Is Rehabitating old nuclear power stations a priority?

CliveS said:

I am against trying to clear existing sites of tiny amounts of radio active dust when in fact we need to rebuild our nuclear power stations.

I'm sure that's going to go down well with the prople who you're trying to recruit to work at the new nuclear station.  "Don't worry about the low-level nuclear waste we've left scattered around.  We've decided it's not worth the cost of cleaning up".

CliveS said:

The alternative would be to go back to coal once we have prioritised the design for some carbon capture plant for the chimney stack.

Carbon capture as a technology seems to have gone nowhere.  Possibly because the efficiency loss of fitting it to power stations makes them economically unviable.

CliveS said:

In the meantime DRAX and other stations should burn plastic as well as wood waste rather than shipping it at huge cost to be burnt overseas.

We already have municipal incinerators around the country, burning rubbish to generate electricity.  Potentially, burning plastic can create all sorts of toxic byproducts, so it has to be done under carefully controlled conditions.

But I do wonder if incineration would be better for those awkward mixed plastics that currently get "recycled" to Turkey, and actually end up on illegal landfills.

But in the longer term, it would be so much better to insist that all products must be sold in packaging that is genuinely recyclable.  And not just at one demonstration plant somewhere in the country.

CliveS said:

I am against trying to clear existing sites of tiny amounts of radio active dust when in fact we need to rebuild our nuclear power stations.

I'm sure that's going to go down well with the prople who you're trying to recruit to work at the new nuclear station.  "Don't worry about the low-level nuclear waste we've left scattered around.  We've decided it's not worth the cost of cleaning up".

CliveS said:

The alternative would be to go back to coal once we have prioritised the design for some carbon capture plant for the chimney stack.

Carbon capture as a technology seems to have gone nowhere.  Possibly because the efficiency loss of fitting it to power stations makes them economically unviable.

CliveS said:

In the meantime DRAX and other stations should burn plastic as well as wood waste rather than shipping it at huge cost to be burnt overseas.

We already have municipal incinerators around the country, burning rubbish to generate electricity.  Potentially, burning plastic can create all sorts of toxic byproducts, so it has to be done under carefully controlled conditions.

But I do wonder if incineration would be better for those awkward mixed plastics that currently get "recycled" to Turkey, and actually end up on illegal landfills.

But in the longer term, it would be so much better to insist that all products must be sold in packaging that is genuinely recyclable.  And not just at one demonstration plant somewhere in the country.