This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
The justification for this edit was to add "balance" but this is ludicrous. The pre-edit paragraph was a statement about the construction of a new nuclear plant and the improved safety of the reactor being built. Both of these are factual statements and I find it hard to imagine how they could be unbalanced. Furthermore, even if the pre-edit paragraph could be construed as somehow being unbalanced the volume of material added exceeds the size of the original paragraph by three times and by that alone is obviously itself unbalanced. As brought up in the article's edit history the added material is referenced, but that's not the issue. The material was added for the purposes of balance, a purpose it does not serve. The edit is clearly not in the best interest of the article and if the original paragraph needs to be changed something else needs to be done.Nailedtooth (talk) 23:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I notice that User:Old Moonraker restored this material after you first deleted it, because it was “Deletion of referenced material”, see [5].
We do not simply delete referenced material, and if you think a statement may be unbalanced it is usual to tag it. I would initially suggest adding the [dubious – discuss] tag to any statements that you think are unbalanced or not factually accurate. Then we can talk here about those specific statements.
So I will restore the material, so all can see what we are talking about, and invite you to tag any particular problematic statements. Johnfos (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
There are a number of problems with the article without this edit. First, the news about the new US plant is added to the lede, while there is no mention, or further discussion of the news in the body of the article, in contravention of WP:LEDE. Second, it is a very short announcement, that does not give the name or location of the new plant, or any information about it. Third it is used as a final statement, as if to wrap up the summary story told by the lede, like, 'nuclear power was great, then there were a few hiccups, and now at last it's great again', which puts the lede into contradiction to the fuller story told by the entire article. Lastly, it is clearly unbalanced in that it announces the new plant as if there was no debate or discussion in its approval. The current longer version puts the new plant into a timeline, after the 2011 news items, it gives context, and summarises some of the debate that surrounds it, with brief technical details. I haven't checked the detail of the sourcing for each phrase, but if these are indeed all well referenced, then I see it as clearly an improvement. As a compromise, perhaps a summary of this development could be added to the lede as well, but to be a fair summary, it would have to include some con as well as pro. --Nigelj (talk) 20:28, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Is Nuclear Power Greener?
Although it has been proven again and again by panel error correction models and other research that carbon dioxide emissions decrease with the use of nuclear energy, there are some other questions we should take into consideration. Renewable energy, such as nuclear power, tends to require particular acceptable storage means. We must develop a better technology for the most efficient storage to deal with renewable resources. Basically we will have an issue with keeping up with the demand for electricity production without adequate storage. Another consideration is that a back-up power source is required when dealing with nuclear energy and other renewable resources. This back-up source would most likely be provided by fossil fuel, so in turn we could only just reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by turning to fossil fuel only if necessary. As it stands now we still rely on fossil fuels to keep up with human demand and as a back up, however, we are currently able to cut back on the use of fossil fuels by taking advantage of nuclear power and other renewable resources (Apergis, N., Menyah, K., Payne, J., Wolde-Rufael, Y., (2010). On the casual dynamics between emissions, nuclear energy, renewable energy, and economic growth. Ecological Economics, 69(11), 2255-2260. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.06.014 http://intrweb.org/fms/MRSite/acad/lmbs/RESEARCH%20CENTRES/CIBS/Working%20Papers/Apergis,%20N_,%20Payne,%20E_%20J_,%20Menyah,%20K_%20and%20Wolde-Rufael,%20Y_%20-%20On%20the%20causal%20dynamics%20between%20emissions.pdf).Bnixo006 (talk) 04:13, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Usage -> Fully automatic Soviet era Lighthouses
Today this may look strange, but in pre-GPS era the ship needed Lighthouses. Especially Soviet during a ship movement via the north pole. Of course this Lighthouses was really secluded, and automatic. Energy used was by a special, light nuclear reactors. The sad fact, and not funny is that the Lighthouses are now being demolished, even they no collapsed after Soviet era, by nature, but by thieves of precious metals:http://englishrussia.com/2009/01/06/abandoned-russian-polar-nuclear-lighthouses/— Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.68.103.25 (talk) 01:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
Missing information
This article is not entirely a neutral point of view. It is missing basic information:
"The exhaustion of mineral resources during mining is real. Resource economists do not deny the fact of depletion, nor its long-term impact - that in the absence of other factors, depletion will tend to drive commodity prices up." — World Nuclear Association
"Many power plants, fossil and nuclear, have higher net output in winter than summer .... The cooling in the tower (cooling towers) is by transferring the water's heat to the air…" — World Nuclear Association
"The increase in the global air temperature is an inadequate measure of global warming, which should rather be considered in terms of energy. The ongoing global warming means that heat has been accumulating since 1880 in the air, ground and water. Before explaining this warming by external heat sources, the net heat emissions on Earth must be considered. Such emissions from, e.g., the global use of fossil fuels and nuclear power, must contribute to global warming. The aim of this study is to compare globally accumulated and emitted heat. The heat accumulated in the air corresponds to 6.6% of global warming, while the remaining heat is stored in the ground (31.5%), melting of ice (33.4%) and sea water (28.5%). It was found that the net heat emissions from 1880-2000 correspond to 74% of the accumulated heat, i.e., global warming, during the same period. The missing heat (26%) must have other causes, e.g., the greenhouse effect, the natural variations in the climate and/or the underestimation of net heat emissions. Most measures that have already been taken to combat global warming are also beneficial for the current explanation, though nuclear power is not a solution to (but part of) the problem." — Global energy accumulation and net heat emission
"The researchers also point out a flaw in the nuclear energy argument. Although nuclear power does not produce carbon dioxide emissions in the same way as burning fossil fuels, it does produce heat emissions equivalent to three times the energy of the electricity it generates and so contributes to global warming significantly." — Sicence Daily
I attempted to to include this information with an edit on 14:40, 6 February 2012, though I knew nuclear power is a heated topic and expected some user to disregard references or discount statements in references. Old Moonraker and CyrilleDunant reverted my edit within 20 minutes.
The trouble stems from your removal of all references to nuclear power as a sustainable energy source, not the inclusion of any other information. To give you an idea of the amount of nuclear fuel on the planet, the oceans contain 4.5 billion tonnes of uranium and a vastly larger quantity of thorium, which can be recovered at a respectable EROI. To put this in perspective, nuclear fuel production is limited in the same way sunlight production is limited. The fuel source (uranium in nuclear, hydrogen in the sun) will eventually be consumed, eventually, and a very long eventually at that. Your problem seems to be that you want to present nuclear power as a unsustainable energy source when the available evidence shows it to be sustainable in any practical sense of the word. Just because the article doesn't take your point of view that doesn't mean it's not neutral.Nailedtooth (talk) 01:42, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
A renewable resource doesn't mean completely infinite, but it does mean relatively more sustainable than a finite resource which is mined. To make the similarity between a rare element and a sun, as only "limited". Doesn't factor in the main point of timescales, energy, mass or access. Which both share hardly any resemblance. — RW Marloe (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
It is inaccurate to state that economically-recoverable reserves (including those in seawater) may be effectively inexhaustible. The large-scale economic viability of these tests for recoverable reserves or bioremediation have not been proven, therefore it is purely speculation. The uranium or thorium element may be reclaimed, although the energy contained can only be extracted once and is not by any means inexhaustible. Nuclear fusion may prove to become renewable, although even that has not yet been successful. The conventional types of nuclear power stations and nuclear technology at the present time is not renewable.
This is exactly a point - you cite ONE research, while fail to cite that there are other, which indicate, that no actual problem exits for hundreds years, so in practical terms - currently this is not a problem ( see conservative http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html and more broad http://americanenergyindependence.com/uranium.aspx discussion) . It might be a problem for future. Now if you correctly formulate your objection it will sound like 'in two three thousand years uranium might exhaust'. Correct, but for any sane reader the statement will be indication of a bad article, because this statement is irrelevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SergeyKurdakov (talk • contribs) 18:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Studies may differ about when it may happen, but this is an encyclopedia, include that it may be hundreds or thousands. Why is the statement of uranium depletion irrelevant? Your references substantiate uranium depletion.
