Poland's Clean Energy Usage Overtakes Coal For First Time (ft.com) 29
Poland generated more electricity from renewables than coal for the first time in June, marking a key moment in the country's efforts to cut its reliance on the most polluting fossil fuel. From a report: The shift comes as Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government accelerates efforts to diversify energy production in Poland, which despite recent progress remains a major producer of coal and the most coal-dependent country in the EU, with about 60 per cent of its electricity coming from the fossil fuel in 2024.
Last month renewable energy sources accounted for 44.1 per cent of Poland's electricity mix, narrowly surpassing coal, which fell to 43.7 per cent, according to a study to be published next Monday by Forum Energii, a Warsaw-based energy think-tank, using data from Poland's grid operator. Natural gas made up the remainder.
Last month renewable energy sources accounted for 44.1 per cent of Poland's electricity mix, narrowly surpassing coal, which fell to 43.7 per cent, according to a study to be published next Monday by Forum Energii, a Warsaw-based energy think-tank, using data from Poland's grid operator. Natural gas made up the remainder.
At this point, it’s everyone bar the US and (Score:2)
I don’t mean that everyone else is succeeding in reducing fossil fuel usage. But everyone else at least feels the obligation to pay lip service of some sort.
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Self sufficient, lower cost, harder for enemies to take out due to its distributed nature and more robust grid that can move energy around effectively.
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Yeah but the kickbacks aren't as good.
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If you don't have a dozen nuclear powered aircraft carriers, it's a good idea to have a back up plan that doesn't require gas pipelines or oil tankers.
A combination of lack of reserve and lack of military projection makes the supply chain vulnerable for most countries. They can put up solar panels and wind turbines, and perhaps buy Thorium mini-reactors from China and fill it from fuel from India. Playing the two adversaries off each other. Or skip nuclear and be entirely self sufficient on locally produced
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Lip service doesn't solve anything.
It's good to see Poland making some progress, but Poland's energy is much dirtier than America's.
Last year, Poland generated 60% of its electricity from coal, and much of that was filthy lignite.
Last year, America generated 16% of its electricity from coal, a number that is dropping quickly.
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Of course what matters is actual action. But absolutes, trends and directions of travel matter too, and on this, Poland is a much smaller emitter than the US, and is trending in the right rather than wrong direction.
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America's coal consumption has declined much faster than Poland's.
Over the last 25 years, America has reduced its coal consumption by 60%, while Poland's consumption has declined by only 30%.
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Sure. I’m thinking about the next few years, not the last few
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If we go into details you should add gas and oil usage and per capita emission - then the US is worse than Poland...
And Poland's climate is like Minnesota and heating is the main need...
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Not that we couldnt be doing better here in the US in regards to curbing emissions but we've been producing more electricity with renewables than with coal since 2022 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/s... [pbs.org] . We also did it for the whole year of 2022 and not just the month of June as Poland has done here.
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All of that is about to go into reverse, though, cos Donald is still fuming that Turnberry had some wind turbines in the background that he couldn't get rid of
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Placing bets on whether he'll slap an additional tariff on Poland because they're decreasing their use of coal.
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Placing bets on whether he'll slap an additional tariff on Poland because they're decreasing their use of coal.
Poland is buying all kinds of weapons from the USA so I doubt there will be any restrictions on trade. This isn't just because Poland is buying American weapons, but because they are buying the weapons in anticipation of an invasion from Russia through either Ukraine or Belarus.
Then is the deal between the USA and Poland on the construction of a nuclear power plant. I doubt there is much concern on Poland's use of coal if they are replacing that with nuclear fission technology out of the USA. With a bit
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I'm no fan of Trump's actions environmentally (or in many other areas) but I'm fairly certain there are still no plans for any new coal power plants.
So far most of what we're seeing with Trump is a loss of incentives to more rapidly grow renewables so we're likely to see a slow down in adoption as they get more expensive. We're also seeing a slow down in the shutting down of coal power plants. None of this puts us "going in reverse" though.
Don't get me wrong, we should be moving much faster than we already
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There’s lots of policy initiatives that amount to an expansion of non-coal fossil fuel production and usage which I won’t get into, but here’s a quick summary from ChatGPT of the plans for coal specifically. Note points 3 and 6, which amount to a reversal.
Of course I hope you’re right, but I fear you’re wrong.
Yes. The Trump administration has launched a coordinated effort to revive coal in multiple impactful ways:
1. Executive Orders to Keep Coal Plants Open
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These policies might mean a slight uptick in coal growth but without new plants it wont be meaningfully large given that our decline in coal emissions was driven by closures. So far all these policies will do is halt or significantly reduce our decline in coal usage. That's no good but is not a reversal.
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A lot depends on what gets forcibly reopened — precisely because the US’s decline has been driven by closures.
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We'll have to wait and see. Under a different president I'd point to the cost of reopening a plant as well as the cheaper costs associated with renewables and natural gas as evidence that we wouldnt see any plant reopenings. With Trump, especially this term, he waddles back and forth on issues and says so much crazy shit it's hard to know what's going to become policy and what won't.
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I was a bit lazy in not going through the ChatGPT materials, I admit, but I will say that it was the third and fifth points that I saw as key, rather than the rest
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Renewables are nothing in comparison
Except for the fact that they've provided more power to the US grid than coal has for the last several years https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs... [eia.gov] . By several percentage points too.
The rest of your analysis seems just as flawed.
Poland is decarbonizing since 1990... (Score:2)
Current coal consumption in Poland is roughly 1/3 of the consumption in 1990s
And it was 99% coal country - with communist heavy industry and cold winters...
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They're probably not very keen on killing people with air pollution
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The point is that CO2 emission per capita and this dropped in Poland since 1989 like in no other places in the world.
You are missing the fact that it had lots of heavy industry that is now mostly gone - no carbon emission there.
Secondly there huge programs of home insulation etc. - this also reduced CO2 emission significantly...
Power generation was 98% coal in 1990... Switching to natural gas halves CO2 emission.
So does it take less people to change.a lightbulb (Score:2)