The meeting with Mr Pantone (February 2002)

In mid January 2002, ie 3 months after obtaining my engineering degree, I decided to go and meet Mr. Pantone in the USA. This decision did not happen overnight. Indeed, I had already exchanged a few emails with Paul who invited me to go and see him for an extended "period" of 3 weeks in order to see all the possible details of a future collaboration.

So I took off on February 4 or 5, 2002 in a Boeing 777 from Paris to Salt Lake City for 12 hours then 3 hours of flight since the trip included a stopover in Houston. I specify this because it was about my first flight and 12 hours of flight for a baptism with overflight of the ice floe is quite impressive. After more than 28 hours of travel (all inclusive) we arrived in Preston, a small town in the heart of the Rockies, 200 km north of Salt Lake City. The weather was rather freezing: 50 cm of snow and -20 ° C.

I say "we" because I did not go alone: ​​Michel Saint Georges, a Belgian engineer doctor of Quebec origin, accompanied me: he wrote some interesting thoughts on quanthomme, click here .

So much for the sets, let's move on to the actors: the next day, meet Paul for the week of “training”. Happily, we were 4 French speakers: one from Nicois, Olivier, and another from Quebec whose first name I have forgotten but the “training” was obviously given in American (with a strong country accent given the location). The information contained in this "training" is, unfortunately, pure speculation without any foundation or even scientific evidence. And when I asked, at the beginning of our meeting, for scientific records, Paul was not able, despite his promises, to provide them to me 2 weeks later (this concerned records from the University of Berlin)
“Stay open minded” was Paul's typical phrase, but there is a difference between being open-minded and naive in accepting unfounded theories...

As for the negotiations that we tried to have, know that there is a very important gap between the content of Paul's site (supposedly very altruistic) and the man (very capitalist) who is interested in selling “licenses”… This shift is undoubtedly intended to attract easy “prey”.

In short, after 3 weeks divided as follows: 1 week of training (the week at $ 1500) and 2 weeks of "tinkering" and various negotiations I was rather extremely disappointed with this meeting, especially since I had "invested" in this encounter all of the meager savings that a student may have.

Finally we did not learn anything at the technological level and my study was the most scientific thing that exists about the Pantone process and I returned to France very disgusted if not depressed… but the rest was going to drive the point home again! Only positive thing: Michel and I did not have to pay for the week of training ($ 3000 saved is already that especially for "wind"!), Which was obviously not the case for the other 2 interns, and, for the record, Paul Pantone also paid us for the first week of hotel.

Obviously I would like to point out that Michel was thinking exactly the same thing: there is nothing to expect from Pantone ...

The job search phase (March 2002 - December 2003)

As there was nothing to be expected from Pantone either technologically or professionally, I decided to actively seek employment… If possible in the energy field… but, if the inventor is dishonest, I believed (and still believe) in the potential of the process that I did not give up.

While looking for a job as an engineer, I therefore continued to try to develop the process with the very limited means at my disposal. The most successful experience was that of the Zx (ZX-TD Pantone) from Olivier (ûn other than that of the USA) and I will return to this experience later. I would like to briefly come back to this period of job search which was quite painful. Especially during the job interviews that I managed to get: I was made to understand that an engineer should not have environmental convictions: “An ecological mechanical engineer? It shouldn't exist! ” here is the classic replica I was faced with when I was not told about the color, green, of my shirt ...The corollary is that an engineer must necessarily develop polluting products and despise the environment. ? Anyway most of the HRDs or engineers in front of me did not understand anything, or pretending not to understand anything, to the concept of on-board reforming (base of the Pantone process technology). Under these conditions, I seemed to be an enlightened person and it was difficult to undertake a professional relationship together ...

But it must also be said that the HRDs may also sense my desire to develop the process, this could have hindered my successful integration into the company. Anyway this period of job search was very difficult, morally and financially.

It is very difficult to get into the energy field. The ambient skepticism, intellectual laziness (the typical one: “if it worked, it would be known”) and scientific dogmatism are omnipresent. And if it would be dishonest to blame all the failures of certain innovations on pressure groups, it is obvious that certain corporations defend, sometimes vigorously, their gains.

At the same time, I gave a few public lectures, especially at fairs or ecobio shows, but I quickly saw that it would take years at this rate. In March 2002, I also did a radio show (on the free radio "Here and Now" Icietmaintenant.com ) In Paris Jean Pierre LentinScience journalist.

At the end of 2002, I decided to put an end to it, at least temporarily because the time and expenses incurred were too important, and to create a website talking about my research. Indeed; it was the only accessible means of dissemination that I had at my disposal: the idea of ​​econology was born.

The birth of econologie.com (December 2002 -?)

It was my meeting in December 2002 with Gabriel Ferrone de la Selva, an ecologist of the 1970s as well as René Dumont, who accelerated the creation of the site. Indeed; president of the EES association, Ecologie Energie Survie, Gabriel had tons of documents on his shelves. This was a shame because many of these documents were very interesting: I therefore proposed the creation, free of charge, of a website to disseminate this information.

After a week of work, the site was about Econologie.com early March 2003 web.

Unfortunately the communication difficulties with Gabriel (77 years old) resulted in the almost complete separation between EES and the site in July 2004 on the occasion of the transition to version 2.

Only a few texts and documents from EES remain on the site but I no longer promote this association, which, it must be said, is dying: it actively campaigned during the 80s but having lost most of its members now ( most by death of old age), it no longer has the weight necessary for its ambitions ...

Nevertheless, this collaboration with Gabriel was enriching and above all enabled the creation of this site ...

The goals of the site are explained more clearly on this page: Why the site Econologie.com?