In 1901, the French writer Emile Zola publishes his novel “Travail” (Work). The novel is an anticipation work, dealing with social progress and industrial evolutions and breakthroughs.
From the 1970 on, Zola is interested by technical progress and visits Universal Exhibitions. During the Paris Exhibition of 1878, he discovers the solar cell invented by Augustin Mouchot. This is probably what inspired him to write “Travail”.
The novel’s main character wills to improve the human condition and ends up creating a “happiness city”, a kind of utopian city where he dreams about giving the whole city unlimited electricity. He imagines all kinds of devices powered by fossil fuel at first. However, the “possible exhaustion of coal” frightens him.
Then, the hero thinks about other types of energy: rivers, tides… and sun. The latter appears to him as the only energy likely to emancipate humanity. By this rhetoric, Zola is close to Mouchot’s logic. Indeed, the engineer was afraid that coal might run out, and was sure that solar energy could, and should replace it to preserve natural resources.
