The famous adventurer Mike Horn crossed Antarctica, descended the Amazon alone and reached the two poles. His new challenge: winning the legendary Dakar race with a vehicle running on hydrogen and the objective of “leaving a planet in better condition than the one in which I found it”.
Mike Horn’s motto could be the quote from French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859): “We call impossible what has never been attempted.” » Moreover, this sentence, which resembles a maxim, is the epigraph of Mike Horn’s latest book: Conqueror of the impossible.
The person who crossed Antarctica in 57 days, alone, descended the Amazon over 7,000 kilometers, circumnavigated the world via the equator and climbed four peaks over 8,000 meters is embarking on a new challenge: the Dakar , but not just any way, by running on hydrogen.
In 2019, Mike Horn embarked on the most difficult expedition of his life, Pole2Pole: from the North Pole to the South Pole, on skis, by kayak and by sailboat. The journey took three long years.
In 2020, he showed President Emmanuel Macron the damage caused by pollution in the Mer de Glace in Chamonix. It reports on the dramatic impacts of human activities on natural environments: microplastics where humans have never lived, deforestation in South America, etc.
However, he accepted the invitation from Cyril Despres, several times winner of the Dakar, to participate in the 2020 edition. A shower of criticism then fell on the adventurer. After all, how can we explain that we are moved by the state of the planet when we take part in a car race in natural spaces?
From then on, Mike Horn and Cyril Despres imagined a challenge: winning the Dakar in a car running on hydrogen.
In 2021, the two will participate in the Dakar in a vehicle equipped with a data acquisition system which is subsequently analyzed by engineers from the Grenoble Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission. Mike Horn indicates that the team is developing a high-performance hydrogen fuel cell that could help it win the Dakar in 2023. The idea is also to use this technology for other transport sectors such as trains, cargo ships, taxis. and trucks.
