Renewable forms of energy exploited since time immemorial have now been reactivated by modern technology: the question is whether they are able to make any significant contribution to present-day energy supplies or merely serve as a back-up resource. It is to this and many other questions that the report by Mr Jean-Yves Le Déaut, Deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle, President of the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Technological and Scientific Choices (OPECTS), and Mr Claude Birraux, Deputy for Haute-Savoie, vice-President of OPECTS, attempts to find answers. The first chapter of the report deals with the following basic issues: “for what, for whom and to what extent should renewable forms of energy be utilised?” The Rapporteurs take the view that renewable forms of energy can play a major role in giving some two billion people in developing countries access to energy and electricity. They can also make a substantial contribution in a country like France, not so much in electricity supply as in the home and for transportation. The second chapter discusses “what priorities should be given in France to the different renewable forms of energy”. The Rapporteurs draw a fundamental distinction between those forms used for electricity generation and those employed for producing heat and fuel. In France, developments concerning wind power, the use of solar energy by photovoltaic and thermodynamic processes, and high temperature geothermal sources, represent a more important goal for industry and for exports than for supplying the domestic market. On the other hand “thermal” solar power, heat pumps, bioclimatic dwellings and bio-fuels are of decisive importance to the French economy in terms of reducing dependency on imports as well as cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. Chapter 3 examines recent French policies and concludes that there is an urgent need to step up research into renewable forms of energy, to provide French industry with the means to develop and to cope with foreign competition and, finally, to embark on two ambitious incentive schemes, one entitled “Face Sud pour des bio-toits intelligents” [Facing south: the intelligent roof], the other “Terre-Energies pour des biocarburants independents” [Power from the land – an independent supply of bio-fuels].