WARSAW — Tadeusz Rydzyk, Poland's most politically powerful priest, is using an injection of government funds to build a geothermal plant — prompting opposition politicians to cry foul.

Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has been skeptical of some types of renewable energy — especially onshore wind — since taking power in 2015. But those doubts don't apply to a business project that Rydzyk — the head of an enormously influential right-wing media empire — has been promoting for years.

“The idea of employing geothermal energy sources was labelled delusional some 10-15 years ago, while in fact it turned out to be one of the boldest attempts at involving renewables in the local energy mix," said Paweł Jabłoński, the deputy director of the government's international projects department. "That is why it qualified to be subsidized not only by the Polish state but also by EU funds."

But the opposition denounces the project as an economically dubious way for the ruling party to reward one of its most powerful backers.

Polish media calculates that Rydzyk's foundation has received 214 million złoty (€48 million) in public funds since 2015 — for projects ranging from energy to a museum, cancer research and a memorial park. Rydzyk's Lux Veritatis foundation did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Rydzyk has supported PiS for decades using his Radio Maryja network, his TV Trwam television station and the Nasz Dziennik newspaper.

"This is a stunning sum," Sławomir Neumann, the parliamentary leader of the opposition Civic Platform party, told reporters. "And it will continue growing until the elections, because the whole media empire of Tadeusz Rydzyk is meant to serve the ruling party."

The priest has called such accusations an "ordinary lie" in an interview with a newspaper he controls.

Rydzyk has supported PiS for years using his Radio Maryja network, his TV Trwam television station and the Nasz Dziennik newspaper. As a result, the central city of Toruń has become an obligatory stop for PiS politicians from leader Jarosław Kaczyński to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and many other senior figures.

That same government backs Rydzyk's geothermal plans; construction work on the plant in Toruń started this January. The 40 million złoty plant, to be operated by a subsidiary of Lux Veritatis called Geotermia Toruń, will be financed partly from EU funds, as well as an 8.5 million złoty government loan and a 19.5 million złoty subsidy from the government's environmental fund.

The hot water will flow to Rydzyk's media university, his church of the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary Star of the New Evangelization and St. John Paul II, as well as to the city.

Geothermal energy uses the natural heat from deep within the earth to either generate electricity or for district heating. It doesn't generate much in the form of greenhouse gases, and is environmentally friendly. In Toruń, it involves drilling more than 2 kilometers below ground to tap into water naturally heated to about 64 degrees.

Thermal dreams

The project in Toruń — about 200 kilometers northwest of Warsaw — is the culmination of Rydzyk's long-held dream, made possible by a change in his political fortunes.

Rydzyk launched his energy plans the first time PiS was in power from 2005 to 2007, but didn't make much headway before his ideological foes from the centrist Civic Platform party took over in 2007.

In 2008, Lux Veritatis conducted two test drillings in Toruń, but was unable to persuade the government to finance the heating plant project or to repay the cost of the test wells. French utility EDF, which owned the municipal heating system in the city of 200,000, only said it would connect Rydzyk's hot water if it met technical norms.

"It's some sort of a lobby that is blocking everything here. Everything that's Polish and Catholic," Rydzyk told TV Trwam of what he saw as a lack of enthusiasm for his idea.

That changed when PiS won the 2015 election. Rydzyk was back in favor and his geothermal dreams gained a sympathetic ear in Warsaw. He got 22.6 million złoty in compensation for his earlier test drilling. And the state-owned utility, Polska Grupa Energetyczna, bought out EDF’s Polish enterprises in late 2017, opening the way for Rydzyk's project.

"I'm certain that we'll find a solution allowing this initiative to be properly connected to the municipal grid," Ryszard Wasiłek, the Polish utility's deputy president, said shortly after the EDF buyout.

Government backing

The government has seized on geothermal power as an answer to its green energy needs; Poland generates almost 80 percent of its electricity from coal — a mix that is causing the country increasing trouble as EU emissions prices rise and the bloc moves to cut greenhouse gas pollution and phase out coal-fired power.

Appearing on Radio Maryja, Energy Minister Krzysztof Tchórzewski called Rydzyk's project an example for the rest of the country. The government pledged in June to spend 600 million złoty on geothermal energy-related projects over the next seven years.

But Marek Józefiak, climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace, said it is striking that renewable energy technologies that have far bigger potential to be developed in Poland than geothermal “and are often cheaper — like wind and solar — have been deliberately blocked by the PiS government.”

Despite Rydzyk's money-raising success, geothermal energy makes up only 0.25 percent of all Poland's renewables. “To date geothermal energy has not been a significant source of heat and is not a source of electricity at all,” said Michał Kruszewski, a researcher at the International Geothermal Center in Bochum, Germany.

“Geothermal is not the best investment, but energy — alongside the health system — is the best place to invest in Poland going forward" — Polish energy expert

Poland has six existing geothermal plants out of about 300 such plants across the EU, but the ministry wants that to expand. The Polish Geothermal Association estimates that geothermal could supply about a third of the country's home heating needs.

The political opposition says that Toruń isn't well suited for such a project, saying that the salt content of the underground water is too high and that the water would still have to be heated up to 130 degrees before it can be used for municipal heating — which needs a conventional, polluting power plant.

But government backing makes the investment a safe bet.

“Geothermal is not the best investment, but energy — alongside the health system — is the best place to invest in Poland going forward and in some places is a kind of cash cow,” said a Polish energy expert.

CORRECTION: The previous version of this article misattributed the final quote.

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