Poland’s clean coal going up in smoke

Coal is burnt to generate more than 90 per cent of Poland’s electricity, so you’d expect the country to be in the forefront of efforts to burn it cleanly. But PGE, Poland’s largest utility, is now saying a pilot carbon capture plant will not go ahead as planned because the financial incentives to do so are not there. PGE is building a €600m pilot plant near its brown coal-fired plant in Belchatow in central Poland (pictured), which produces about a fifth of the country’s electricity. But the economics of the business are not looking good. That is largely because it will cost about €60 to €65 to sequester a tonne of carbon dioxide underground, while the cost of a tonne of carbon emission credits in the European Union’s Emissions Trading System is running at just over €6. Wojciech Ostrowski, PGE’s deputy president, tells Friday’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper: “This is an investment which helps limit CO2 emissions but which does not generate a profit. Instead, it generates very high costs, not just during the investment phase but also during exploitation.”