High energy prices pushing Czech Republic’s coal revival
OSTRAVA, Czech Republic — In this northeastern part of the Czech Republic, huge piles of coal are stacked up ready to sell to eager buyers, and smoke belches from coal-fired plants that are ramping up instead of winding down.
Ostrava has been working for decades to end its legacy as the most polluted area of the country, transitioning from an industrial working-class stronghold to a modern city with tourist sites.
But Russia’s war in Ukraine has triggered an energy crisis in Europe that as paved the way for coal’s comeback, endangering climate goals and threatening health from increased pollution.
Households and businesses are turning to the fuel once considered obsolete as they seek a cheaper option than natural gas, whose prices have surged as Russia slashed supplies.
Demand for brown coal — the cheapest and most energy-inefficient form used by Czech households — jumped by almost 35% in the first nine months of 2022 over a year earlier.
In the same period, production rose more than 20%, the first increase after an almost continuous, decadeslong decline, the Czech Industry and Trade Ministry said.
“We’re worried,” said Zdenka Nemecková Crkvenjaš, who is responsible for the environment as a member the governing council of the Moravian-Silesian region. “If the prices won’t go down, what might happen is that we’ll be facing an increased pollution.”
The region is part of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin, a large industrialized area straddling the Czech-Polish border with rich deposits of
coal and factories producing steel, power and the type of coal used for steel making that dates to the 19th century.
A combination of burning coal for residential heating and industrial plants resulted in “catastrophic” air pollution at the end of the communist era in 1989, said Petr Jancík from Technical University Ostrava, an air pollution expert who cooperated on the Air Tritia project that recently produced an online model of the polluted air on the Czech-Polish-Slovak border.
Coal-fired power is not only disastrous for climate, it’s also a health hazard, releasing heavy-particle emissions, nitrogen oxides and mercury, which contaminate fish in lakes and rivers.
A decline of industrial and mining activities and advent of new environmental standards after the Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004 vastly improved air quality.
But big challenges remain. Airborne dust emissions — PM10 particles — now meet environmental limits in the
region, but concentrations of smaller PM2.5 particles that can reach deep into the lungs and bloodstream still do not hit World Health Organization standards.
A 2021 study of more than 800 European cities by Spain’s Barcelona Institute for Global Health, or ISGlobal, puts the regional capital of Ostrava and the nearby towns of Karviná and Havírov among the top 10 most polluted European cities.
Burning coal also spews the dangerous substance benzo(a)pyrene, levels of which are still high despite government programs that pay to replace old furnaces with more effective ones that reduce pollution.
Some 50,000 furnaces still need to be replaced in the Ostrava region, said Nemeckova Crkvenjas, estimating that figure at 500,000 in a more heavily populated and polluted area across the border in Poland.
“I’m afraid this winter won’t be ideal as far the air pollution is concerned,” she said. “I’ll be delighted if I’m wrong.”