CHP - on brown coal! How in Siberia ignore the policy of the President of the Russian Federation
Eighth in the Russian Forbes list
Many Russian cities are reeling. As a rule, the causes of public discontent lie in the deterioration of the ecological situation, the unsatisfactory work of the housing and utilities sector, the pin-hole building, the disgusting condition of roads and health problems.
Novosibirsk, one of the largest cities of Russia, in this sense is a typical example of how the authorities in the regions not only refuse to listen to the opinion of citizens, but also actually ignore the instructions of the country's leadership.
At the end of last year, Novosibirsk was surprised to learn that in their city, which constantly occupies one of the first places in Russia in terms of the number of oncological diseases (and having a very polluted atmosphere), they shut up… environmentally friendly gas-fired boilers.
In 2018, the largest Novosibirsk CHP-5 was transferred from coal to brown coal. Instead of introducing cleaner technologies for generating electricity and heat at the stations of the Siberian Generating Company, the process is reversed. At the same time, three of the four large urban CHP are ready to work on gas: CHP-2 and CHP-4 completely, CHP-5 - partially.
The process of converting CHP-5 to cheap but more environmentally harmful brown coal was accompanied by an active information campaign. She had to justify in the eyes of the population "cost optimization", which began the new owner of Novosibirsk CHPs famous Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko. He is the eighth richest in the Russian Forbes list.
Power engineers with imagination and skill, worthy of a better use, constantly proved the ecological “advantages” of brown coal. Connected to the promotion of even popular artists.
15 June, the company SGK is holding "folk festivals" in the territory of CHP-5 on the occasion of the end of the heating season. The program includes tours of shops and coal storage, games for children and adults, a big concert and fireworks on the background of chimneys. The action has already received the unofficial name "to the mother-in-law for pancakes." SGK is trying to sweeten the pill so much to the citizens after the winter, which has become the record for the number of blackouts and hot water.
Among the Novosibirsk residents, a joke has become popular that the SGK company could, without doubt, convince to transfer heating of the Crimea resorts from gas to brown coal. Of course, to improve the ecology of the peninsula ...
The country switches to gas, and Novosibirsk - to coal
Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Samara, even the coal capital of Vorkuta and a number of large cities in central Russia continue to convert heating to gas. This is fully in line with the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation, which on March 12 of 2019 asked the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller to prepare proposals for increasing the rate of gasification within the country. Miller at this meeting promised to resolve the issue of complete gasification in 10 years.
According to Gazprom, of the 66 regions of Russia that participated in the gasification program in 2018, only ten (!!!) fulfilled their obligations completely. 14 subjects lag far behind planned work schedules, and five systematically fail to fulfill their obligations.
Looking at the situation in Novosibirsk, this state of affairs is not surprising. Local authorities in reality ignore both the initiatives of the federal center to increase the share of natural gas use and Moscow’s concern about environmental degradation and health in a number of cities, such as Novosibirsk.
Regional and city authorities actually refuse to follow the instructions of experts from the Russian presidential administration.
For example, last year, after complaints from residents of Novosibirsk, the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) held a special visiting session on ecology and urban planning in this city. Following the discussion of the problems of the region, the Council promulgated its recommendations for the state bodies of the Russian Federation, the leadership of the Novosibirsk Region and Novosibirsk. They are published on 11 in February on 2019 on the HRC website.
Regarding air pollution, the HRO noted:
To take effective measures to reduce air pollution, it is necessary to: reduce emissions of pollutants from thermal power plants and motor vehicles, quota emissions and encourage reduction of pollutant emissions by business entities and improve public awareness about the state of atmospheric air.
The interests of the oligarch Melnichenko in priority
Unfortunately, local authorities seem to have ignored these recommendations. And instead of expanding the area of green zones is a sharp reduction. The Novosibirsk Mayor's Office together with the Council of Deputies tirelessly stamps building permits in the few remaining green oases of the metropolis, ignoring the mass protests of citizens.
The last glaring fact was the permission for building on the territory of the Kirov Park in the Leninsky district. Moreover, the deputies approved this construction the next day after a mass protest in defense of the park.
The HRC experts confirmed the validity of the complaints of the citizens of Novosibirsk about numerous environmental violations of local authorities, in which corruption signs of lobbying the interests of developers are seen. They also found that progressive degradation of forests occurs in the territory of Novosibirsk with a constant reduction of their area.
In addition, as the HRC experts write,
The HRC stated:
Among the public concerns associated with this project is the unsuitability of industrial boilers designed for the use of coal, which, due to different parameters of brown coal, will lead to changes in the volume and quality of atmospheric emissions from CHP. Among the possible consequences of the stated changes are increased emissions of pollutants, in particular sulfur compounds, as well as a set of problems associated with the delivery, unloading and storage of brown coal.
In fact, such an important and authoritative body, as the Council under the President of the Russian Federation on the development of civil society and human rights, warns the Novosibirsk authorities about the extremely negative consequences of the transition to brown coal, and they simply do not pay attention to it. And where, then, is that very “vertical of power”?
And it remains only to guess what causes the touching concern of the authorities of Novosibirsk and the region to improve the financial indicators of the FGC. Why do they keep a truly Olympic calm, looking at what is happening?
After all, if we compare the state of Novosibirsk ecology with the state of a patient with a stroke or a heart attack, then for her the transition to brown coal is the same as for such a patient drinking several liters of natural coffee every day ...
But that's not all. The supplier of brown coal at the Novosibirsk heat and power plant is the Kansko-Achinsky open-pit mine “Borodino” of the SUEK company, owned by billionaire Andrei Melnichenko. If, upon shipment from a quarry, one ton of brown coal costs about 350-450 rubles, then after delivery to Novosibirsk, its price increases several times. The high cost of transportation (in Soviet times, it was considered economically unjustified to transport lignite outside the region) was included in the tariff for the population. In this sense, the position of the Tariff Department of the Novosibirsk Region, which does not object to the gigantic costs of transportation of brown coal included in the heat tariff for the population, is very interesting.
Prioritizing the commercial interests of Mr. Melnichenko, the West-Siberian railway is forced to literally “hammer” Transsib with coal. So, following the results of 2018, she transported more than 300 million tons of cargo. Of these, about 80 percent accounted for just the transportation of coal ... After all, now brown coal from the Borodinsky open-pit mine near Kansk is transported over a distance of more than 1000 kilometers to Novosibirsk.
This happens just when the federal center repeatedly raises the question of increasing the capacity of the only railway connecting the West and East of Russia in order to use it for the transportation of international cargo. But, as they say, things are still there, since, probably, the interests of the FGC and SUEK in this case are above the state ones.
And the more they are higher than the ecology and health of the inhabitants of Novosibirsk, forced to breathe the products of combustion of brown coal.
In accordance with the law of state capitalism, profits in the country are privatized, and losses are nationalized. In our case, the state covers only part of the losses from the FGC in Novosibirsk, increasing the cost of treating cancer patients in the city.
For the next five years, the region will receive 11 billion rubles for these purposes from the federal budget. A new multifunctional center for the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer is being created in Novosibirsk.
So it turns out, if we calculate the cost of heating gas in Novosibirsk, it will be much more economically beneficial for the country and the population of the city. But here the interests of the oligarch diverge from the state and the people. And the will of Moscow is obviously not a decree here, because Mr. Melnichenko should use coal from coal mines bought at a cheap price somewhere ...
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