"Accurately indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view." - Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
Just because, that if you state in any solar energy article, that Sun will some day gone ( so solar energy is not renewable - because it will cease to exist in billion years ) this will not go. For practical purpose of definition - to use depletion as a real problem for few generations to come. What would happen ( and if uranium be used in thousand years ) is a question. So, if uranium will be depleted in few thousand years or Sun will be gone in few billion years - is not about current nuclear power, no about current renewable energy. To state, ex, that Sun will gone, is just out of common sense and should not be included in Encyclopedia. SergeyKurdakov (talk) 19:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, am I to take it that you mean that local heating from your local nuclear power station is contributing to global warming? "Switching To Nuclear Power Not Enough", on the aggregation source you cite, is talking about the total energy input into all of the physical environment since the end of the nineteenth century. Interesting, but if true why do you apply it specifically to the more recent manifestation that is the nuclear generation industry, please? --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this is local heat emissions into the atmosphere, which seemingly would alter it. I didn't write the article, I'm not singling out nuclear, I was simply attempting to include this missing information and improve the article. The total energy input into all of the physical environment is interesting, comparing electricity generation from renewables that don't produce heat emissions or even any pollution (wind, etc.) and non-renewables that do. These heat emissions are an example of how inefficient nuclear power is. Einstein said "nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water", because that's all it does. — RW Marloe (talk) 18:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Nordell and Gervet are serious scientists, and their work should be included in discussions about global warming. However, the heat accumulation theory is heavily critized and definitely not mainstream. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to include discussion about heat accumulation in articles about global warming, and stay with mainstream ideas in this loosely related article. Energy4All (talk) 19:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
"is peer reviewed" where it is peer reviewed? here a good explanation http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2009/08/myth-of-global-energy-accumulation.html if someone fails to understand, that earth emits additional energy into space ( so the whole process is a balance of additional energy and emitted energy, not a mere accumulation ) ( this is what is really tough to engineers, so this is just basic fact, like 2+2=4 ), and the balance from additional input can be calculated - it gives fractions of 1C, not degrees ( and 70% should give degrees in observable heat) it is definitely is not good science. No need to promote bad science in wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SergeyKurdakov (talk • contribs) 16:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
I see you changed text and now there is a mention to magazine. The problem is that peer review and publishing in popular science magazine is not the same. Your claim on peer reviewed status is your own invention.SergeyKurdakov (talk) 20:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Heat emission from nuclear plants is utterly insignificant to global warming. There's about 400 GW(e) of nuclear, which amounts to less than 2.4 kW(th)/km² of the Earth's surface. Meanwhile the Sun is dumping 250 MW(th)/km² onto the Earth -- 100,000 times as much.
"Solar energy input does not cause any warming over the year, as long as the planet is in thermal balance. Therefore, it is not relevant to compare the net heat emissions with the flux of energy from the sun. What really matters is the change in the energy balance and the occurring net heat emission must, to some extent, contribute to global warming .... Until 2000, the accumulated amount of electricity produced by nuclear power is approximately 0.4.1014 kWh. Since 78% of the world’s nuclear park has an efficiency of 33%, the resulting heat emission from nuclear power plants is 0.8.1014 kWh. Waste heat from nuclear power plants means a very small share of the total heat emissions, but locally, it means a large impact on the recipient. As an example, Sweden’s nuclear power plants generate 70 TWh of electricity, which consequently means that 140 TWh of waste heat is produced and dumped into the sea water. This amount of heat is 40% greater than the annual space heating demand of all buildings in Sweden. It is also a fact that algae blooming in Swedish costal waters occur where this waste heat is dumped. This algae blooming is generally blamed on global warming and this is most likely true, since waste heat is part of the problem." – Global energy accumulation and net heat emission
"Pressurized water reactors (PWR) are generation II nuclear power reactors; they use water under high pressure as coolant and neutron moderator. PWRs are one of the most common types of reactors and are widely used all over the world. More than 230 of them are in use to generate electric power, and several hundred more for naval propulsion .... The efficiency of such a reactor is 33 percent; it means that 33 percent of the heat generated by chain reaction is converted into electricity, and the other 67 percent are released as heat into the atmosphere (cooling towers) or/and into rivers." – Global Warming is mainly a result of Heat Emissions
Of course it's relevant. Somebody else has mentioned Stefan–Boltzmann; heat radiated away from the Earth varies with the 4th power of the temperature. Figure out how much the temperature has to increase to radiate 1.00001 times as much heat.
And your source doesn't seem to understand his own argument. Virtually all of the electricity eventually becomes heat, so he should be multiplying by 3, not 2.
I agree with RW Marloe. The article states, post-Fukushima, that "nuclear energy is safe compared to..." - the source? the World Nuclear Association. Really?! How can it possibly be NPOV when dependent upon such a source? Nonukes (talk) 13:23, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
Nordell & Gervet's reasoning is, as already mentioned, flawed. Furthermore going by their reasoning one comes to the conclusion that a switch to more Geothermal Energy wouldn't be wise at all. As that is an energy source with a thermal efficiency that is even lower than Nuclear powers 10-23% instead of ~33% for Nuclear power, so with geothermal energy, 77 to 90% of the heat is 'waste heat', which would make the Swedish algae problem(if it is in fact caused by waste heat) even worse if they did a switch to geothermal. As Geothermal energy is an energy source that essentially rapidly injects high quantities of heat from deep under our feet into the biosphere, then logically a switch to it would cause even more warming, that is, under their non-mainstream reasoning.
For this reason, and others, to give Nordell & Gervet's opinion a place here on the Nuclear power page would be an example of undue weight, All agreed?
The total waste heat from geothermal is too small to be relevant.Teapeat (talk) 18:09, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Care to provide a reference for that incorrect statement there Teapeat? if you go onto the Geothermal Energy page you will find that the thermal efficiency of it is 10-22%, and as you can find out yourself the thermal efficency of nuclear power is ~33%, Therefore more waste heat is produced from a geothermal energy plant than a Nuclear power plant.
There's no mention in the article about IFRs, though there is a Wiki page for it which points back to here.
This also vastly raises how long the nuclear fuel supply can last. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.102.51.44 (talk) 00:24, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
I've added a link in the See also section. That's a start at least. --Kvng (talk) 00:05, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
poorly written and presented, no mention of Megatons to Megawatts Program and over-reliance on biased anti-nuclear activists like Sovacool.
I can't believe this article made no mention of the megatons to megawatts program under the proliferation section. Talk about biased!
All agreed that it should be included? Seen as it's the number 1 process by which the proliferation risk has been drastically reduced.
Boundarylayer (talk) 00:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Safety of Nuclear power is higher than every other major source of power
As has been mentioned previously, the only reference stating Nuclear power was safer than everything else was an organization that, although authoritative, may appear biased.
So spurred on by that , I added the following references that say the same thing -
In terms of lives lost per unit of electricity delivered, Nuclear power is safer than every other major source of power in the world.
I've seen multiple sources saying the overall expected deaths from wind is 1/10th that of nuclear, and I forget the exact ratios but it doesn't beat hydro or solar either. It's like 1/50th of coal, though. Coal is a mess. I forget what natural gas was. —Cupco 09:14, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
The nuclear industry shills try to include dam failure in the hydro deaths figure. That is like blaming your car stereo for the engine exploding. Hydro in dams is just a nice add-on, it doesn't cause dam failure. The only deaths due to hydro have been when there was an accident at the plant itself, or when the dam was built primarily for the purpose of generating electricity.
Similarly attempts to say wind and solar cause more deaths are ridiculous. They try to count things like builders getting killed while installing panels. You might as well claim roof tiles cause death, and besides which people die building nuclear plants too but strangely no-one seems to have any figures on that.Mojo-chan (talk) 16:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
It is completely reasonable to point out that a highly concentrated, not-very-labour-intensive industry will have many less work accidents than a very decentralised one which employs many more people. This is a fundamental difference between solar-as-panels-on-everyone's roof and nuclear or large hydro. You get both the benefits and the downsides of decentralisation...CyrilleDunant (talk) 21:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
The Wholesale removal of well referenced material by user Mojo-chan
This user has unnecessarily removed and challenged many pieces of information on the nuclear power page without consulting the respective talk page.
For example Here they have inserted words that will lead readers to question many facts.
In reprocessing 95% of spent fuel can potentially be recycled to be returned to usage in a power plant (4).]]
Why the addition of the word 'potentially'? You do, I hope, know that France reprocesses a great deal of their nuclear fuel, right? Therefore there is really no 'potential' about it.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4891
They also entirely removed this reference without giving a reason- Most low-level waste releases very low levels of radioactivity and is only considered radioactive waste because of its history.http://www.nrc.gov/waste/low-level-waste.html
They also entirely removed this section-
Furthermore, although it is commonly reported that Nuclear waste will remain radioactive and therefore, one assumes, highly dangerous for millions of years, it takes from 600 to 5000 years – which is no time at all in geological terms - for the radioactivity of spent fuel/waste to be no more radioactive than the natural uranium ore from which the spent fuel was initially obtained.www.efn.org.au/NucWaste-Comby.pdf international Journal of Environmental Studies, The Solutions for Nuclear waste, December 2005 The relative toxicity of nuclear waste after reprocessing is comparable to barium ore after 600-1000 years.http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionE.htmSimilarly, the Nuclear Engineers; Benedict, Pigford and Levi have also indicated that enriched fuel from light water reactors, subjected to a typical burnup regime will be no more radioactive than the ore from which it was mined, after a period of six hundred years.
