SUEK-Krasnoyarsk confirmed the opportunity to expand the production of innovative smokeless briquettes

A large-scale conference of participants of the Federal Project “Clean Air” was held in Krasnoyarsk. It brought together representatives of 23 regions of Russia and 41 cities, heads of the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Energy, supervisory authorities and major industrial companies.

Opening the environmental forum, the Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Mikhail Kotyukov focused on the practical steps that the region has already taken to improve the air.

“We have closed small boiler houses, banned outdated equipment from business, switched hundreds of buses to gas, and are working with the private sector. We have developed a taste for continuation – both in enterprises and in people. We really want our cities to be comfortable and clean. So that our children want to develop here and build their future. Therefore, it is important that the economy is environmentally friendly, and the environment is economical,” said the head of the region.

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation Maxim Korolkov, in turn, focused on systematic work with people and unaccounted sources of pollution.

“Krasnoyarsk is the city where the federal Clean Air project started. This is where the idea of ​​learning how to manage air quality came from. Today we have reduced emissions by more than 20%, but most importantly, we have moved from quantity to quality. We realized: 90% of effectiveness is the ability to explain to people what we really do and hear their feedback. The work in Krasnoyarsk does not end in 2026 – there is fine-tuning and whitewashing of the “gray” sector ahead,” emphasized Maxim Korolkov.

Participants in a special round table shared their experience of specific solutions for the private sector, which remains one of the main sources of ground-level emissions in cities. General Director of SUEK-Krasnoyarsk Evgeny Yevtushenko recalled the successful practice of using the unique smokeless fuel “Siberian Briquette”.

“The coals of the Kansk-Achinsk basin are among the most environmentally friendly in the world, with low sulfur content and low ash content. And “Siberian briquette” is a product of its deep processing, which is produced at the industrial complex at the Berezovsky open-pit mine. This smokeless fuel burns evenly, with greater heat transfer – more than 6 thousand kilocalories per kilogram. At the same time it does not smoke at all. In addition, people do not need to change stoves or boilers; the briquette is suitable for most existing heating systems,” said Evgeniy Yevtushenko.

The technology, developed jointly with Krasnoyarsk scientists, has already proven its effectiveness. During the 2019 World Winter Universiade, SUEK-Krasnoyark, together with the Administration of Krasnoyarsk, provided more than 9 thousand households with smokeless briquettes. For two weeks, residents were heated with eco-fuel, and the Ministry of Ecology of the region regularly carried out measurements, which showed: the concentration of benzo(a)pyrene in different areas of the city decreased by 65–83%, and in some points to almost 100%.

This solution may be in demand for those 4 thousand houses where there is no technical possibility of connecting to gas and electric heating or for installing solid fuel boilers. Representatives of SUEK-Krasnoyarsk at the round table confirmed their readiness to provide them with environmentally friendly fuel and scale up production, subject to government support in the form of subsidies or subsidies for the population in order to make clean heat accessible.

“Like any highly processed product, Siberian briquette is much more expensive than ordinary coal: to produce 1 ton of smokeless fuel, 4 tons of raw materials are required. In order for people to start using it en masse, they need help from the government. By joint efforts, we can find recipes to improve the air situation in the private sector of Krasnoyarsk,” summed up Evgeny Yevtushenko.

The last conference showed that effective technological solutions that allow combining the economic availability of heat with environmental safety already exist. The task of government and business is to make them the norm for every home.