Louise Sallé, edited by Solène Leroux 4:45 p.m., July 04, 2022

With Russian gas supplies reduced due to the war in Ukraine, some European countries are turning their coal-fired power plants back on.

A dozen nations give themselves the possibility of reactivating their power stations, closed for ecological reasons, in the event of strong tensions on gas.

Gas, oil, electricity... The bill is increasing, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Last month, Moscow reduced its gas deliveries by 60% through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. As a result, European Union countries are turning on coal-fired power stations in turn.

To avoid blackouts and anticipate next winter, more and more EU nations, including France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Italy, are restarting their coal-fired power plants.

With inevitably an impact on the climate.

Indeed, many power plants were closed for ecological reasons.

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Saint-Avold revived?

Coal emits twice as much CO2 as gas and rejects many fine particles which degrade air quality.

In France, we could thus mobilize the Saint-Avold coal-fired power station, 500 megawatts of capacity.

This is less, of course, than Germany, which provides five gigawatts, or 1,000 megawatts, knowing that a quarter of its electricity already depends on coal.

Austria, which came out of this energy last year, is preparing to restart a power plant.

For their part, the Netherlands will increase their production capacities at their last site, which they had planned to close in 2029.

Priority to energy security

Despite all these reversals, the European Union maintains its desire to put an end to coal within eight years.

If it gave up, it could put its "climate package" in the trash because, to respect what has been set in terms of reducing CO2 emissions, no power plant or almost no longer must operate in 2030.

In Eastern Europe, we are already questioning this objective.

The Czech Republic, which nevertheless had a sustained rate of plant closures, was formal: priority was given to energy security rather than ecological transition.