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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
The city has signed a charter and set itself the challenge of becoming ‘energy-positive’ to wipe out its carbon footprint by 2015. Christine Brice looks at the initiatives in operation and on the drawing board
The agglomération of Perpignan is serious about sustainable energy. Earlier this year Ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo witnessed the town’s signature of an agreement with the state to become the first “positive energy town” in France.
The president of the conseil général for the Pyrénées-Orientales, Christian Bourquin announced the town’s goal of producing more energy than it uses by 2015. Under the agreement, Perpignan promises to lower its carbon footprint by cutting energy consumption, supply the needs of the agglomération with renewable sources of local energy and develop ‘clean’ farming methods.
The agreement is merely the seal of the town’s ongoing efforts to address environmental challenges.
Water saving
All the new fountains, such as those in place Arago and place de la République, run on recycled water and older fountains are being adapted. The département stepped up water-saving measures only last month at the start of yet another dry spring. Leaks in public buildings are quickly dealt with and automatic watering systems in municipal parks and gardens are now computer-controlled, so that less or no water is delivered according to rainfall. Roundabout planting schemes have been designed with drought in mind, using drought-resistant local plants
and more ‘hard’ landscaping and sculptures. Compost and mulch help to conserve water.
Geothermal heating
Work has started on Perpignan’s new Théâtre de l’Archipel incorporating geothermal energy systems into Jean Nouvel’s striking design. This can be used for heating and to provide hot water or to drive turbines or electricity generators. In the summer the same system can be used to cool buildings. Geothermal energy needs no fuel, only some specialist equipment. The investment is repaid over just a few years through savings on fuel and energy bills.
Solar power
Already a number of wind turbine installations have been in operation for some years but the greatest underused resource is the power of the sun. Solar energy is an obvious choice for the Languedoc-Roussillon which on average enjoys more than 300 days of sunshine a year. New buildings often come with the solar installation as an integral part of the design and existing buildings can easily have the equipment added at a later stage. Examples of this can be seen at the recently renovated Stade Aimé Giral, the home of the USAP rugby team. When work on the fourth stand is complete the roof of the stadium will be covered in photovoltaic modules, enough to supply the stadium’s significant lighting needs.
Around the railway station area, undergoing a major make-over, the Hôtel de l’Agglomération under construction is one of several public buildings to have solar energy installations. But the biggest civic project is at the wholesale fruit and vegetable market at Saint-Charles. Eventually most of the buildings here will too have solar panels to make electricity in an arrangement with EDF. In association with the Pôle Développement des énergies renouvelables appliqués et à industrie (DERBI) 70,000m2 of photovoltaic roof will produce more than 10Megawatt hours per year.
The success of financial incentives to businesses to incorporate the ethos of the newly signed convention are evident at Le Chocolatier Cantalou. It is currently building a new chocolate factory near Perpignan airport at a cost of *36 million, to open later in the year. The massive roof will incorporate the latest in BIPV or ‘building integrated photovoltaic’ cells.
The installation will be managed by Urbasolar of Montpellier for the company Solar Integrated, a California-based company specialising in non-residential, low-slope roof installations. The system has a potential life of 40 years. Unlike active solar panels which
heat hot water, photovoltaic, as the name suggests, produces electricity
from sunlight.
The ‘thin-film technology’ on which the system is based was developed initially for NASA but is fast becoming the choice of many businesses eager to turn their credentials a deeper shade of green. Cemoi has a 20 year agreement to sell the excess electricity produced to EDF. It is anticipated that 650,000 kWh will be produced over that time and sold for E0.55 per kWh. This in turn will save 17,420 tonnes of CO2.
Once up and running, the system consumes no natural resources and generates no harmful emissions. It also needs next to no maintenance.
The project is supported by the Languedoc-Roussillon region to the tune of *800,000.
