“No one admits to the Green Deal or remembers anything, so how about the Polish’ drill, baby, drill’?

Trump’s swearing-in, the American shift from renewable technologies to gas and oil, and… the sudden amnesia of Polish politicians. No one knows; no one remembers anything. The Green Deal has become an embarrassment and even public enemy number one – everyone is against it. Of course, no one signed anything or voted, and we don’t even know what it’s about.

If someone asks, say you don’t remember but didn’t support it. If someone says it’s proof, say it’s too small. Here is the truth: no one has read documents, participated in negotiations, or written studies. Polish MEPs can be found in vain at the meetings of the teams developing Fit for 55, but now you can say with a clear conscience: “I know nothing, I remember nothing.”

The new prevailing narrative is to kill the Green Lad. For that reason, I am enthusiastic about Trump’s phrase. “Drill, baby, drill” resounds on the lips of many Polish politicians. The dream is to drill, dig, drill some more, and find unlimited deposits of Polish energy resources.

As always… politicians write, and voters read only the first sentence and do not try to explore the topic.

Poland spends 100 billion on importing fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal) annually.

– Poland’s raw material resources have been explored well (no new mining opportunities).

Gas production will not increase (see Orlen’s strategy) because there is simply no more Polish gas.

Polish shale gas is an illusion because the possible deposits are twice as deep as in the US (extraction is several times more expensive, and there are technical problems—it has already been tested).

– The last time oil was dug up was in the 1980s (the famous Karlino), but the oil had already run out.

– The price of coal mining in Polish mines is 800-900 zlotys per ton (official data), while in world markets (ARA), coal costs 450 zlotys per ton.

– 600 zlotys from each family (2024) for mining subsidies (at least), and this year probably twice as much.

Drill, baby. You can probably dig into mineral water and thermal waters (but also not too high a temperature, so you can not put a good CHP plant—at least in urbanized regions, experience from Torun). Alternatively, you can also “drill” and burn through money.

– In a few years, “Trumpism” will fade, and the world will return to green investments, and we will again fight for the Green Deal, installing Chinese plants.

None of the politicians … will remember anything either.

Smog in Polish mountain villages… or how to develop respiratory diseases in potential tourists.

Something for the ardent supporters of continuing to dig coal and use it in home hearths. The holidays and the ski season in general are beginning. Snow in the mountains, beautiful sunshine, urbanites come in crowds and… fall into the embrace of smog. At regular times, just before dinner, a few hours in the morning and around lunchtime (that is, the hours when low-quality coal is thrown into the stoves), the air quality deteriorates rapidly, and more mountain villages are plunged into smog. To visually illustrate the situation – a photo from Gubałówka (perspective across from Zakopane), where you can see a lovely grey-brown quilt enveloping the valley. Yes, there is a village below where they burn coal. 

The air was clear – it was a day when you could see the peaks of the mountains far beyond the Polish border, and there was a lovely smog over the villages.

 

At first, I grumbled, and then I started coughing heavily. In Zakopane, you can see the difference before the jumping competition – on Friday, the tourists descended, all the accommodations in private houses began, and the coal stoves started to work. Then, I was suddenly enlightened and understood. There is a method in this madness. Tourists come because this is what the doctors recommend. They are supposed to breathe fresh air. But how do we encourage them to come back? The best way is to burn them with coal, have them breathe smog, and let them develop respiratory ailments, asthma, bronchitis and other diseases, and doctors… again recommend them to go to the mountains in winter. Hallelujah… a self-perpetuating prosperity. I congratulate all native residents and their children – in twenty or thirty years, regular visits to the neurologist’s office and inhaled medications – are guaranteed. But after all… there is nothing like a Polish resort and fresh mountain air.

This green hydrogen doesn’t make sense, but the Chinese produce it.

Here is a little feedback from moderating the gas conference. Most panellists and audience voted that green hydrogen makes no sense and these are unnecessary technology. We hear the same from a large part of politicians and even scientists and industrialists. It doesn’t make sense for Poland to invest or even look at these new technologies – it won’t catch on. It reminds me a bit of the discussion of the state operators of the analogue telephone network; when cell phones came in – big, heavy, with limited coverage, you had to build so many masts – it certainly won’t take, or it will be too expensive.

It’s worth looking at the German hydrogen network project – 2032-2039; investments of almost 20 billion euros, more than 9,000 kilometres of pipelines and a target transmission of up to 280 TWh of hydrogen per year (!). Of course, you can say they are doing something pointless again, and why look at it? We assessed the German transformation plan similarly when they had 25% RES and stumbled over the lack of a north (production) – south (factory consumption) grid connection. It was going to fail to take hold. Today, Germany’s RES production is approaching 60%. Poland has a new plan to modernize the transmission grid by 2034 – with, among other things, a large north-south HVDC cable and the possibility to absorb up to 160 TWh of RES into the grid annually. We are repeating the German energy transition path (already having about 29% RES in 2024) and gently planning for a hydrogen economy (1 million tons per year in 2030 – unattainable). We are also tentatively thinking about a hydrogen network – but these are distant plans – we will probably look at what Germany will do. 

The biggest problem, however, is neither the worldwide slowdown in green policies nor concerns about buying German technologies in the future in the form of new hydrogen pipeline systems or large electrolyzers. We will buy them, but they are in China. While Trump is turning to fossil fuels (no surprise – the US is the world’s largest producer), China is “stealing the Green Deal” – making a U-turn on RES technologies. Right now, 50% of all green projects come from China. In 2025, with the US slowdown and Europe’s problems, it will be at least 60%. Chinese companies are already the absolute leader in the production of PV panels, and the largest windmill companies (the first three places – Goldwind, Envision, Enercon, and from the top five – MingYang) are also them. There is an ongoing Sino-Korean battle with TESLA to win the battery energy storage market. The same is happening with green hydrogen. Major pilot projects are running late in Europe and around the world (e.g., Saudi Arabia). Ambitious plans such as 1 million tons of hydrogen in Poland or 30 million tons in the EU in 2030 are becoming increasingly unrealistic. And in China? The plan today is 50 million tons in 2030. The world’s largest installation (and largest commercial electrolyzers) is Sinopec’s Kuqa Green Hydrogen Project – 300 MW in electrolyzers (hydrogen consumption for industrial processes). More installations of similar size will be built this year and next year. More Chinese corporations will mainly capture the global market for commercial green hydrogen production systems at this rate. For energy shutdown, they probably need hydrogen gas turbine technology (here, engineering projects are delayed; instead of enormous capacity, we still have a maximum of 30% hydrogen admixtures by volume and small turbines (1 MW) entirely for hydrogen). However, knowing the expansiveness of Chinese corporations, they will have bought (or perhaps otherwise acquired) these technologies by the end of the decade.

We come to the crux of the Green Deal. In fact… he is not the enemy of Europe at all. The problem is that the Chinese have stolen it and are developing it even faster than the EU.

But there is always a chance that Trump will save us again (with a new war).