Power Station Fuel is........

Not ideal, but probably not quite as bad as the tabloid headlines try to suggest.


The market for recyclable materials is still far from mature - so at times it can be difficult to find a use for everything - burning it locally is probably preferable to shipping it out to 3rd world countries where it was claimed it would be recycled but in practice ended up just being dumped or burned as rubbish in the open air.


Claimed CO₂ emissions also have to be taken with a pinch of salt - depending on how much CO₂ absorption is associated with the materials being burned - if it's paper/cardboard that originated from sustainably managed forest the nett CO₂ emissions from the actual burning would be minimal - and probably significantly lower overall than shipping woodchip from the US to burn in UK power stations - but if it's plastic made from oil, then it could be significant. I guess in practice it's likely to be a mix of the two, but that working on that basis would probably dilute the headline numbers.


They seem to mix up overall waste figures and recycleable waste figures at times - presumably that too gives more headline-worth numbers.


Personally I'm not a fan of incineration, especially where plastics based material in involved - but if it's going to be burned anyway (some areas have a long history of incinerating refuse) better to generate power from it than not I say.


   - Andy.

Not ideal, but probably not quite as bad as the tabloid headlines try to suggest.


The market for recyclable materials is still far from mature - so at times it can be difficult to find a use for everything - burning it locally is probably preferable to shipping it out to 3rd world countries where it was claimed it would be recycled but in practice ended up just being dumped or burned as rubbish in the open air.


Claimed CO₂ emissions also have to be taken with a pinch of salt - depending on how much CO₂ absorption is associated with the materials being burned - if it's paper/cardboard that originated from sustainably managed forest the nett CO₂ emissions from the actual burning would be minimal - and probably significantly lower overall than shipping woodchip from the US to burn in UK power stations - but if it's plastic made from oil, then it could be significant. I guess in practice it's likely to be a mix of the two, but that working on that basis would probably dilute the headline numbers.


They seem to mix up overall waste figures and recycleable waste figures at times - presumably that too gives more headline-worth numbers.


Personally I'm not a fan of incineration, especially where plastics based material in involved - but if it's going to be burned anyway (some areas have a long history of incinerating refuse) better to generate power from it than not I say.


   - Andy.