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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
The show which has just opened in Aix’s Musée Granet, is the first exhibition of comic art put on by a French fine arts museum. ‘La BD s’attaque au musée!’ shows how comic strip artists have depicted museums over the last 100 years. Among the exhibits is a 1937 sketch by Hergé (of Tintin fame), the original source perhaps for the archetypal museum guard, complete with moustache and peaked cap, sweeping the exhibition floor. Other artists include Windsor McCay’s 1906 comic strip of Little Sammy Sneeze from ‘The New York Herald’ as the luckless child blows down a laboriously-constructed dinosaur skeleton.
There are three works by well-known British cartoonist Glen ‘Colonel’ Baxter, all showing cowboys on horseback doing or saying surreal things in art galleries. His cartoons appear in ‘The Independent on Sunday’ and are translated in ‘Le Monde’ in France.
The exhibition is housed in the museum’s underground galleries and each visitor is given a torch to shine on the comic strips in their frames and cabinets.
On April 4, 5 and 6, several cartoonists will guide people around the 80 works and give their own special take on the museum’s permanent collection. Children’s workshops are also planned for that weekend.
Other events related to comics and museums include an exhibition of Finnish comic art at the Galerie Zola, Japanese Manga art in the tourist office gallery and eight other comic-related shows throughout the city’s galleries.
‘La BD s’attaque au musée!’ until June 8, Musée Granet, Aix. Full details on www.bd-aix.com.
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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
The long process of deciding the route of the TGV (high-speed rail) extension took a new twist during the course of the municipal elections. The existing line runs from Avignon to Marseille via Aix-en-Provence. In a letter to the now re-elected mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, a member of his own UMP party, President Sarkozy declared his own preference for a route following the existing lines from Marseille along the coast to Toulon and Nice. He found it “unthinkable” that the eventual TGV link from Madrid to Rome would bypass Marseille.
Toulon’s UMP mayor Hubert Falco (returned in the first round of voting), found the president’s view unsurprising: “It is what Jean-Claude Gaudin, Christian Estrosi (the new UMP mayor of Nice) and I have argued for over the past three years and has been supported by successive ministers of transport. It matters more to know what the SNCF proposes next June and who is going to pay for it.” The results of the official enquiry are due to be announced this summer, after yet more feasibility studies. The rest of Falco’s remarks glossed over certain relevant points. For a start, while all three towns wanted to be served by the new line, they had not agreed the precise route. The then mayor of Nice, Jacques Peyrat (formerly of both the Front National and the UMP until suspended for standing against Estrosi in the latest elections), was vehemently opposed to the coastal route. He said it would add an hour to the journey from Nice to Paris. Differences were patched up to form a common front in favour of the new line, but only by shelving the issue of the actual route. Year-long public consultations had revealed environmental and agricultural problems with all the possible routes, especially in the Var.
Successive transport ministers have all favoured linking the three towns by TGV but none has committed the ministry to a route – one minister who merely hinted at a preference was instantly slapped down by vested interests in Provence.
By the time the line is actually running – the official forecast of 2020 looks increasingly improbable – all those currently involved will probably be in retirement or the graveyard.
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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
Two young chefs in the Alpes-Maritimes saw their dreams come true when both were awarded their first Michelin star in the 2008 issue of the famous guide. Friends Finnish-born Jouni Törmänen and Christophe Dufau celebrated together the success of their restaurants in Nice and Tourrettes-sur-Loup, near Vence. Both talented and ambitious, Christophe opened the Bacchanales at Tourrettes after a spell in Denmark at a Relais et Châteaux hotel, while Jouni has successfully revived the fortunes of the architecturally striking La Réserve on a headland near Nice
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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
As every year, two weeks before the 2008 fishing season opened, the Hautes-Alpes fishing authority fed more than 500 rainbow trout, weighing between 250 and 350g, into the area’s streams and rivers. The operation is paid for by the cash raised from fishing permits and donations.
From dawn on March 8, ‘Open season day’, more than 100 fishermen were out and about, all hoping for a fresh fish lunch. Some had even come fully prepared to cook the fish at the riverside.
As winter gives way to spring, the larger fish - pike and perch - as well as trout will see locals and visitors around the lakes, and in the streams and rivers.
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