contexts where these projects have been implemented.

- A family biodigester in Costa Rica which produces natural gas, used to cook for instance.

- Human powered sytem in India to charge batteries. This is an excellent tool to educate that energy is a valuable resource that requires serious effort to obtain.

- An earthship in Australia: a house entirely autonomous, built with natural or recycled materials.

The tutorials and projects presentations will be put online so that everyone can access them. We will organise film screenings and discussion times to share our adventure.

We are currently establishing partnerships with municipalities in which we will organise events for the citizens. This will be the opportunity to start the reproduction of some initiatives.

Paul - 21 (on the left)

Paul is from Alsace, France. He studies engineering at CentraleSupelec and is currently doing his fourth year as an exchange student at the University of Cambridge.

He had had lots of opportunities to go abroad such as humanitarian projects, summer jobs, internships and several personal travels.

Paul is the secratary of the association "Objection Développement Durable" and is in charge of finding local initiatives for Le Tour des Possibles. He will be the photopgraph during the trip.

Thibaut  - 21 (on the right)

Thibaut is from Lorrain, France, and studies engineering at CentraleSupelec.

After a humanitarian project and several trips abroad, he wants to go further.

Thibaut is the president of the association "Objectif Développement Durable" and is in charge of finding the funds for Le Tour des Possibles and of its mediatisation. He will be the film director during the trip.