Strasbourg, October 10, 2016. Inauguration of the Wacken biomass boiler.

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C. Varela / 20 Minutes

  • Doctors, health professionals and local residents are joining forces with the Strasbourg Respire collective to launch an appeal calling for an end to wood combustion in biomass power plants in Strasbourg.

  • This would emit more fine particles and carcinogenic gases - such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) - than any other source, including coal or fuel oil.

  • They are also asking for the establishment of permanent measurement stations in the Rhine port district.

For many years now, environmental associations and collectives have been warning about the dangers of burning wood.

This would emit more fine particles and carcinogenic gases - such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) - than any other source, including coal or fuel oil.

Last November, the doctor and radiologist Thomas Bourdrel, founder of the Strasbourg Respire collective, reported on an unprecedented study in which the collective had participated.

A study led by Professor Tim Nawrot, scientist from the University of Hasselt in Belgium and reporting that millions of toxic nanoparticles had been found in the urine of little people from Strasbourg who had participated in the experiment.

Nanoparticles from diesel, industry but also wood combustion.

The Strasbourg Appeal launched

Pollution in the city subsequently confirmed by new measures, assures Strasbourg Respire.

Also nearly fifty doctors, health professionals, associations and residents are launching an Appeal.

They demand the end of the operation and development of biomass power plants in the Alsatian capital.

They are also calling for the establishment of permanent measurement stations in the Rhine port district.

“We are not against biomass plants, specifies Thomas Bourdrel, but against the combustion of wood, which represents a large part of the fuel used in these plants.

They run largely on wood, which pollutes much more.

While they can also work with other waste, less polluting, such as agricultural plant waste.

It is especially against the "wood" part that we are upwind.

"According to several studies, reports the collective, the combustion of wood would be the most emitting pollutants toxic to health.

Wood even emits 35 times more carcinogenic PAHs than domestic fuel oil, while gas and electric heaters emit none at all.

Worse still: the combustion of wood would also be the most emitting source of fine particles, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and heavy metals.

Enough to seriously limit the hoped-for benefits on air pollution with the establishment of the next EPZ to limit diesel pollution.

The gas solution?

Strasbourg has two large biomass plants.

One in Wacken and another, classified and therefore very supervised, at the Port du Rhin.

But also small, collective ones, especially in the new urban complexes which are being built all over the city.

If recent power stations are equipped in particular with bag filters to reduce particulate emissions, these allow the finest and most dangerous particles to pass through, notes the collective.

No heating with oil, coal, wood, so what solution?

Gas, advocates Thomas Bourdrel, but the state will ban its installation in new housing.

“It is a bad choice of energy that is privileged.

Gas, for a permanently asphyxiated city like Strasbourg, would be the best solution, until we have photovoltaics, hydrogen and other green energies.

But for the transition, gas, and in particular biogas, should be favored.

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Our dossier on air pollution

Also, the Appeal for Strasbourg, which denounces an "underestimated" industrial pollution, calls for the stopping of biomass combustion as well as the stopping of biomass-incinerator plants backed by industrial sites.

“More and more residents are overwhelmed, assures the collective.

They may well come together to bring these issues to justice.

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