List of energy myths and how to fight them at the Christmas table

The holidays are coming up (as they do every year), and it’s the perfect opportunity to sit at a richly set table with family. Over borscht with mushrooms, there are always family conversations and often complaints – both about the world and about energy problems. But why not dispel a few myths so you can spend this Christmas in a warm and joyful atmosphere?

Expensive energy (electricity) and gas bills… this is where virtually everyone complains. The price of the bills is not that high (I know many people don’t believe it) if we look at prices on world markets. Even before the war in Ukraine, commodity prices on global markets skyrocketed – for example, gas became as much as 5-7 times more expensive than coal. As a result, electricity and gas prices began to rise rapidly, and all European governments responded with cost protection programs (in Poland, energy and gas prices were frozen). Current prices on world markets are beginning to stabilize (they are going down slowly – among other things because Europe has found alternative gas supply paths instead of importing from Russia. In 2025, energy and gas prices will remain frozen (energy until September, gas until the middle of the year). If there is talk in the media of increases, they only concern the price component for so-called distribution (supply), which may increase bills by a maximum of 5-10% (with inflation at about 7%). To many, this seems expensive, as today’s bills are up to twice as high as those of 5 years ago. However, considering the wage increase, we can buy about the same kWh as before. If a possible war ends in Ukraine, prices may gradually fall in 2025. However, this will be a slow process since the programs to “freeze” prices have had the side effect of eliminating the free market and competition, which will have to be rebuilt. You can read your electricity and gas bills for fun with borscht and mushroom soup, especially check the subscription fee item. Let’s see if your supplier sends invoices electronically – the paper version can cost about PLN 10 a month, and switching to computerized checking can even give you a quick 100 zlotys of simple savings a year. 

Mining gold in Poland and the evil EU that doesn’t allow us to mine it (and the Chinese are building coal-fired power plants)… the very energy transition and policies of the European Union are a grateful subject for complaining, but also for arguing. For some, the Green Deal is comparable to communist ideologies and oppressive enslavement. But what is it really about, and what are these measures’ purposes?

The Green Deal primarily aims to eliminate the import of fossil fuels into Europe – oil, gas and coal – and replace them with renewable energy sources (and perhaps some nuclear power). In Poland, we pay at least 100 billion (!) zloty a year to import raw materials – usually from countries that are neither democratic nor peaceful. The elimination of fossil fuels (planned for 2040-2050)would provide an opportunity for the development of European industry based on new technologies and, by the way, ultimately, cheaper energy for our homes (the transition phase of the transition and rebuilding of the system is necessary). The question immediately arises: why can’t Poland continue (hard) coal mining like other countries? The simple answer is that it is simply too expensive in our country. All the world’s big producers mine in open-pit mines while we go deep underground (because we’ve been mining coal for more than 100 years). As a result, the productivity of Polish mines is very low, and the mining cost is uncompetitive. Today, coal on world markets costs $115/ton, while our mining costs are around $200/ton. Of course, coal costs as much as $400/ton, but this was during the peak of commodity prices after the Russian aggression in 2022.

On the other hand, complaining that we are closing Polish coal-fired power plants while the Chinese are building them on a massive scale is also no longer valid. Indeed, the Chinese continue to need more and more energy and are building new coal-fired power plants. Policy change has already been evident in recent years, especially in 2024. Coal-fired power plants are still being built (in 2024, it is expected to be 110 GW, which shows the scale of China’s power industry – these new units are at least three times more than our entire coal-fired power industry). At the same time, investment in renewable energy is growing rapidly (at least 300 GW in 2024).

Regarding investment, China has spent as much as 50% of the world’s total on RES investment. The capacity of RES power plants in China already exceeds that of coal power plants (although it hasn’t yet reached the same level in terms of production). Still, the direction is clear – China is shifting to renewables and developing nuclear power simultaneously (150 new reactors in 15 years – compare that to our program to build 1-3 reactors). So, if we already want to complain, we have a good reason – huge Chinese investments, additionally sponsored and subsidized by the state, give an advantage to Chinese manufacturers of wind turbines and solar panels, so that imports from Asia are ruining the European green energy industry. Europe is trying to respond with a new program – the Net Zero Industry Act – to subsidize the renewable energy production sector.

Before long, the Union will do away with gasoline-powered cars, and you’ll have to pay crores for a gas boiler… Yet another reason to criticize the evil Green Deal and the evil Union. However, the transition to electric cars is already a foregone conclusion – they will replace internal combustion cars, just as cell phones have put landlines out of business. We are at a moment of change in the price structure, and just as cell phones used to be significant, expensive devices reserved for the richest to become everyone’s equipment later, the same will happen with electric cars. Car batteries (the most critical component of cost) have cheapened tenfold (!) in the last 5-6 years and are likely to cheapen another 3-5 times by 2030 (and maybe more). An electric car (around 2027-2030) will be no more expensive than an internal combustion car, and you can drive more than 1,000 kilometres on a single battery charge (twice as much as today). The alternative remains freedom in a 20-year-old diesel, which emits an exceptionally high amount of particulates (and other toxic substances) in the exhaust, which will sooner or later bring lung problems. Here, it is worth recalling the struggle between leaded and unleaded gasoline producers in the US in the 1970s – as then, arguments about “freedom” and “why pay more” may prove illusory. For the time being (although the proposal has not yet been implemented), the ban on the registration of new internal combustion cars in the EU after 2035 is simply becoming unnecessary – only a small group of car enthusiasts with growling engines will buy such cars at that time. Here, however, we should be concerned about something else – the growing competition in Chinese electrics (I encourage you to look at Chinese factories, Chinese cars and even Chinese roads). They are already cheaper and comparable in quality to European ones. This competition is the main reason for the problems of the European automotive sector, including factories in Poland. So we should worry not so much about technical progress but that the US and China may overtake us. A similar situation applies to gas boilers (and the upcoming so-called ETS Directive 2 for buildings). Certainly stimulated by lobbyist pressure, new EU regulations are drawing attention to using fossil fuels for home heating to eliminate them by 2050. This is partly a program to promote investment in heat pumps and other new forms of heating (assuming that energy itself will be cheaper in a decade thanks to the widespread use of RES). The introduction of ETS2 is intended to show that gas heating (in the long run) will become uncompetitive and will have to be phased out. Replacing gas stoves will take about 20 years, especially in new homes, so it is worth paying attention to the possibility of installing new technologies now.

The directive itself has not yet been enacted (it is supposed to take effect from 2027 or 2028, but discussions are ongoing), and the possible cost (which no one has even asked the question) will be between PLN 5 and PLN 80 per month (the highest amount applies to owners of very large houses). The discussion about why we replaced coal with gas stoves is demagogic. It’s worth recalling that a domestic coal stove emits a considerable amount of pollution, and the older it gets, the more it encourages people to burn even worse fuels (leading to more emissions) and even to burn garbage (resulting in additional dioxins). Alternatively, there is a whole spectrum of respiratory diseases that pose a real threat to us and our loved ones – something to talk about over borscht.

So during the joyous holidays, let’s complain less or complain about what is really the problem. Will we manage to change (including the Polish industry), and will we not stand apart in technology from others? I am convinced that Poland will change. And complaining is just our national trait because paradoxically, we like new changes, technologies, and challenges (and let’s not let ourselves be told otherwise).