Europe is still digging deep for its energy

Carbon challenges for coal-hungry poland

Poland faces a tough adjustment if it is to become a low-carbon economy. Abundant reserves of coal have provided the country with some of the cheapest energy in Europe.
“We don't have solar, we don't have windy conditions... we have to transfer to clean coal,” says Andrzej Siemaszko, Poland's national contact for EU research programmes.
Poland is obliged to get 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. But even with an expansion in the use of renewables, Siemaszko expects that coal will supply around 60% of Poland's energy needs in the future.
With this in mind, Civic Platform, the liberal pro-business party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has thrown its weight behind a programme to develop ‘clean coal' technologies.
In February, Civic Platform announced it would aim to build five or six CCS demonstration sites.
Two of these are candidates for EU money (the proceeds of permits auctioned under the emissions trading scheme): Belchatów in central Poland and Kedzierzyn-Kozle in Upper Silesia.
The latter is an interesting project for CCS experts, as it will test around 20 different technologies. Coal will be turned into gas, a process known as the integrated gasification combined cycle.
The gas will be converted into electricity, heat, or chemicals which can be used for making fertliser or plastic.
Siemaszko says that the result will be a plant that takes more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it produces and therefore make a useful contribution to Poland's environmental targets, as well as its energy security.