France to 'Ban Exploration' as Power Starts from Coalmine Methane
The French government is to present a draft law this autumn banning the award of any new exploration licences, ecology and solidarity minister Nicolas Hulot said June 23.
Le Figaro newspaper reported that the minister, a former environmental activist who now has responsibility for energy in Emmanuel Macron's new government, made his declaration on French television station BFMTV, adding that it would ban new exploration in metropolitan France as well as in French overseas territories.
Hulot followed up on his TV message by tweeting: "There will be no new exploration permits for hydrocarbons; we shall vote on a law this autumn."
The news comes as French specialist coalmine methane (CMM) producer La Française de l’Energie announced June 23 its first production of power generated from CMM. The company argues that, as the gas captured in the former mining galleries might otherwise leak into the atmosphere, such power is "green energy" and it will be paid for such under a policy enacted under the previous president, Francois Hollande. This is distinct from coalbed methane, which has to be produced by drilling wells into coalbeds.
The power from LFDE's new 1.5-MW unit in Lourches in northern France is being sold to French electricity giant EDF, under a government-funded green energy 15-year guaranteed Feed-in Tariff (FiT), which LFDE says will provide it with stable revenues from the state of €650,000 ($726,000)/year.
Three additional sites in northern France have been installed and will start generating green power over the next few days, adds LFDE. The installed capacity of its gas to green power activity will reach 9 MW by June 30 2017, enough to meet the needs of 40,000 people. LFDE argues that, with over 100,000 km of former mining galleries connected to coal seams emitting CBM in northern France, it has significant growth potential to capture a large volume of additional gas before its release to the atmosphere.
Lourches is between Douai and Valenciennes, not far from the Belgian border, in an area where until the 1980s coal mining was important.
UK audit office criticises EDF new nuclear project
Meanwhile EDF's new 3.2 GW Hinkley Point C nuclear power project is the subject of a critical report June 23 from the UK parliament's watchdog on public spending, the National Audit Office, which criticises the UK government for "locking consumers into a risky and expensive project with uncertain strategic and economic benefits" by agreeing to pay the expected £30bn cost of top-up payments under the project’s contract for difference.
Theresa May's government spent last summer picking over the terms of the agreement with EDF, and many hoped that it would cancel the project, or at least lower the guaranteed price of the power sold. The price was agreed by the previous, coalition government and last year was three times the wholesale price. EDF's UK head Vincent de Rivaz,who led the French negotiations, is stepping down at the end of October.
Mark Smedley