Police bogged down to the calves, an excavator – the “Bagger” – facing thousands of demonstrators, including Greta Thunberg, who came to defend a hamlet to be devoured by the buckets of the metal giant… The extension of the coal mine Garzweiler, in Lützerath (North Rhine-Westphalia), and the demonstrations against him symbolize the German difficulty in separating from coal. Despite a massive increase in the weight of renewable energies in its energy mix, Berlin, which chose to turn away from nuclear power a long time ago and Russian gas more recently, remains dependent on coal for its electricity production.
In 2022, sixteen power plants were restarted, units whose operation was extended or which were reconnected to the network. The government has, in total, issued exceptional authorization to 27 of them until, at most, March 2024. Beyond the obvious impact of these reopenings on greenhouse gas emissions, can it there be consequences for air quality? Is it possible that German coal pollutes in France?
Fine particles do not stop at borders and it is possible to determine their origin thanks to two tools. The first: by measuring their different components. In the case of coal combustion, this will include detecting sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides or arsenic – the latter being present in the ashes. “If we find these elements together at the same time, we can attribute the source to coal”, explains Matthias Beekmann, research director at the Inter-University Laboratory of Atmospheric Systems (LISA – CNRS).
But as the major origin of fine particles in France comes from road traffic, wood heating and industry, “it is not always possible to observe coal, in smaller quantities”, agrees the researcher. The observation can then be refined with a second tool: complex numerical modeling of air quality and the chemical composition of the atmosphere, taking into account national emissions, those of neighboring regions, weather conditions, etc.
“Roughly balanced particle exchange”
In a report co-authored in 2016, four NGOs (CAN, WWF, Heal, Sandbag) have used such modeling to quantify the health impact of coal use on air pollution in Europe. Although the data (dating from 2013) should be put into perspective due to the decline in the use of coal in recent years, despite a rebound in 2021 – and probably another in 2022 – the indications of the report are nonetheless interesting. Of the 1,380 premature deaths attributed to coal in 2013 in France, only 50 were due to the use of coal in France. The rest were attributed to coal consumed in the Czech Republic (70), Spain (110), Poland (160), the United Kingdom (350) and Germany (490). Conversely, 90 Germans had died prematurely from French coal, well below the 1,860 deaths from its own use of coal. In total, according to the report’s estimates, Germany (4,350) and Poland (5,830) were the two countries whose coal-related discharges caused the most premature deaths in Europe that year.
The European Commission has also carried out a study on the evolution of the reduction of air pollution in the EU, the Third Clean Air Outlook reports, published in December 2022. It details the origin of the average concentrations of PM2.5 particles (with a diameter of 2.5 thousandths of a millimeter or less, resulting among other things from the combustion of coal) in the ambient air of each member country. In 2015, for France, just over a third of contributions were national, which means that the majority came from neighboring countries: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Germany, in this order of magnitude , represent another good third. The rest comes from other nations, mainly from the EU. The Commission projects, for 2030, a halving of the concentration of PM2.5 in the air. And those coming from “outside” will remain preponderant.
“There is a non-negligible effect, which we obviously have to talk about, but which is not major, admits Matthias Beekmann. During pollution peaks, there may be a contribution from Germany, or Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg, in case of favorable weather conditions. But in general, the exchange of particulate pollution is roughly balanced between France and Germany.” The latter, like all European nations, must also comply with a number of regulations. “Germany was one of the first countries to put in place strictly on these power plants”, notes Nadine German, deputy director of Citepa, the organization mandated to carry out the French inventory of emissions. “The various emissions are treated with the appropriate technologies, such as a dust removal system for fine particles, which significantly reduces them,” she adds.
More than the impact on air pollution and health, Matthias Beekmann is more concerned about this return to coal by the consequences on the climate as a whole and on greenhouse gas emissions. “Relaunching these plants can only be an emergency solution and should not be done in the long term,” he adds. Because the climate crisis also brings its share of dangers for human health.