Manson Benedict, Thomas H. Pigford, Hans Levi "Nuclear Chemical Engineering" McGraw-Hill, Toronto, 1981. ISBN0-07-004531-3 show data (Figure 11.2)
Thanks for not posting my reply. Here it is, can't be bothered to edit it into your text:
You have unnecessarily removed and challenged many pieces of information on the nuclear power page without consulting the respective talk page.
For example Here you have inserted words that will lead readers to question many facts.
In reprocessing 95% of spent fuel can potentially be recycled to be returned to usage in a power plant (4).]]
Why the addition of the word 'potentially'? You do, I hope, know that France reprocesses a great deal of their nuclear fuel, right? Therefore there is really no 'potential' about it. http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4891
Sure, but nowhere near 95%. That figure seems to include things like thorium reactors, of which there are no commercial scale examples. Mojo-chan (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
You entirely removed this reference without giving a reason- Most low-level waste releases very low levels of radioactivity and is only considered radioactive waste because of its history.http://www.nrc.gov/waste/low-level-waste.html
Because the source doesn't say anything about the waste being considered waste due to history, only that most low level waste has low levels of radioactivity, which is why it is called low level waste. Mojo-chan (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
You also entirely removed this section- Furthermore, although it is commonly reported that Nuclear waste will remain radioactive and therefore, one assumes, highly dangerous for millions of years, it takes from 600 to 5000 years – which is no time at all in geological terms - for the radioactivity of spent fuel/waste to be no more radioactive than the natural uranium ore from which the spent fuel was initially obtained.www.efn.org.au/NucWaste-Comby.pdf international Journal of Environmental Studies, The Solutions for Nuclear waste, December 2005 The relative toxicity of nuclear waste after reprocessing is comparable to barium ore after 600-1000 years.http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionE.htmSimilarly, the Nuclear Engineers; Benedict, Pigford and Levi have also indicated that enriched fuel from light water reactors, subjected to a typical burnup regime will be no more radioactive than the ore from which it was mined, after a period of six hundred years.
Manson Benedict, Thomas H. Pigford, Hans Levi "Nuclear Chemical Engineering" McGraw-Hill, Toronto, 1981. ISBN0-07-004531-3 show data (Figure 11.2)
The problem with that section is that it is highly misleading. 600 years may be "no time at all" in geological terms, but it is longer than any sustained human endeavour so far in the history of mankind and is certainly well beyond what any commercial company or government can claim to have achieved. The human world changed a lot in the last 600 years and the rate of change is only increasing.
I tried to re-write it to account for this but couldn't get the message over in a balanced way. It isn't really relevant to the article anyway, but maybe could be part of the article on nuclear waste if put in the proper context. Mojo-chan (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
You have also given undue weight to the anti-nuclear lawyer Benjamin K. Sovacool who has consistently been shown to be biased and perform questionable studies. For evidence of his bias see Comparisons of life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions
Better references would be useful, but the text stands. Mojo-chan (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
the list really goes on.
About the only edit you have made that is worthy of addition is correcting the spelling mistake 'canceled'.
How about that ridiculous graph showing CO2 going through the roof without nuclear? Mojo-chan (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mojo-chan (talk • contribs)
Misleading caption on photo
The statement "Unlike fossil fuel power plants" in the caption under the photo of Cattenom is quite misleading - it implies that the Cooling Tower plume is something other than water vapour. Cooling Towers on fossil fuel plants are identical to those in nuclear plants! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gproud (talk • contribs) 14:35, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Also the caption, "Unlike fossil fuel power plants, the only substance leaving the cooling towers of nuclear power plants is water vapour and thus does not pollute the air or cause global warming.", links to the article on global warming, which in turn claims, "The major greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36–70% of the greenhouse effect;" - haha — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jlambert (talk • contribs) 18:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Biased references
A note to editors. Please consider the potential bias of your references. For example a few people have quoted various nuclear power trade and government groups studies and claims. Clearly there is a conflict of interest because those groups are involved in the promotion of nuclear power.
The worst example so far was the graph I removed showing CO2 emissions going through the roof if nuclear power was abandoned. It completely ignored all clean energy sources and simply picked the worst possible scenario based on the most polluting sources.
Also note that linking to sites with clever visualizations of data is not a good idea, you should link the original source of the data instead. Mojo-chan (talk) 16:34, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
WP prefers WP:SECONDARY references and these are going to be biased and clever. The trick is to make sure the sources are WP:RELIABLE include a balance of these sources and thus present all sides of a topic. -—Kvng 14:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Your first point is valid, however many of the references in the Nuclear power page presently also include many anti-nuclear biased opinions e.g Benjamin K. Sovacool.
On the second point however you are incorrect, the graph is largely representative of what would happen if Nuclear power was abandoned.(yet we still relied upon the natural nuclear power of Geothermal energy).
Presently Coal & gas are earmarked for making up the short fall in energy in Germany after they decided to abandon civil nuclear power. The Renewable sector heavily relies upon gas plants to remain on with spinning reserve. This may change in the future, but right now the facts are that when a country abandons Nuclear power, it goes to Coal and gas.
I just finished on reorganising the article so it can finally be easily read.
I still am unhappy however with the fact that we are going towards a phase-out in practice, and wish the article to represent some options on how things can be done smarter.
I was thinking to either mention the following idea here (at the Nuclear phase-out section) or at the Nuclear_power_phase-out article:
Many developed countries have decided to phase-out the use of functioning nuclear fission reactors in their country, in favor of renewable energy. This generally involves the decomissioning and disassembly of these nuclear power plants. However, there are still many countries that neighbour developed countries and which still do not generate much (or even any) green energy (electricity produced using low (or zero) carbon-emitting power plants (generating all their power from fossil-fuel power plants). As such, rather than disassembling these nuclear fission power plants, a cheaper and more environmentally-conscious alternative would be to sell these power plants to foreign energy companies, which can then sell green energy subscriptions to its customers. All energy produced from these power plants can be relayed to the country the foreign company originated from (via the power lines; an approach similar to the DESERTEC project). As the power plants are hence no longer in the possession of the state/private national companies, and as none of the energy produced is used within the country, the country can still claim/continue a nuclear phase out.
KVDP (talk) 09:43, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Hey man, I appreciate your input, but I really do not abide by your recent change in layout. The prior layout was much better, as it ended with 'Future of the industry'. Your edit now has the article end with 'Climate Change'. What was the logic behind this change? I think you should revert your edit.
Secondly, wikipedia is not a place for ideas to be presented, it is an encyclopedia, were only well referenced material is to be included. So we can't publish your idea here.
Though for the sake of friendliness I will respond to your suggestion!
You suggest you are unhappy with the 'nuclear phase-out'. However there really is no global phase out, there is actually a slow Nuclear renaissance, perhaps this fact should be better presented in the present article? Even oil rich Saudi Arabia are planning to build tens of new reactors-
You also state- many developed countries have decided to phase out nuclear reactors. However although a few state leaders have said this, it is (1) the exception, not the rule, and (2) unlikely to happen in practice, as you have noted yourself, the whole phase out isn't smart and is more about political point scoring with the green party than about an energy policy based on hard facts like safety and economics.
Germany will undoubtedly do a U-turn as the future increase in Electric vehicles will put an even higher demand, and therefore price, on electricity as demand for Electric-car recharging stations goes up. Therefore logic dictates that Germany won't follow suit on its knee-jerk reaction to an accident that occurred only after nature decided to do a little test run for the Apocalypse with magnitude 9 earthquakes and ~10 meter high tsunamis. Nevertheless, even nature wasn't capable of knocking out Japan's more modern reactors like that at Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant Japan's closest nuclear plant to the epicenter. Furthermore releases only happened in Japan's older reactor designs(the BWR-3 & BWR-4 which represents Units 1-5 but notably not Unit 6 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant unit 6 is of the BWR-5 design, and not only survived the tsunami but is actually still in operation). Anyways the whole Japanese nuclear release has still resulted in a grand total of 0(zero) deaths and will probably only result in a few hundred excess Japanese cancers total in the next few decades.
As for your idea, about selling electricity from one country to another, that is already taking place. For example, Nuclear power in France details how France sells nuclear generated electricity to Germany and makes a cool 3 billion Euros in sales to Neighbors each year. Also of note is that France also has the lowest CO2 emissions per GDP in the world. That is, it's the least carbon intensive 1st world country on the planet. I'm all for Wind & Solar power, but only if they are cost competitive, presently neither are. Just compare the price of a unit of electricity in Coal, wind & solar Germany (25 cents per unit of electricity) with Nuclear France(14 cents per unit of electricity).
