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https://www.endsreport.com/article/1582 ... ogen-plant

Energy-from-waste firm Waste2Tricity has announced plans to develop the UK's first industrial-scale plant capable of converting waste plastics into hydrogen. The firm last week signed an agreement with development company Peel Environmental for a 124-year lease of a plot on its 54-acre Protos energy hub site in Cheshire. Waste2Tricity says it will submit a planning application for the plant this spring and hopes to commence work later this year. The proposed £7m plant is intended to treat up to 25 tonnes of waste plastics a day that would otherwise go to landfill or incineration, according to Waste2Tricity.

Using an advanced thermal treatment technology developed by Powerhouse Energy, the plant would produce hydrogen which would initially be used to power buses and lorries in the region, before being rolled out to hydrogen cars. The plant would also generate electricity, which could be supplied to businesses located at Protos via the private network. Waste2Tricity says it is currently in discussions with suppliers of unrecyclable plastics across the region, including companies that could locate at the £700m Protos site, which is under development. Waste2Tricity says the construction of the waste to hydrogen plant would see a further 25 full time permanent jobs created at the Protos site, with more than 100 jobs created in the north-west during the construction phase. Myles Kitcher, managing director of Peel Environmental, said: “Not only will this help tackle the problem of waste plastics, it will provide a local source of hydrogen which could be used as a clean and low cost fuel for buses and HGVs across the region. We see this as the first of many opportunities to roll out the technology across other Peel sites in the UK.�

I'm always sceptical about these type of developments as they are then used to justify the production of the products which become the feedstock for the "energy saving/producing" plant.

You then have the producer of the polluting plastics saying that they have to carry on production or the hydrogen plant would run out of feedstock. You also have the oil producer saying that we have to continue to produce oil to produce the plastic to go through the hydrogen producing plant to produce fossil fuel free energy! The ultimate irony!

Dontcha just love the use of the word 'treat' in this context. It's one of the common weasel words.

Anyway, if consumers don't buy enough plastic, then (usually in these cases, though I don't know in this specific case) the taxpayer has to compensate this business for not getting its 'guaranteed' minimum throughput.

Energy-from-waste is a supreme example of short-term mindset.

Agree with your comments.....,
I'm very conscious of plastic, but still find it impossible to totally avoid....
Maybe I'm not trying hard enough, but there's no hope for those less concerned.

The 'realpolitik' is that the plastics juggernaut is with us for the foreseeable future....
I'd obviously prefer recycling, but that's not possible for many plastics....
At least getting some energy 'value' is better than landfill ?
Or even worse, diffuse release into the environment...