France is starting to burn coal again. The Saint-Avold power plant (Moselle), one of the two coal sites in France, resumed service this Tuesday, AFP learned from GazelEnergie. The thermal power plant restarts in winter, when the cold sets in and the system is under tension and thus operates on average around twenty days per year.
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This rekindling comes at the full opening of COP29 in Azerbaijan. However, coal combustion is considered one of the main causes of global warming. Faced with this disastrous carbon footprint, the plant closed at the beginning of 2022. But it was finally called upon a year later, in January 2023, to secure the country's supply in a context of energy tension.
Conversion into a gas power plant
Since then, around a hundred employees and more than 150 subcontractors still work there, but coal must definitively be abandoned by 2027, in accordance with a declaration by Emmanuel Macron in September 2023. To do this, the plant is preparing its reconversion, with a biomass project initially, but also with a gas project.
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The Minister for Energy, Olga Givernet, however, expressed reservations on Tuesday about this conversion to gas. “ To provide perspective, we must move towards carbon-free energies. Gas is not. If we use biogas, it's much better. Biomass is also a possibility, but the copy must first be solid, which it is not “, she estimated on BFM Business.
« The project has been on the table for weeks and it is solid, more than solid », insisted to AFP Thomas About, CFDT union delegate at the central, estimating that the more the government “ will wait, procrastinate, the more we burn coal ».
For months, the future of the site has been up in the air, and employees have filed strike notices to alert politicians to the risk of closing the plant in 2027, without conversion. No interruptions in electricity production are planned, assured Thomas About. Note that the other French coal-fired power plant, in Cordemais (Loire-Atlantique), will close in 2027 without any conversion plans.
Legislative blockage
An amendment to the finance bill, supported by 26 parliamentarians, was tabled by Moselle MP Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé (UDI) to allow the conversion of the power plant to gas. According to Thomas About, CFDT union delegate, the government declared itself unfavorable to this amendment. When questioned, the Ministry of Ecological Transition explained that the article concerned having been withdrawn, the government had not formally commented on this amendment.
It is up to the company GazelEnergie, owner of the site, “ to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of its project and its compatibility with the decarbonization of our electricity production », explained the Ministry of Ecological Transition to AFP. Or, « the amendment did not allow in any case to resolve these questions which must be dealt with by the operator “. The amendment further presented “ incompatibilities with existing law », According to the ministry. « The State is committed to finding a lasting solution for the site and employees “, he assured.
(With AFP)
