Scholarly record

HARD COAL AS AN IMPORTANT TRANSITION FUEL IN THE POLISH ENERGY SYSTEM - THE CONTEXT OF THE CARBON FOOTPRINT

P. Bogacz

Abstract

Dynamic climate changes require large human action. One of its essential elements is the reduction of anthropogenic GHG emissions. Within the European Union, they constitute one of the two fundamental goals of the European Green Deal strategy, which assumes that Europe (EU) will remain the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Among the nine sectors of the economy the most widely covered by these activities is the energy sector. Taking into account the assumed rate of GHG emission reduction, it seems that transition fuels will play a key role in this process, being the basis for the security and stability of the energy system, especially in the point of view of the weather dependence of a large part of renewable energy sources and the still existing lack of industrial energy storage technologies with adequate efficiency and effectiveness. This article argues in the above context that electricity based on hard coal from own deposits can be 10% less GHG-emissive than this product based on imported natural gas (taking into account the sum of all greenhouse gases and the Global Warming Potential factors determined in the IPCC AR6 report). This statement is based on an analysis of the Polish energy market.

Publication details

Back to publication list