16 November 2023

15:40 – 16:25

Amphithéâtre Say

Christophe Goupil

Christophe Goupil is a professor at the University of Paris. Trained as a physicist, he helped set up the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain at Paris Cité University in 2012. His teaching and research activities focus on fundamental and applied approaches to thermodynamic energy conversion mechanisms. He is scientific advisor to the Campus de la Transition and scientific expert for Time for the Planet. His interdisciplinary activities have led him to develop a macroeconomic model integrating production and recycling conditions in a world of finite dimensions. Christophe Goupil has published over a hundred articles in scientific journals. He also contributes to the dissemination of science to a wide audience.

Conference: Are the answers to the energy question hidden in nature?

At a time when the ecological transition is urging us to find solutions, the temptation is great to look in all directions to restore what our human activity has largely disrupted. Our gaze naturally turns to a number of solutions that we would like to be the most natural. The energy question is no exception, and here as elsewhere we are tempted to consider that nature has inevitably found the right solution. Adorned with every virtue, nature becomes the place from which we can draw the best ideas and most effective solutions. However, this attitude rarely leads us to the ideal solution, if it exists at all. This is because living species only exist in well-defined contexts, outside of which transpositions to other situations become irrelevant. Using a few simple concepts from thermodynamics, we’ll show that the main lesson we can learn from observing nature is first and foremost to respect the constraints that define a perimeter within which we find a space of possibilities. Being adapted or adaptable is a matter of compromise.