October 12, 2021

In just a few days the nations of the world will once again meet to discuss climate change. The meeting will likely set the stage for action –or lack thereof- that will make or break our collective effort to halt the dumping of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This time the meeting will take place in the wake of a rapidly worsening cold war in both fronts (the South China Sea and Eastern Europe) and an acute shortage of gas and coal supplies (and skyrocketing prices) in Asia and Europe just before winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

As so many times before in other areas of human endeavor, France is casting a powerful ray of hope that may sooner rather than later prod the rest of the world, if only to not miss out in the many economic and environmental benefits that the project will eventually generate: President Macron announced that France will build a small modular reactor as well as two mega factories for the production of green hydrogen –by the end of the decade.

This of course is fully aligned in principle with Plan A, which we have espoused for over 10 years. Suffice it to say that if widespread construction of such plants had begun at the time when we first suggested it, net energy importers such as –Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Philippines, the Canary Islands and Iceland, among many others, which happen to be endowed with unlimited seawater, solar and/or geothermal energy, would by now be net exporters of green hydrogen. In other words, they would be receiving, not paying, hard-earned dollars with which to improve their economies.

In sum, it is high time for the rest of the world to emulate France, and we salute President Macron for his bold, innovative decision.