Historical Foundations: Before the Nuclear Age

France's renewable energy history predates its nuclear program. By 1900, France had over 100,000 water mills powering local industry. The houille blanche (white coal) movement, led by Aristide Bergès in the Alps, recognized hydropower's potential. The Lac Noir power station, built in 1895, demonstrated industrial-scale hydroelectric generation. These early projects established principles—local resources serving local needs—that resonate in today's distributed energy discussions.

The interwar period saw massive hydroelectric development. The Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR), created in 1933, began taming Europe's most powerful river. The Génissiat dam, completed in 1948, was Europe's largest. These projects combined multiple objectives—power generation, flood control, navigation improvement—demonstrating integrated resource management that would characterize French infrastructure approaches.

Wind power, too, has French roots. Charles Brush built the first electricity-generating windmill in 1887, but French engineer Georges Darrieus patented the vertical-axis wind turbine in 1931. Though little developed in France, the Darrieus design found applications worldwide, particularly for small-scale generation. This pattern—French innovation commercialized elsewhere—would recur throughout renewable energy history.

Solar energy attracted early French attention. Augustin Mouchot demonstrated solar-powered steam engines at the 1878 Paris Exhibition. His assistant, Abel Pifre, powered a printing press with concentrated solar energy, producing a newspaper aptly titled Le Journal Solaire. These experiments, while impractical then, established French interest in solar conversion that would resurface a century later.