Going green saves money, spins profits in coal-addicted Poland

Standing in the shadow of a massive windmill, Mayor Tomasz Koprowiak thinks part of the answer to Poland kicking its coal habit is blowing in the wind and growing in farmers’ fields.

According to World Coal Institute figures for 2007, Poland and South Africa are the most coal-dependent countries in the world.
An estimated 150 years of reserves alo make comparatively clean-burning hard coal Poland’s number one conventional energy resource.

Its 105 industrial coal-fired power and heating plants produce 60 percent of its annual CO2 emissions.

“We need to invest billions of euros in the modernization of our energy sector and we want to combine this process with reducing emissions,” Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, Poland’s Secretary of State for European Affairs told AFP in comments on the mammoth task of upgrading the communist-era energy infrastructure to curb CO2 emissions through improved efficiency.

AFP