Thermoelectric plants contribute to acidification of the environment: Brodziak

While the fate of the electricity reform is being decided in court, the consequences of fossil combustion affect the daily lives of Mexicans. In particular, the use of fuel oil by power plants and its implications for health and ecosystems has been documented, explains Stephan Brodziak, a researcher with the civil organization El Poder del Consumidor (EPC).

On March 10, the reform to the Electricity Industry Act came into effect. The change favors the power plants of the Federal Electricity Commission, some based on fuel oil, over the previous criterion of taking the cheapest energy.

For now, while a quarantine of amparos in the Judiciary is holding back the implementation of the law, Brodziak says that the current federal administration's model addresses the quantities of fuel produced in the country, a residue from crude oil refining.

Among other gases, fuel oil results in sulfur dioxide (SO2). The EPC is part of the Citizen Air Quality Observatory (OCCA), which in March of last year warned that the Tula thermoelectric plant and refinery have 33 times more SO2 than the entire Valley of Mexico.

In this interview, Brodziak details the implications of fuel oil.

— What impacts are there for ecosystems derived from the combustion of fuel oil?

— Through sulfur dioxide there is a chemical reaction, which in contact with water is converted to sulfuric acid. When water is present, basically, that content transforms rain into acid. Sure, in few proportions, but it's quite acidic and that has severe effects on soils, ecosystems, agriculture, and of course on human health. By the way, it also has effects on historic monuments.

— What happens in places where there are plants that use fuel oil and are on the riverbank or...?

— Yes, or in Baja California. This is one of the causes of ocean acidification. It's not the only one, but it's one of the main ones.

— What are the implications of particulate matter?

— Fuel oil also generates a lot of particulate matter derived from incomplete combustion in combustion chambers. This particulate matter is serious for two reasons, because of its composition and its size.

According to its composition, it becomes more or less toxic, and depending on its size, the degrees of penetration into the human body depend. If we are talking about PM10, coarse-grained particulate matter, that can be retained by the capillaries in the nose. But if we have smaller shaped particulate matter, that penetrates more and there is particulate matter that can lodge in the throat.

Then the thinner one, smaller than one micron, is passed to the pulmonary alveoli and then passes into the bloodstream and there is no cell that remains free from exposure once in the stream, that depends on where it goes in the human body.

To give us an idea of the scale we are talking about: a human hair measures between 70 and 40 microns, or micrometers, and the particles that come out of these chimneys, since they vary in their scale, can be ultrafine to thick, from 10 microns to less than a micron.

— How do these particles get to people and what findings have you found in this regard?

— It is transported according to the winds. For example, 60 km east of the Tula plant you have a super clear road that passes between the mountains to the north and south, or the regions with the greatest geological features, and you have the capital of Hidalgo; and then if you go down 60 km to the south, you have Tlalnepantla de Baz, Edomex, nothing more than Mexico City. I specifically call it Tlalnepantla de Baz because there is the northernmost monitoring station in the Valley of Mexico area, where the highest episodes of sulfur dioxide concentrations are generally reported.

So, when it comes from there, it's clearly a migration of pollutants due to atmospheric conditions, brought from Tula. There are severe effects on the entire region of the Tula Valley, Tepeji, and of course Pachuca and Mexico City. And the same thing happens in Salamanca, in Guanajuato, they are very serious and the regulations governing this pollutant have not been properly updated.

— In Tula, levels have been exceeded the limits for several years. Does that mean that Mexican law is not enforced or that it is lax?

— A few years ago it was very lax and wasn't enforced. Now it's stricter, but if it wasn't enforced a few years ago, less so now. It is still missing, there are many things to do.

If legislation is improving, for example, the framework of health standards has improved considerably.

We are talking about the fact that at the end of the applicable period before its revision, for the particle standard we will already be advancing the established criteria of the air quality guidelines regarding PM10 and PM 2.5. We will be adopting those criteria from the World Health Organization (WHO). Now it's one thing for you to adopt them and another thing is for you to be able to ensure that Mexican cities meet those criteria, which we're not there yet, we still need a lot of structural economic changes to be able to truly reach safe thresholds.

— The reform to the electricity industry law has been approved, there is an issue in which an economic criterion has been removed, so you can use fuel plants that were previously less used. Is it a setback?

— AMLO's bet, we don't see it going to be someone else's, is to rescue Pemex, and in its model it makes a lot of sense.

Because of all this obsolescence of Pemex, Mexican refineries have a very high production, or a surplus, of fuel oil. We're talking about what, I don't know, like 10% in very rough terms, or maybe more. The most modern refineries we have in the United States and Europe leave you with a percentage of 2% of fuel. It's very low, very efficient and everything else is derived from the best quality petroleum, oils, gasoline and diesel.

And already in the world, Marpol, Annex Six of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, has been signed. An international maritime convention that Mexico has not signed, which prohibits the use of fuels with more than 5% sulfur, so that excludes fuel oil.

Previously, Mexico could use it as a maritime fuel. In other words, it had a very large market. So that was very good business, but it's no longer business and not only that, there's nowhere to put it. In addition, you add to the refining hose the quantities of oil you are processing, and then you will have more fuel.

So what do you do. Forces, and by logic, so until a moment ago we had the economic office for the production of electricity because obviously renewable energy earned it, which have a production cost that tends to zero... And that's why they had to do what they are doing. In the logic of economic law, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) was excluded.

— Is it a setback in terms of clean energy generation?

— We are in favor of the stewardship of the State of transmission. At least for distribution, transmission and most of the generation. The anger is that this leadership of the State is getting very expensive for us. We are subsidizing companies that are burning fuel. They are very old, expensive, polluting.

We are in favor of the stewardship, but not at this cost. The issue, it seems to us, should be focused on developing the renewable capacity of the CFE itself, and two, on also developing distributed generation. For those two to be allowed to be prioritized, and to take advantage of market conditions to develop, has all the budget.