Immagini energetiche. L’energia come vettore di scenari territoriali alla scala del Mediterraneo

Several major infrastructure projects and energy scenarios, developed in the Mediterranean basin between the 20th and 21st centuries, are described in this essay in the belief that it is difficult to discuss about circulation and adaptation of urban models regardless of the technological models which slowly and gradually materialized establishing, on the Earth surface, a comprehensive energy supply infrastructure. In the first part, it is argued how, today, the Mediterranean, starting from the energy issue, has acquired a new pivotal role in the world geopolitical framework. The second part takes a step back, it examines the capacity of Atlantropa – a 20th century colossal energy project – to build a single and integral imaginary around the Mediterranean. After World War II, the global and unitary perspective of the Mediterranean physically developed thanks to the infrastructural investments sponsored by disparate energy companies, such as Eni or Total. During the last century, these European agencies built, at the Mediterranean scale, a massive fossil-fueled energy production machine which, today, appears to be at the end of its cycle. Describing and reviewing two recent renewables energy scenarios (Desertec and Roadmap 2050), latest paragraphs of the essay question our future reflecting on the need of envisioning it through the project and its tools, and on the sense of a new and possible cooperation between regions in the Mediterranean.