Coal in Poland Lowering Life Spans

Poland has the highest levels in Europe of the tiny pollution particles that are strongly linked to serious health problems like heart attacks, strokes, cancer and even dementia, said Martin Adams, an air quality expert at the European Environment Agency.  Poland is home to six of Europe’s 10 most polluted cities, the agency’s figures show.

That filthy air is largely a result of Poland’s heavy reliance on both hard coal and lignite, which is also known as brown coal.

With energy policy on the agenda as the Group of Seven leaders meet this week, clean power is still in its infancy in Poland, where a tangle of political and economic forces have kept coal secure in its place as the dominant fuel.  About 85 percent of electricity and 43 percent of heat come from the fuel some call “Polish gold,” the government estimates.

The European Commission has opened infringement proceedings against Poland for violating particle pollution levels and is investigating reports that it has also exceeded limits on nitrogen oxides.

The health consequences are severe.  In addition to its role as a major source of climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions, coal burning releases a bevy of dangerous pollutants, including, in the low-tech home heating systems that are common in Poland, toxins like benzo(a)pyrene.

More than 43,000 Poles died prematurely because of air pollution in 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available, the European Environment Agency estimated.

“It’s a myth in Poland that coal is cheap, and energy from coal is cheap,” said Julia Michalak, an energy expert at demosEuropa, a Warsaw research group.  “We pay for it a very high price.”

Poland’s government is among the European Union’s staunchest defenders of coal, leading opposition to measures that would restrict its use.

Read more at Coal in Poland Lowering Life Spans