If pollutants are dismantled, Mexico will have clean energy.

This weekend, President Claudia Sheinbaum inaugurated a combined-cycle thermoelectric plant in Villa de Reyes, San Luis Potosí, built by the CFE (Federal Electricity Commission) at a cost of $350 million. It will supply electricity to more than 2,400 homes and, according to official figures, will reduce polluting emissions by 53% compared to conventional technologies and save 40% of the water normally required for this type of operation. A good technical achievement, no doubt. But the important thing is not just this plant. What's relevant is what it represents.

The president announced that during her six-year term, 60 similar plants will be built, with a total capacity of 26,000 megawatts. This is no small feat. It's equivalent to a third of the country's current generating capacity. Everything depends on having the necessary resources to build them and not abandoning the project for political reasons.

Because the country faces a serious problem today: more than a third of the electricity consumed is generated by burning fuel oil and diesel. These plants, many of them old and obsolete, produce nearly 36% of all national electricity, emit around 25% of all pollution from the electric sector, and between 8% and 10% of all polluting emissions in the country, including those from industry, transportation, agriculture, and homes. Natural gas pollutes less, and renewable energy sources almost nothing. Today, barely 25% of the country's electricity is generated without polluting, mainly through more than 60 hydroelectric plants located in Chiapas, Veracruz, Michoacán, Nayarit, Oaxaca, and Sinaloa; hundreds of solar plants in Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, and San Luis Potosí; more than 70 wind farms concentrated in Oaxaca, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo León; and a single nuclear power plant, Laguna Verde, located in Veracruz. Everything else still relies on fossil fuels, and much of it is highly polluting.

But as long as dirty plants continue to operate, the air will remain unbreathable in many cities, and the electricity sector will remain a major source of greenhouse gases.

Replacing these plants with modern combined-cycle units, if implemented, could reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by more than 80 million tons. That is, more than half of what the entire electricity system currently emits. It's a radical change. But it has one key condition: that the new plants not be added to existing ones, but rather replace them. That fuel oil and diesel stacks be permanently shut down. That they be dismantled and not remain as a permanent backup, a tool for budgetary pressure, or a monument to inefficiency.

It's positive that the president has ambitious plans because it's urgent to create decent jobs and affordable electricity. And it's imperative to reduce the country's environmental footprint. But everything depends on a technical and political decision that has yet to be made: will the 60 combined-cycle plants replace or add to the existing ones? If they replace, the country will gain in health, efficiency, and future. If they only add to the existing ones, the smoke will continue to rise, but with more power.

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