Sobriety

The word on everyone’s lips in France these days is sobriété–sobriety. Not regarding consumption of alcoholic beverages but regarding consumption of energy. It all just makes sense, but as usual, it takes a crisis to kick people into action.

Some beautiful gas guzzlers in front of la Cité of Carcassonne last year.

It’s a perfect storm of the end of Russian gas, which accounted for 17% of France’s imports before Russia invaded Ukraine; 26 of the 56 nuclear reactors out of service because of cracks; and a drought which impacts the working nuclear stations (they need water for cooling) and also has reduced hydroelectric output. So sobriety is on the table.

Cities are turning off street lights between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. (This is also good for nature, especially for birds.) Everybody has been asked to keep indoor temperatures to 19 Celsius, or 66 Fahrenheit. The turtleneck sweater is the hot new look for government officials, to show they are team players. There’s no checking of people’s thermostats, but government buildings are turning down the heat, and also cutting off hot water for administrative buildings, though not for showers in them. Public indoor pools are shaving a degree off the temperature of water. The idea is to cut the country’s energy consumption by 10% in two years.

This summer, I started taking showers while standing in a basin I used for pedicures, to catch the water. I used it to water plants, since watering was discouraged because of the drought. I’ve kept it up and now use the water to flush the toilet. One of the stupidest things in modern homes is the use of drinking water to flush toilets. One shower is only one flush, though, so it’s really too bad there isn’t a way to capture and reuse other gray water, such as from the washing machine. It takes a lot of energy to treat water to drinking standards.

I’ve noticed signs of sobriety around town. The stores are displaying lots of cozy sweaters and warm underlayers and wool socks, even though we still have T-shirt weather down here in the south. Billboards suggest how to save energy or encourage people to run appliances at night, to put less stress on the system. People are making an effort–France cut its electricity consumption almost 6% in October.

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A few weeks ago, there was a gas shortage as a result of a strike by refinery workers. The big oil and gas companies, including France-based Total, are raking in huge profits because the global price of oil has skyrocketed since the Russian invasion. It doesn’t cost them any more to produce a barrel of oil or a cubic meter of gas. They haven’t made any big innovations. They just get to profit from the panic over energy supplies. The CEO of Total got a 52% raise, to €6 million, and his refinery workers said, “Um, us, too!” So they went on strike. As one does in France. It had mixed success–on the one hand, the French are pretty unanimous in their desire to “screw the rich,” but on the other hand, the refinery workers already earn a lot more than the average, so sympathy toward them was thin, especially as people had to wait in long lines to fill their tanks, and as some gas stations went dry.

I reacted to this situation by not driving, and I’m sticking with it even now that the strike is over. It’s so much nicer to relax on the train, listen to a podcast and search for châteaux out the window, rather than white-knuckle driving on the autoroute. Sometimes it’s far cheaper, too. There were tickets for 1€ for a while. Usually I don’t have much luggage, but once I even hauled a small table on the train.

In other action, I decided to take my granny shopping cart that I use for the market and to walk to the supermarket on the outskirts of town. Half an hour each way. Not bad. I usually walk/run an hour every day for exercise; might as well do it to get somewhere. There are sidewalks all the way. It was fine, even with lots of heavy cans and milk (because what else do you buy at the grocery store? Everything fresh comes from the market).

The French Senat recently voted in a law the requires parking lots with more than 80 parking spaces to cover them with solar panels, and parking lots with more than 400 places have to install the panels within three years. In Carcassonne, the hospital, the airport and a supermarket have already done this and it’s great–your car is in the shade in the summer and in winter, when it sometimes rains cats and dogs, you can get in and out of your car and fumble with your umbrella without getting drenched. These solar-paneled parking lots are expected to generate as much electricity as 10 nuclear reactors, and will be online much faster–it takes decades to build a nuclear reactor.

The point here isn’t to give tips on saving energy; there are better sources for that. (Although I heard a news talk show mock the government’s advice about saving energy, especially the suggestion to cover pots when cooking on the stove. “Who doesn’t know that!” one commentator spat. Well, I remember explaining it some time back to the kid, who was quite surprised. As people spend less time in the kitchen, they lose track of those homemaking tips.) It’s just to share what’s going on here in France, and to admire how most people seem to be making an effort to cut back. Waste not.

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