As for DESERTEC I wish them the best, I really do, but I'm pretty curious how they plan to deal with the Sahara's tendency to blow up giant sand storms and the resulting sand blasting that will result destroying their solar mirrors and or PV panels in the process, and how will they prevent the likes of local guerilla organizations from driving up and firing the ubiquitous AK-47 at the fragile solar panels turning them into a shattered cathedral of glass? Are they going to have armed guards patrolling the giant perimeter 24/7? and if so, how much will that add to the price of electricity?
Recently there were yet further wild claims made in relation to the 'cheapness of Solar PV'.
The study referenced is false, as it assumes state subsidies will continue indefinitely for Solar. The study http://phys.org/news200578033.html has also not been peer reviewed and it was seemingly only published on this anti-nuclear organizations page. http://www.ncwarn.org/
In sum, please remove this patently incorrect sentence and refrain from publishing fringe non peer reviewed anti-nuclear papers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boundarylayer (talk • contribs) 18:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Added the EIA estimates, but they are completely laughable. Other figures put wind and solar at close to half that, and those can be added. Anti-nuclear can be fringe, but most of it is fact. Likewise some pro-nuclear is fringe. Delphi234 (talk) 21:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
The EIA figures aren't estimates, and if anything you could say they are more pro Coal and Hydropower than pro Nuclear. No serious professional has questioned their study, as they are more or less the same as MIT studies, UK studies etc see- Cost of electricity by source. Therefore their study definitely takes precedence over that which you provided.
Believe me, if Solar in either clear, or cloudy, conditions was cheaper, and had the same capacity factor as Nuclear power(and therefore probably coal too) the whole world would be jumping up and down. I sure would.
WP is not a crystal ball, and can only report on what others report. But all future estimates are clearly estimates. Even a lot of historical costs are estimates. Never mind jumping, all anyone cares about is if they flip the switch the lights come on. Delphi234 (talk) 22:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Ok, removed by Mojo-chan. -- Stratoprutser (talk) 15:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Comparison to natural gas section added
Let me know what you think. It could probably do with a deaths/TWh section and some info on the nuclear waste produced from natural gas. Deep water horizon in the gulf of mexico was an accident caused by a natural gas explosion. Pollution, economics, and deaths/TWh might be a some subheadings to adhere to. Furthermore sabotaging some of those gigantic natural gas storage containers would probably be more likely to be successful and cause more deaths, if you are a terrorist, than attempting to sabotage a nuclear plant. Unless of course you think terrorists routinely command the power of a tsunami.
-Comparison with Natural gas with Carbon capture and storage-
When Natural gas is combined with Carbon capture and storage technology the IPCCs minimum cited CO2 emissions were 65 g CO2/kWh, whilst Nuclear powers mimumum cited CO2 emissions were 1 g CO2/kWh, but as mentioned above, the majority of studies found that average CO2 emissions from nuclear power were 16 g CO2/kWh[1] Moreover Carbon capture and storage technology and other system costs are estimated to increase the cost of energy produced from natural gas by 21–91% for purpose built plants according to the IPCC.[2] The EIA estimates 2016 prices from Advanced Natural gas with Combined cycle and Carbon capture and storage technology will be 89.3 $/MWh while Advanced Nuclear will be more expensive at 113.9 $/MWh[3]
However the report also noted that future fuel prices are inherently unpredictable, therefore as the actual final cost per unit of energy produced from natural gas is highly fuel cost dependent, the final cost of electricity produced by natural gas in 2016 may vary substantially from the 89.3 $/MWh figure stated. In contrast uranium costs could double and electricity prices would largely remain the same, electricity costs would increase by about 7%, whereas doubling the price of natural gas would typically add 70% to the price of electricity from that source.[4][5][6] The EIA's reference prediction made in 2012 predicted that natural gas prices will increase and predicted that the price would be almost double the 2012 value by 2035.[7]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Boundarylayer (talk • contribs) 20:11, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Not relevant at all. Both are non-renewable resources. It is pointless to compare natural gas with nuclear. Delphi234 (talk) 22:25, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Boundarylayer, consider posting your edits here first.Mojo-chan (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
It is relevant(as relevant as a section comparing Nuclear to renewables), countries such as Germany have begun to dubiously regard natural gas as a 'bridge fuel'. It is certainly important that readers are made aware of the two sources economics and safety record.
Moreover, according to the OECD, there is enough Uranium(note no mention of thorium) to last hundreds of thousands of years. That fits the 'renewable' criteria pretty well, as if that is not deemed 'renewable' then it follows that there is nothing renewable about Solar power either, as the sun will continue to increase its luminosity to a point that it boils all the worlds oceans by about 1 billion years time. That means solar energy will run out eventually. It also means that if we do nothing about it Solar energy will fry all life on earth. -See Future of the Earth.
What we class as 'renewable' is really nothing more than a question of time scale. As the Sun isn't going to last for ever either.
You are doing original research again. The article on renewable energy has plenty of references for the definition of that term, and you will note that it does not include nuclear. The argument about gas being used as a bridge fuel (which you don't cite) is irrelevant too because a) it affects nuclear as well and b) the comparison is nuclear and renewables, not nuclear and what we do in the next few years while building up renewables.Mojo-chan (talk) 22:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Geothermal energy is classified as a conventional renewable energy source, however it consumes radioactive decay heat in the ground, with the geothermal electricity page confirming that all geothermal power plants have reduced their output after their peak. Therefore it is illogical for it to be classifed as renewable whereas man made breeder reactor nuclear power is classified as non renewable(by some sources). Indeed that is one of the many reasons why pages such as Nuclear power proposed as renewable energy exists. As Navid Chowdhury pointed out - The IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency), decision that it will not support nuclear energy programs because its a long, complicated process, it produces waste and is relatively risky, proves that their decision has nothing to do with having a sustainable supply of fuelhttp://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph241/chowdhury2/
Returning now to the question of relevance and importance of a seperate natural gas vs nuclear power section in the article:
(A) You claim that natural gas usage affects nuclear as well but where is your source that it affects it to the same degree? You won't find one. The amount of natural gas to support nuclear power plants(in a country without hydropower) is tiny in comparison to the quantity that will be necessary to support intermittent energy sources such as Wind, due to the large difference in capacity factor- wind's ~30% to nuclear's ~90%.Historical and projected world energy use by energy source, 1990-2035, Source: International Energy Outlook 2011, EIA. (B) The comparison to natural gas is actually more relevant than a comparison to conventional renewables, as fossil fuels, such as natural gas,(read-not renewables) will still be supplying the majority of the worlds energy in the future according to the EIA graph on the article page, in part, to support the intermittent conventional renewable technology increase, but most obviously because of increasing demand for energy and the increasing affluence of people.
The point is that your entire argument hinges on two things which you have not provided convincing references for.
A) Nuclear is renewable. If you can show that then don't post about it here, head over to the article and Renewable Energy and add a section on nuclear, see how long it lasts. The editors working on that article are in a far better position to argue it with you than I am. For now I think you will have to accept the accepted and most importantly well referenced definition.
B) That gas is an important consideration when comparing nuclear and renewables. Neither of the references you provided state that. They talk a lot about gas, but don't make the claim that you are trying to support.
I think the EIA also needs further scrutiny as a source. Doing some cursory research it seems that it is heavily influenced by the government's policy of heavily subsidizing and supporting the nuclear industry in the US. The government provides hundreds of billions in insurance and vast subsidies for building and running plants, and also pushes hard for plant licences to be extended. While I'm not making any conclusion here I think this is something we need to consider when evaluating the EIA as a reference. Mojo-chan (talk) 18:40, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Questioning the EIA now are we? unbelievable. Yet you then try and say you're not making any conclusions? To belay your cloaked conspiracy worries(yet again) you should know that the US government also heavily subsidizes the renewable, fossil fuel and every other energy source. Ever heard of Solyndra the solar farm that got 12 billion from the US admininstration? Furthermore the US government has a history of underfunding the nuclear industry just have a look at what happened to the Integral Fast Reactor.
(A) Both the Phénix reactor of the 1970s and the presently operating BN-600 are successful breeder reactors. Nuclear power has been demonstrated to be sustainable, and there is enough U-238 to run in breeder reactors for hundreds of thousands of years according to the OECD, as the article presently points out. See Nuclear power proposed as renewable energy. So nuclear power is just as 'renewable' as geothermal energy which also runs on nuclear processes - nuclear decay.
(B) Gas is an important consideration as gas is in competition with nuclear power to supply base load power. The very fact you deny this is bewildering. I created a separate section dealing with Nuclear and Gas and did not mention renewables once in that section. Why your concerted efforts to censor?
