2024-07-27 16:34:03
Electricity without fossil fuels: the French energy company marks a world first and presents its solutions for the future.
The Olympic flame burns … without fuel. The highlight of the exhibition of the opening ceremony of the Paris Games, the appearance of Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner in the Tuileries gardens, followed by the fire of the cauldron carried by a gigantic balloon in the skies of the tricolor capital, was greeted. with enthusiasm by the spectators. Who does not know, after all, this installation preserves the innovation of which its developers are particularly proud.
The promoters of the project, the designer Mathieu Lehanneur, Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024, without forgetting the EDF group, have to convince the International Olympic Committee. Yes, the challenge is possible. Imagine electricity without fossil fuels. A “light fire”. It is actually a luminous ring which illuminates the water vapor. In detail, the 7-meter scale is equipped with 40 LED projectors, which illuminate the water projected by some 200 nozzles in the form of water vapor.
Halve the carbon footprint of games
Luc Rémont, CEO of EDF, this Saturday morning in front of the Olympic flame, with Tony Estanguet and the teams that think of the flame.
Elsa Bembaron / Le Figaro
The plan is part of the committee’s desire to reduce the carbon footprint of the Paris Games, compared to previous editions. Nothing is left to chance, not even fire hands.
The intensity of the LEDs, 400 Lumens, is designed so that the light illuminates the Paris sky, even in broad daylight. The device uses 25 kilowatt hours of electricity. “It’s a 25-burner stove,” he insisted Luc Rémont , CEO of EDF. Really not much. “. The device needs between 2 and 3 cubic meters of water per hour, but part of it is recovered in the form of droplets which fall into the basin, under the basin.
The sport is at all levels. It is necessary to imagine a system of cables to follow the movements of the balloon, which will fly some 60 meters above the roofs of Paris every evening, only to descend at night. On the ground, engineers will make sure the cables are properly wound to allow the balloon to take flight again the following evening. The marriage of electricity and water, although counter-intuitive, also makes it possible to improve the electronic components that equip the basin.
All are also designed to follow the French motto, indicating Paris 2024: freedom through the plane, equality through the torch, and fraternity through “white, round shape of a ring” of the cauldron.
With this basin, there is power at all levels.
Elsa Bembaron / Le Figaro
A QR code to approach the basin during the day
If the basin receives a plane 60m from the ground every evening “From sunset until two o’clock in the morning.” in order to make it visible from hundreds of meters around. During the day, 10,000 curious people will be able to approach you every day, by registering for free on a site last to get a QR code. One way for Paris 2024 to process the payment, is through collection “300 entries per quarter hour”. As of 1 p.m. this Tuesday, nearly 100,000 people have already registered. “We will reach a million”, joked Luc Rémont. The boss of EDF does not stop to emphasize the potential for the renewal of its groups, specified “that other uses (of this light, Editor’s note) will appear”.
The position where the basin is located, as well as its ability to fly thanks to its balloon, was not chosen randomly either: this impressive thing is part of the historical progress of “Mankind’s First Flight”in Paris, in 1783, by “The learned Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes”explained Paris 2024. Ditto for the flight of the gas balloon Jacques Charles, who left “from the Tuileries garden, from the same position, in front of 400,000 astonished people”, said the organizers. And, a hundred years later, in the Tuileries, it would be the time of Henri Giffard’s gas balloon to rise. One thing is certain: for the reactions of the spectators, Friday evening, the fire of water and fire is as hot as those that preceded it.
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