Fiddlers Ferry power station, UK

Coal-fired power stations cost the European Union up to €42.8 billion a year in health costs associated with coal-fired power stations, a new report says.

The study — ‘The Unpaid Health Bill: How coal power plants make us sick’ — also found that EU-wide impacts amount to more than 18,200 premature deaths, about 8,500 new cases of chronic bronchitis, and over four million lost working days each year.

Published by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), the study said the figures for mortality increase to 23,300 premature deaths, or 250,600 life years lost, while the total costs are up to €54.7 billion annually when emissions from coal power plants in Croatia, Serbia and Turkey are included.

The use of coal in power generation in Europe is on the rise again and that there are about 50 new coal power plants currently in the pipeline, said the study.

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This week, as part of the Global Wind Day wind energy stories series, photographer Robert van Waarden takes readers to the UK’s first wind farm in Cornwall.

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Fatih Birol, Opening Session, EWEA 2013 in Vienna.

By subsidising fossil fuels, governments are “stealing money from the pockets of the poor, who would get money otherwise for schools and hospitals”.

So says Fatih Birol, Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency, in the latest issue of Wind Directions.

Fossil fuels get over half a trillion US dollars – six times more than renewables, but 80% of this money goes to households with high and middle incomes, he says.

He adds that if renewable energy subsidies are used intelligently, “they can help kick-off renewables projects which would help us to reduce environmental problems and at the same time help to improve the energy security of countries and help to get jobs in the renewables sector.”

Read the full interview in Wind Directions

Wind energy costs are falling and some companies involved in wind are seeing a rise in profits, according to evidence which has appeared in the world’s media this month.

In Europe, insurance firm Allianz was quoted by Reuters as saying last week that “renewable energy production and infrastructure are gaining investor appeal as they become less dependent on government support in more European markets”.

The firm invests heavily in renewable energy projects because they “offer attractive feed-in tariffs, are already at grid parity (competitive with conventional energy) or are going in that direction.” Spanish and Italian wind and solar installations are the “most advanced in terms of profitability while those in the Nordic countries, Britain, Germany, France and the Benelux would be catching up,” Armin Sandhoevel, Chief Investment Officer for renewables at Allianz, said.

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By Tuuliki Kasonen, Estonian Wind Power Association

Janne Põlluaas is an Estonian woman who has had a passion for photography and nature since spending her childhood summers at a beach called Laulasmaa, a 30 minute drive from the Estonian capital, Tallinn. As a child Janne would sit with her father in the darkroom and watch the pictures develop, feeling that photography must be magic. Today, Janne is a landscape architect and a garden decorator, an occupation which allows her to regularly observe the beauty of nature.

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