^http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Annex_II.pdf see page 10 Moomaw, W., P. Burgherr, G. Heath, M. Lenzen, J. Nyboer, A. Verbruggen, 2011: Annex II: Methodology. IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation
In brief, resources are rising faster than consumption. Table 2 shows Red Book identified resources, undiscovered resources, and the number of reactor years of fuel provided by those resources. Based on the total projected Red Book resources recoverable at a cost less than $130/kg (2006$) of about 13 million metric tons (hence about an 80 year supply for 800 reactors), most commentators conclude that a half century of unimpeded growth is possible, especially since resources costing several hundred dollars per kilogram (not estimated in the Red Book) would also be economically usable...We believe that the world-wide supply of uranium ore is sufficient to fuel the deployment of 1000 reactors over the next half century.
Put the material back in Mojo chan, it wouldn't be remiss if you stopped editing this page either. Your censorship compulsion is anti-science. There was no need to remove the material that you have. You have consistently been caught out doing this. Why do you persist?
Boundarylayer (talk) 11:09, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Boundarylayer, you need to edit this page a bit more clearly. It isn't obvious what you are even talking about. The source you present is a good one, and provides a further citation that there is an adequate supply of uranium. However, the article already has sources for that and includes that information. I'm not sure what you are in a flap about. Mojo-chan (talk) 20:52, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Are you being intentionally facetious? This MIT paper provides support for the parapgraph you recently censored that discusses the low cost of nuclear power, even if uranium prices were to double. In case you really have forgotten, You completely removed the previous paragraph that touches on this in the article and then came here to claim it was all from biased references above. Again, I ask you to please reinsert the paragraph that deals with the buffering of final electricity costs.
Does anyone know of any renewable energy waste that is either stored or reprocessed? Wind, no. Solar, no. Wave, no. Hydro, no. Geothermal, no. Tidal, no. Biofuel, no. Biomass, has ashes, but that neither needs to be stored or reprocessed. I would suggest removing that qualification in the comparison with renewable energy. Delphi234 (talk) 22:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Incorrect. Your list should look more like this - Yes, Yes, No, No, Yes, No Yes, Yes.
Both Wind and Solar manufacture produce considerable amounts of toxic waste. Your lack of familiarity with this, and your lack of willingness to even do a quick web search on the matter strikes me as evidence that you really are not qualified to edit this page. Silicon tetrachloride and Cadmium telluride dumping in China from solar photovoltaic manufacture is a considerable problem. look it up. Here -
The Nuclear industry is about the only energy industry that is responsible with its waste and spends a great amount of time and money putting the waste as far away from people as possible/deep underground repository. You won't find the Wind or Solar manufacturers doing that, nor will you find western companies complaining to China because they're getting 'cheap' solar panels from them due to China cutting corners in safety.
Circa 1990 wind turbines? That was when they were about 100 kW, not 3 to 5 MW. The Majestic Wind Farm in Texas was constructed using 173 m3/MW of concrete for its 1.5 MW wind turbines. From a 2004 publication "Turbines in the 1 to 2 MW range typically use 130 to 240 m3 of concrete for the foundation", or roughly 120 m3/MW. In 2009, the United States installed 9,453 MW using an average of 137.5 m3/MW of concrete (1.7 million cubic yards). Maintenance costs are pretty low for today's wind turbines as well, and have been declining over the years. This section needs a lot of clean up. There is no need to go into details such as this, as it is not relevant. Delphi234 (talk) 08:45, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
And "over twice as much"? Since when is 21 more than 2 times 11.39? No wonder we are forbidden from doing original research. Delphi234 (talk) 09:49, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
The production and dumping of toxic waste is not inherent to the manufacture of solar PV. The production and long term storage is inherent to nuclear power. Mojo-chan (talk) 16:50, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Exactly. Also, there was a summary that was removed, and I would like to add:
The biggest differences between renewable energy and nuclear power are:
Nuclear power plants require fuel
Nuclear power requires the use of radioactivity
Nuclear power has higher maintenance costs
When things go wrong in a nuclear plant the cost is greater
Nuclear has the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation
Maintenance was removed[6] because of a 2008 study that put the maintenance costs of nuclear at 10 euro/MWh, wood at 8 euro, and wind at 11 euro, but since then wind maintenance has reduced substantially. A 38% decrease from 2008 to 2012 would drop 11 euro/MWh to less than 7. The contracts are going for "EUR 19,200 per MW annually" in 2012. At 30% capacity factor (CF) that works out to 7.3 euro/MWh.[7][8] European wind farms typically have less than 30% capacity factor, American ones typically are greater than 30%, and the latest trend in wind farms is to shoot for 50% CF (using bigger blades). A recently installed solar farm even though it uses single axis tracking, was designed to have zero maintenance over its 20 year life. Wind farms and solar farms do not require plant operators to constantly monitor and control their operation. Everything is automated. Delphi234 (talk) 21:33, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Some big claims there, have any references?Mojo-chan (talk) 22:11, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Mr Delphi, (1) the fuel supply is guaranteed for a century at the very least with current tech(obviously, the supply is sustainable indefinitely with breeder reactors) see Peak uranium and uranium mined from sea water, coal ash etc. (2) Geothermal energy also requires the use of radioactivity. (3) Moreover Nuclear power has lower maintenance costs per unit of energy delivered as provided elsewhere on this talk page. (4)when things go wrong in a hydroelectric dam such as Banqiao dam the cost is higher. (5) Nuclear reactors can be used to save lives with radiopharmaceuticals and also make weapons, it's a triple edged sword. It can potentially make power and medicine, but also weapons depending on reactor design. Furthemore you should look up nuclear peace which details how essentially if it were not for nuclear weapons then WWIII would have happened, as they scared the bejeesus out of both sides in the cold war preventing either side from thinking they could have a conventional war and 'win'. The ultimate weapon is one you never have to use. In this respect Nuclear weapons have been keeping the peace.
Maintenance costs per actual unit of energy produced is lowest for nuclear power
http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/
Click on 'variable operating costs' and hover your cursor over it to get the description. which I'll paraphrase-
Maintenance costs paid per unit of energy produced
So it has the lowest actual maintenance costs per unit of actual energy delivered.
Boundarylayer (talk) 11:12, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
I notice that site is rather thin on detail. I clicked on the "assumptions" link and got some useless sources an no explanation. For example, do those costs include decommissioning and accidents? I am guessing that it doesn't include accidents because there was no change in 2011 or 2012 due to the hundreds of billions of Euros added to the cost by Fukushima. Also, these sources disagree:
I'll say it one more time for you. Don't just look for one reference that supports your existing point of view, find multiple references that give a balanced overview and evaluate them without preconceptions or prejudice. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be adversarial, editors are not supposed to try to out-do each other with sources all the time. Mojo-chan (talk) 17:50, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
You are confusing what the sources state. The Maintenance costs paid per unit of energy produced is the more valuable benchmark by which to compare energy sources, not, maintenance costs irregardless of how much energy is produced; which is what the other references state. Indeed The reference http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/does not contradict the other references in this regard, it also upholds the fact that nuclear has higher fixed maintenance costs( i.e costs that have to be paid irrespective of how much energy has been produced, e.g the maintenance costs for your wind turbine that isn't producing energy would be lower/cheaper than the maintenance costs if your nuclear reactor isn't producing energy). However when comparing maintenance costs per unit of energy produced, nuclear has the lowest maintenance costs when you compare it to every other source of energy, as the reference displays.
As for decommissioning and waste costs, this has nothing to do with maintenance, but to answer your query, as the source is American it therefore most definitely includes decommissioning costs - see Nuclear Waste Policy Act - in the final LCOE(levelzed cost of electricity) which the source also displays. As you should be aware, a fraction of thĠe cost of electricity that customers pay goes into the pot for decommissioning and waste. Polluters-pay(unlike all other industries).
The source also shows that in a comparison with Wind and Nuclear, both have comparable LCOE costs in the reference http://en.openei.org/apps/TCDB/ however I fail to see your point, specifically what does LCOE have to do with which energy source has the lowest maintenance costs per unit of energy delivered? I would also like to make you aware, it is plainly obvious in your writing that you appear overly suspicious of sources showing nuclear power in a favorable light, but you do not seem to put other energy sources through the same rigorous suspicion, when they are shown in a favorable light, for example, are the LCOE costs of hydro plants, wind turbines and so on inclusive of the decommissioning cost necessary for the decommissioning of dams and wind towers, and so on, when they reach their end of life? Where are these energy sources equivalent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act? I am not aware(maybe you are) of a wind Hydro etc. decommissioning policy act? Does one even exist? I don't think so.
If you were truly impartial you would question all energy sources in this way. However, you did not even ask yourself this balanced and intellectually honest question. If no such wind and hydro decommissioning policy act exists, then shouldn't we also be wondering who is going to pay for them when their decommissioning day comes?
Furthermore, Do you even know what the word maintenance means, its related to, but not equal to, LCOE my friend. Now don't get me wrong, LCOE should obviously be included in the comparison to renewables, along with other data like nuclears ~90% capacity factor, and Wind's ~40%.
