Pollution by permission in Czechia: How Tykač and Křetínský profit from exemptions and subsidies at the expense of our health

It is said that health cannot be measured in money. Yet there are at least two people in this country who know how to do so. Coal mines and power plants controlled by Pavel Tykač and Daniel Křetínský pollute the air every year and contribute to premature deaths. This is also made possible by state-granted exemptions.

At first glance, granting exemptions to major energy companies for the release of emissions and pollutants may appear beneficial for the Czech state and its citizens. “Discounts” from legally set limits have long been granted on the grounds that they support Czechia’s energy security and economy. However, a closer look at the context and impacts of granting emissions exemptions to the Czech Republic’s largest polluters raises the question of whether the state and its citizens are in fact losing out from such a policy. Especially as analyses show that electricity from these power plants is not indispensable.

In particular, the Počerady power plant, part of the Sev.en energy holding owned by Czech billionaire Pavel Tykač, has long ranked among the largest air polluters through toxic mercury, particulate matter and greenhouse gases. The Chvaletice power plant (also Sev.en) is a close second in this respect – in 2023, it too ranked in the top five in all the listed categories.

In 2023 alone, these two power plants, thanks to state-granted exemptions, released 57% more mercury than they should have. This is a huge amount of a substance that is toxic, can cause neurological or developmental problems and can even, through the mother’s placenta, disrupt the healthy development of a human foetus.

In addition to emissions exemptions, which significantly reduce energy companies’ operating costs, these companies often also benefit from European funds redistributed through national budgets. In Czechia, this takes place, for example, through the Modernisation Fund.

Citizens do not benefit – quite the opposite

Energy holdings have posted record profits in recent years, mainly linked to the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Energy companies can access European money from the Modernisation Fund, for instance, through strategies to shift from burning coal to burning waste, or so-called “energy recovery”.

This applies, for example, to the power plant in Komořany, part of the Energy and Industrial Holding, controlled by another Czech billionaire, Daniel Křetínský. A subsidy from the HEAT programme of the Modernisation Fund will cover around 50 percent of the expected capital expenditure for a waste incinerator linked to the richest Czech. Yet incinerators, or so-called “waste-to-energy facilities”, demonstrably have significant impacts on human health and the state of nature, particularly due to the release of pollutants. Like coal-fired power plants, they also indirectly result in higher healthcare costs.

The inefficiency of money spent in this way, or the absurdity of granting exemptions that affect health risks and the destruction of Czech nature, clearly show that major energy polluters bring more harm than benefit to the state and its citizens in the long term. The state and its citizens do not benefit from this policy. On the contrary, they lose funds that could be put to better use, as well as their health and clean, safe nature.

It is time to reconsider this strategy and, instead of exemptions, begin enforcing stricter rules and supporting genuine transformation in the case of the biggest polluters. The coal barons already know the price of our health. It is essential that politicians – both in government and in opposition – know it too ahead of the elections.

Republished from EkoNews.cz, a website covering business and sustainability.