18 months in France, 6 months in Germany, 16 days in the United States: that’s an idea of the time it takes to obtain a drilling permit. Or, in Alsace, we have under our feet a decarbonized, controllable, local geothermal energy that does not depend on wind or costly imports. Even better, it will help secure our industrial supply chains thanks to the precious lithium that can be extracted from it and that we use to make batteries, missiles, ceramics, and even fuel for our rockets. Unfortunately, as too often in our country, it’s not the resources that are lacking, but the freedom to exploit them. While our competitors drill, invest, and industrialize – “Drill, baby, drill,” say the Americans – we accumulate procedures, regulations, and delays. DREAL, MRAe, DGEC, DGALN, prefects, ministries, instructing services, administrative courts… so many stakeholders who coordinate, instruct, and validate – or not – after an interminable combat course and a multitude of procedures worthy of Astérix’s “House that drives you mad,” the very possibility of drilling. This bureaucracy has a colossal economic cost: lost time, immobilized capital, delayed projects, sometimes abandoned. In the meantime, we continue to import what we could produce and lose precious technical and scientific skills. Visiting the drilling site of Arverne Group in Schwabwiller and admiring the work of the engineers and skilled workers who are building two wells in the underground of the Rhine ditch intended to produce geothermal heat and extract lithium, I find myself dreaming of a France freed from this administrative hell that suffocates innovation, weakens our competitiveness, and ultimately affects the purchasing power of the French. Beyond the obstacles that weigh on this scientific adventure, we must make an essential strategic choice: what if, like our gigantic maritime space, our underground (re)became not just a simple support of the territory but a major productive asset? By massively developing geothermal energy for urban heating, hospitals, swimming pools, farmers’ greenhouses, and light industry. By catching up on our lag in the global race for critical metals – lithium, but also tungsten, fluorine, copper, antimony, potential rare earths, and even uranium. And it is here that the state could play a constructive role, by transforming the Geological and Mining Research Office into a real “IGN (National Geographic Institute) of the underground” to quickly produce a 3D cadastre of the underground in order to better know and explore the formidable potentials it contains. And who knows? With this support, a group like Arverne Group may be tomorrow’s Ariane of the depths. Transcending partisan divisions, the revolution of simplification and the conquest of our underground should therefore be among the major issues of the upcoming presidential election. I will therefore be among those who will bring these two topics into the debate that will precede this crucial deadline. By stepping out of ideological shackles and regulatory constraints that forbid us to explore and exploit, we will take our destiny in hand and find the path to power. __📲 Share on X!