Moreover, why would maintenance costs(or LCOE for that matter) include potential accident costs? For example, If a hurricane hits and takes out a load of wind turbines, sending rotors sailing into peoples bedrooms etc. That isn't maintenance costs that is accident costs. Similarly hydro power and wind turbine maintenance costs don't include dam and turbine nacelle fires. As they are accident costs my friend. Accident costs are a different subject altogether, It would be good to see a balanced study done on the subject of accident costs, but I am willing to bet Hydro accident costs are probably comparable to nuclear with wind probably being lower than both, would you agree? However unfortunately we don't have any non-biased references discussing this. Only Sovacool - who has demonstrated, time and again, to be biased against nuclear power. Even going to the extent of writing a book on the subject. So Sovacool is equivalent to the Nuclear industry, both likely to be equivalently biased.
So putting aside all these issues you have brought up, and I have discussed, I ask, once again, how does this have anything got to do with maintenance costs per unit of energy delivered?
The important difference between fixed and variable operating costs should be presented in the article.
As should LCOE and capacity factor also be included. Now, are you willing to work together to improve the article in this way; Do you have any other subjects which you think fair to include in the comparison with renewables? total life cycle CO2 emissions for example? I of course agree that the negatively perceived Weapons Proliferation concerns, for example, should definitely be in the article, as should the positive Megatons to Megawatts, life saving radiopharmaceuticals, Cobalt-60 food sterilization, and smoke alarm Americium-241positive proliferation benefits of nuclear power. Can you just imagine for a second just how many lives all those technologies have saved?
If the source is supposed to show maintenance costs per unit of energy produced then it is even more broken then I first thought. When over 50 reactors went offline in Japan and the cost of checking them for damage, upgrading them and cleaning up the accident was added the graph doesn't reflect that. Clearly there was a very large and sudden fall in the amount of energy produced and a very large and sudden increase in the cost of maintenance to produce it.
You go on to state that clean-up costs are probably included in the figure, but it would appear not. Also note that they vary around the world - for example in the US it is acceptable to simply entomb the reactor indefinitely which leaves the land unusable for anything else, where as in most parts of Europe it has to be returned to the condition it was in before the reactor was build which is much more expensive. Time scales are also important, with current UK plants projected to take around 80-90 years to decommission.
You are doing it again. Looking for sources that support your point of view. Look carefully at what I just wrote. I am not stating an opinion or making a case, merely questioning the quality of your source. You are making a passionate argument containing your own original research. That is not what we want on Wikipedia. I'll say it again: WP is not a platform for your views. Get a blog.
I'm not convinced there should be a comparison with renewables section. Most of that stuff should either be in the second on safety or in the articles for the various forms of renewable energy. The debate about if nuclear should be considered a clean source of energy is worth including, but that isn't really anything to do with renewables. Mojo-chan (talk) 22:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
To again display your misled understanding of what occurs in the nuclear sector, you wrote -in the US it is acceptable to simply entomb the reactor indefinitely which leaves the land unusable for anything else... However according to the NRC who actually oversee decommissioning, Entomb is not practiced at all. That is, it has NEVER happened. READ - http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html
The best practices in decommissioning are to allow the short lived radioactive material to decay within the power plant after it has been shut down, and once this has occurred and it is now safe to do so, the whole power plant is reverted to Greenfield status.
You are really not improving the article, or talk page for that matter, at all by consistently stating falsehoods that only require a modicum of your time to actually look up. Why do you consistently show not the least regard for getting your facts straight before spreading what amounts to misinformation at worst, and willful ignorance at best?
As for your made up assertion that maintenance costs were added to the graph, you wrote- when the cost of checking them for damage, upgrading them and cleaning up the accident was added the graph doesn't reflect that.
Did you personally add it to the graph? I don't think so, and neither does the graph reflect your opinion. In case you are not aware, the only reason why Fukushima I failed was because(1) its sea wall was too short(in direct contrast to the situation at Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant- the closest reactor complex to the earthquake) and (2) its back-up cooling systems were in the basement and therefore vulnerable to flooding damage. Modern reactors use passive safety features and as the name suggests, they do not require back up diesel generators. Therefore why do you assume that modern reactor maintenance costs will go up when they are not at all vulnerable in this respect?
Either way, the references don't support your our POV/personal opinions. So stop your misinformation campaign, thank you.
You are just repeating what I say now. You accuse me of being Scottish, insult me, abuse the bold attribute, but most frustratingly of all you ignore completely what people are telling you. Pretty much everything you write is just your opinion and the Wikipedia is not a platform for you to express it. What this all boils down to is that your edits are always simply to promote what you believe is the correct point of view, rather than a balanced overview of reliable sources.
BTW, you are wrong about entombing: http://www.unep.org/yearbook/2012/pdfs/UYB_2012_CH_3.pdf According to the UN there are five reactors in the US that have been entombed. If you check the exact working of the source you cited it doesn't dispute that because it is only talking about a subset of all the reactors in the US. This is typical of your work - complete, misleading and basically the first thing you found that supports what you think is correct. Mojo-chan (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
As for this, which you think proves some point - http://www.unep.org/yearbook/2012/pdfs/UYB_2012_CH_3.pdf Yes 5 NONE power reactors have been entombed. That is, 5 production reactors have been entombed, but in case you've forgotten, production reactors are a completely different reactor design to power reactors and produce an order of magnitude more waste than power reactors Mojo chan. It cites one of the production reactors at the Savannah River Site as being entombed. Did you look up Savannah River Site Mojo chan? Did read how it produced no electricity, and just plutonium? Nope you did not even look this up. Therefore you're again being misleading and spreading misinformation about Nuclear Power.
I'm not wasting any more time arguing with you while you endlessly change the subject. Address the quality of your edits or don't expect a reply. Mojo-chan (talk) 20:55, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Wow the hypocrisy. First you challenge what the source states in relation to maintenance and LCOE power reactor(nuclear power) costs with your own irrelevant POV statement, which had nothing to do with power reactors - in the US it is acceptable to simply entomb the reactor indefinitely.
Finally, upon painstakingly beating you over the head with what both the NRC and UN reports actually state, and you realize you have been talking utter misleading nonsense about nuclear power, with statements like - in the US it is acceptable to simply entomb, Instead of simply admitting your error, you try and cover it up with the accusation that I'm changing the subject. When really, it is crystal clear to anyone that is reading this that, you were the one trying to shoe horn what the UN report was saying in regards to production reactors into somehow being relevant information for Nuclear power and maintenance costs. The UN report were not talking about power reactors at all. So how was your rant about production reactor entombing anything got to do with nuclear power, and specifically, power reactor costs? I'm still waiting for an answer. Your attempts at filibustering are really getting tedious, stay on topic Mojo-chan, this is not a discussion on production reactor costs, this is the nuclear power page and in case you have forgotten, you were trying to challenge the references cost data on nuclear power with irrelevant information on production reactors, in what can only be described as a display of honest ignorance at best, and at worst an effort to be intentionally misleading.
Stop screaming, you sound hysterical. You realize that no-one, not even me, is reading the pages and pages of ranting you keep posting. Notice how I only ever bother to reply to the first sentence of the first paragraph. It's nice that you are willing to invest so much time editing Wikipedia, but we generally prefer quality over quantity. Mojo-chan (talk) 11:12, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
If you're not reading what he says you're just pretending to argue with him. I've read everything both of you have said and he's making more sense now than you are, mostly because you're not actually making any arguments. Nailedtooth (talk) 17:06, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
Really? Listen to the guy, he talks about my "rants" and yet you say I'm not even making any arguments. Can't both be right. Anyway, I made my argument a few pages ago. The idea of editing Wikipedia is not to go looking for specific references to support your point of view, especially when many of them are from companies or industry groups with a stake in nuclear power. Is there any measure why which UraniumWorld.org could be considered a good source? Can you even tell me who is behind it or where the data comes from? How can the World Nuclear Association or American Energy Independence be considered unbiased or meeting Wikipedia's guidelines? BoundaryLayer has not made any serious effort to justify his use of these sources. I'm not repeating this any more. Address it please. Mojo-chan (talk) 11:04, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Why are you now attempting to change the subject? You are once again talking about an issue we have discussed elsewhere on the talk page. Specifically under the Biased references heading, I have replied to your filibustering there, you however, never responded.
Moreover, you know fine well that I did not post those exact references in the article as you are now trying to claim, some previous editor did. All I have done is simply defend what they had to say as other more authoritative references also support their conclusions.
The paragraph with those references that you completely wiped from the article discussed the small factor the price of the nuclear fuel plays in respect to the final cost of electricity,- That is, the price of fuel makes up ~5% of the actual final electricity cost, and therefore a doubling of fuel price doesn't cause an appreciable large change in the price of electricity to customers, as a doubling in say, Gas prices would). This is a fact that the Energy Information Administration, MIT and anyone who looks at the costs all corroborate. Capital costs in nuclear power are the main deciding factor on the final price of electricity, not fuel prices. The only person who has ever even tried to contend this is this Mojo-chan fellow.
Without the hot air refers to ExternE. And In fact it says " Nuclear and wind are the best, with death rates below 0.2 per GWy. Hydroelectricity is the best of all according to the EU study, but comes out worst in the Paul Scherrer Institute’s study, because the latter surveyed a different set of countries."
Agreed, it is all basically bunk from blog posts, other un-notable sources and nuclear industry shill sites that have an obvious and extreme bias. There are too man bad references and too many examples of inferences and conclusions being drawn that they do not support (original research).Mojo-chan (talk) 16:54, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
So in [12], assumable the Paul Scherrer Institute's report, used for 'Without the hot air', it is concluded that Energy-related accident risks in non-OECD countries are distinctly higher than in OECD countries. That probably goes for all compared technologies. Furthermore: Expected fatality rates are lowest for western hydropower and nuclear power plants. This results in low associated external costs. However, the maximum credible consequences are very large. The corresponding risk valuation is subject to stakeholder value judgments and can be pursued in multi-criteria decision analysis. (p. 6) Now I'm guessing that we are right in the middle of such a value judgement process. And IMO it would be misleading to put "facts", figures as being conclusive for any side of the equation. Anyway it seems to me not so useful in the matter to quote a book called "without (whose??) hot air"... -- Stratoprutser (talk) 20:47, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17876910 Lancet. 2007 Sep 15;370(9591):979-90. Electricity generation and health. - Nuclear power has lower electricity related health risks than Coal, Oil, & gas. ...the health burdens are appreciably smaller for generation from natural gas, and lower still for nuclear power. The papers summary then runs on about the public hysteria about nuclear power, which although certainly true,(although reactors have the potential for large deaths, the same is true for hydroelectric dam accidents like Banqiao dam) The paper, nevertheless further adds evidence that all your concerted efforts at questioning the impeccable safety record for nuclear power is clearly just a shining anti-science POV on your behalves.
One thing that annoys me about the people who accept, as the author does, that nuclear power is the safest form of energy, is that they so often then perform some sort of grand cognitive dissonance and start talking about potential this and potential that. They always completely fail to mention that nuclear reactors also save millions of lives each year with radiation therapy and diagnostics, thats an ongoing reality and not a 'potential'. For example the fission product(some call it nuclear waste) Yttrium-90 is produced from Uranium in research reactors and is used in medicine, there are also many other radiopharmaceuticals, You might contort; well they're mostly made in research reactors and not power reactors boundarylayer ;-| .Granted that is presently the case, but likewise it is also presently the case that weapons grade material is produced in production reactors, and not modern Gen III power reactors. So really, if you want to be fair, a modern reactor has about the same potential to be converted to produce medicines- and save millions, as it does to be converted to produce weapons - and potentially kill. However, I digress.
There is also an EU commission report I have in my archives that I'll dig out sometime in the next week or two to put your arguments to rest, and it does include the total predicted ~30,000 fatalities expected to occur because of Chornobyl until the year ~2080, and nuclear power still comes out safer than all other major sources of power. I'm not trying to downplay a possible 30,000 premature deaths, but in the face of alternatives, for example, you don't want to look up the number of deaths that occur every year in the US alone due to Coal pollution such as particulate matter. Furthermore I will offer my rebuttal to your rhetorical questions later. Until then, take care.
Page 965. Comparing Nuclear's latent deaths with other energy sources immediate deaths per unit of energy generated(GWeyr). It is unfortunate the study does not include Fossil fuel's latent deaths due to particulate matter(smog induced Cardiopulmonary events etc.) and the predicted fossil fuel linked global warming induced latent deaths and evacuations. How and ever, even comparing Nuclear's immediate & latent deaths per unit of energy generated with other sources immediate deaths only per unit of energy generated(GWe), nuclear power is still the safest form of mass energy, comparable to Hydro power.
If you are wondering how many deaths are predicted to occur due to Chernobyl, the study purposefully picked the higher end of the scale of estimated latent deaths. - Studies by EC/IAEA/WHO and UNSCEAR formed the main basis for the numerical estimates of total latent fatalities associated with Chernobyl, supported by numerous sources including the Russian ones. Estimated latent fatalities due to delayed cancers range from 9000 (Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and Belarus) to 33,000 (entire northern hemisphere) over the next 70 years (Hirschberg et al.1998), indicating that the upper range in PSI’s estimate is conservative (as intended) because it was not limited to the most contaminated areas.
Certain editors keep referring to sources that have obvious bias by way of being associated with the nuclear industry. They may occasionally be fine for certain citations, but in general most of what they say can't be considered NPOV or reliable. Here are a few examples, please add to them:
Please try to keep in mind that anyone funded by the nuclear industry clearly has a conflict of interest. Most national nuclear associations fall into this category. Even much of the OECD's material is problematic because they support nuclear energy on economic grounds. Mojo-chan (talk) 18:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Unverifiable probably a shill and may be independent. Sigh. Why didn't you just attach 'dubious tags' and we could have worked together to provide references that you feel better reflect a neutral point of view? Why do you have a constant desire to remove factual material?
You need to look at your sources a bit harder. For example oilprice.com is produced by CNBC, which is part owned by General Electric. world-nuclear.org is an industry group, not an independent and reliable source of unbiased information. Mojo-chan (talk) 22:29, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
You need to stop being so paranoid. General Electric designs wind turbines, Solar panels, gas turbines and nuclear reactors. Therefore it has no real conflict of interest, and thus neither does CNBC nor the twice removed oilprice.com
You really are reaching here Mojo-chan. As for word-nuclear.org, here I would agree with you if it alone was stating something not supported by any other independent source, but I think you'll find it is reliable, as the other 3 references state the very same thing. Again, you are reaching.
If you want to talk biased references you have no further to look than all the misinformation in the article by Benjamin K. Sovacool and other anti-nuclear activists. Funny how you have no qualms about their opinions being plastered up on the page when no respectable unbiased entity or agency agrees with them on nuclear power.
You need to get out of this "renewable vs. nuclear" mindset. Just because GE does renewables as well doesn't mean they are a reliable unbiased source on nuclear, since clearly they stand to benefit hugely from promoting it. Remember the fit you had when you thought I was Scottish and thus stood to benefit from renewables? You were so upset you had to write it in bold.
Sovacool is an academic with established credentials. Feel free to provide citations of his bias for consideration though. By "citations" I don't mean "your opinion that someone he wrote is biased". Obviously if you show there is a problem we will have to do something about it. Mojo-chan (talk) 23:08, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Benjamin K. Sovacool is not an unbiased person, (1) He's a lawyer not a scientists, so your use of the word academic is questionable (2) He's written a book on why he doesn't like Nuclear Power, which has more half-truths than the Bible, and most importantly (3) Actual academics have singled him out for his use of the sloppy, biased and discredited Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen work, (4) Sovacool uses statistical methods from kindergarten, taking of a mean value from other studies, rather than using the 50th percentile- percentiles are the standard procedure in statistics, and lastly once he gets his mean value, he then compares this mean value against only the favorable studies on wind etc. (i.e he skews the playing field), and concludes - oh nuclear is 5 times less effective at combating climate change than wind. If he was really unbiased he would have applied his same methodology to all other energy sources, or just kept quiet until someone else applied the same methodology to other energy sources, he of course did not. See here - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421509005102
You may not have access to that paper, but the amount of errors and bias in his paper really shine out. "Most recently, Sovacool(2008) calculated a mean value for the overall emissions by averaging the global results of 19 LCA [Life-Cycle Analysis] studies forming a subset of, as stated by the author, 'the most current, original and transparent studies' out of 103 studies. However, a critical assessment reveals that a majority of the studies representing the upper part of the spectrum are studies that can be traced back to the same input data and performed by the same author, namely Storm van Leeuwen. After careful analysis, it must be concluded that the mix of selected LCAs results in a skewed and distorted collection of different results available in the literature. Furthermore, since many studies use different energy mixes and other assumptions, averaging GHG emissions of those studies is no sound method to calculate an overall emission coefficient, as it gives no site specific information needed for policy makers to base their decisions.
Finally, you know you are totally reaching with oil price, GE(who don't even own oil price) stand to benefit no matter what energy source is chosen. It doesn't really matter anyway, the EIA say the same thing, fuel prices are ~0.5 cent/kWh of the price of electricity. Triple the price of fuel, and the price goes up by 1 cent. Triple the price of gas, and the price goes up ~30 cents/kWh.
As expected you just posted your opinion and a useless reference that other editors can't even read. I note that on the very Wikipedia page you linked to it states (with citations) that he is currently an academic and was one at another institution in the past. Academics sometimes disagree. I'm not wasting my time on this rubbish. Mojo-chan (talk) 20:56, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
We do not expect our reliable sources to be unbiased. We work with biased sources as carefully as we can, with respect to giving the reader the proper balance of mainstream versus minor viewpoints versus fringe positions. Binksternet (talk) 21:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Mojo-chan Yes, he's an academic lawyer, not an academic scientist, there is a difference. Please show me a single scientific credential, or that he has any scientific training? Does he have any? no. I do not know how you hold these two viewpoints concurrently, you write - You need to look at your sources a bit harder. For example oilprice.com is produced by CNBC, which is part owned by General Electric. Then when the tables are turned and they don't like it, they write I'm not wasting my time on this rubbish in what can only be regarded as a nice display of routine inconsistency from my friend. Not a single reliable scientific source supports Sovacool, not a shred of support, However that which was published by oilprice.com is supported by numerous scientific publications which can be found in the Deaths/TWh section of this talk page. That useless rubbish Mojochan calls is a peer reviewed paper published by a team of actual certificate holding scientists in a scientific journal ( read- not the demonstrably misleading, scientifically discredited publications of an anti-nuclear lawyer). I've no doubt Sovacool is an academic lawyer, possibly even a good one at that, but an authority on nuclear power, warranting the amount of weight he is given in this encyclopedia article on nuclear power? Please.
I really never cease to be amazed by my friend mojo chan, how someone can call a peer reviewed paper a useless reference as they do is entirely beyond me. Everyone is free to read the paper by asking their local University nicely, that is, if they do not already have a subscription like many editors here do. All other editors, who are affiliated with a college, or ask nicely at their local College, can read it. Secondly, the opinions are not mine, they are of those who published the paper, and the paper is a correct exposure of how Sovacool's methods are unsound and statistically skewed. It is not a matter of disagreeing, it is a matter of whether or not he is consistent with his methodology, and factually correct. As Sovacool has a book on why he does not like nuclear power, and his publications have been discredited, he should be toned down in the article, as he is given too much weight. For example, his opinions in the decommissioning section and the greenhouse gas section of the article are not at all substantiated, the reality of affairs is in direct contradiction to his opinion.
I wouldn't mind if he was factually correct on the issues he raises, and just had a differing viewpoint, that would certainly be fine(eveyone's entitled to their own view), but he is not factually correct, and therefore he is not encyclopedic.
Binksternet I disagree, you should expect truly reliable sources to be unbiased. Now, I'm not advocating Sovacool to be removed completely, on the contrary, I think he serves as a good example of the anti-scientific tactics used by some within the anti-nuclear power movement, and if pushed by someone I might even fight to keep him in the article if someone were to want to censor him entirely,(Something Mojochan is quick to do with many of my scientific sources). I'm simply advocating that the references that lead to him, should be attributed to him, and that his undue weight in the article be toned down. Furthermore, and I cannot stress enough, it is really not a matter of viewpoint, it is a matter of whether or not what he writes is factually correct or not. He has been called out on numerous statements and publications of his by actual scientists, so therefore, whichever editor has included him so neurotically as often in the article as he presently is are pushing an unencyclopedic and factually incorrect source. Sovacool is given pride of place in the article, this would be akin to giving the likes of factually incorrect anti-global warming advocates or anti-vaccination advocates undue weight in the global warming and MMR Vaccine page, and stating their opinions as fact without first declaring according to Benjamin K. Sovacool... or in respect to vaccines, according to Andrew Wakefield.... So you really have to ask yourselves, is it the job of an encyclopedia to give, (like the media do - because it sells paper,) equal weight to both parties - those that have the weight of evidence on their side, with those that are scientifically discredited. Or is it our job to give ~90% of the weight to those with the evidence on their sides, and ~10% to those that have been discredited. Controversy and debate may be juicer to some editors, but to me encyclopedias should rather be about actually displaying which side, the evidence supports/ which side is factually correct.
- total world energy consumption over time: past, present and projections for the future, e.g. 142,300 TWh (2008)
- % of nuclear power in this total energy consumption over time, e.g. 8,238 TWh/142,300 TWh (2008) = 5.79%
- tons of nuclear ore used to generate this % of power, e.g. 325.000 ton
- tons of nuclear ore used/necessary to generate/replace all power by nuclear power, e.g. 5,613,923 ton
- uranium reserves, e.g. 4,700.000 ton how many years this will enable to provide power in 3 scenario's, a.o. one where all citizens of the planet have equal right to a decent minimum amount of power as per Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Millennium Development Goals
- thorium reserves, how many years this will enable to provide power in 3 scenario's
- uranium and thorium reserves combined, how many years this will enable to provide power in 3 scenario's
I've put one another figure I could google quickly in this open google [13] docs-spreadsheet. You'll find above e.g. figures in it.
Thy --SvenAERTS (talk) 21:23, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
PS
For a chapter on sustainability to have sense, these points/figures must be gathered.
Projections into the future are always wrong. While I commend your efforts and agree that some ink should be given to these projections I have to make you aware that despite the fact that I too used to be an adherent to your line of thinking, as it is seductively simple, it ultimately stands on too many shaky assumptions to be taken seriously. Extrapolating and plotting resource use versus proven reserves far into the future is a fallacy, and here's why-
For example, whether it be Uranium Oil or Coal, (1) new resources will undoubtedly be found in the future,(2) new methods of extracting these resources will come on stream e.g the high profile fracking process and (3) more efficient use of these resources are always developed, for example compare the efficiency increase of the 1950s generation I reactors to the likely ~2020 Generation IV reactors. Case in point, have a look at the proven technology of the Supercritical water reactor which has a thermal efficiency of 45%, whereas all the reactors currently in operation are at no more than 33% thermal efficiency.
Moreover, Breeder reactors pretty much ensure Nuclear power will be sustainable long after the sun runs out of protons to fuse and humanity is long off this rock.
Here's a famous incidence of the fallacy of extrapolating into the future based on a tiny data set.
Extending straight lines too far beyond the present, is risky business, as noted by no less a scientific authority than Mark Twain. In "Life on the Mississippi" Twain noted that the Mississippi river was getting progressively shorter (mainly by floods--and by people--creating shortcuts through bends in the river) and he wrote: If I wanted to be one of those scientific people, and "let on" to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the far future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity is here! ... Please observe:
In the space of one hundred and seventy six years the lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average over a mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the lower Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the lower Mississippi was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty years from now the lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and will be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment in fact.
Obviously extrapolating too far out is a bunch of nonsense, which this anecdote neatly points out.
Another great example of how these sustainable extrapolations are nonsense, have a look at the first 7-15 minutes of the video Milton Friedman - Energy Policy, you won't be disappointed.
I understand your point about scenario building / modeling. In "boring" wikipedia, we just try to make an encyclopedia based upon references. I'm frustrated that on a matter as important as energy, we can't find even some basic data, numbers and facts. With this whole global climate destabilization happening, it seems like a major contribution if we can speed up the wikipedia chapters on all these topics. If nuclear power has its place, then let's get the data, models, calculators, simulators, etc. on the table with references where the data have been discussed and found an agreement. I hope professionals from atomic agencies etc. are allowed to prop up wikipedia with all data they come up with. Help ! --SvenAERTS (talk) 12:53, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
We need to do something about Boundarylayer. I don't have time to sit on this article reverting is crap all the time. Can we get a moderator in please? Mojo-chan (talk) 22:52, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
SvenAERTS I agree that it would be ideal if more information was available, however you'd be surprised, many independent bodies do publish the data I think you are looking for. Have you tried the 2008 International Energy Agency World energy output publications?
I believe you might find what you're looking for there. Again though, Peak Oil doesn't appear like its going to be happening any time soon, which is unfortunate from a climate standpoint, as demand for oil and fossil fuels is set to continue, innovators will proceed to find new wells and new profitable ways of extracting it, such as extracting oil from unconventional Oil shale reserves. Necessity being the mother of all invention. A fact that is a real double edged sword in this case.
If however electric cars are supported by a grid that can supply cheap electricity to customers, then perhaps the demand for oil will diminish and the world economy wouldn't be so addicted to oil, therefore cheaper alternatives to fossil fuels are essential for a prosperous Low-carbon economy to be realistic. The two countries with the cheapest electricity(and therefore the two set to benefit most from electric cars) are France and Bulgaria.
See the prices here - http://www.energy.eu/, France, as you probably already know, produces the majority of its electricity from nuclear power see- nuclear power in france, and Bulgaria can provide cheap electricity because it was blessed with the geography suitable for extracting cheap electricity from hydropower, but which it also complements with a substantial amount of cheap nuclear power. See Energy in Bulgaria.
If cheap electricity is supplied, a prosperous Low-carbon economy becomes realistic. Otherwise people will tend to go for the cheaper option to fuel their cars and heat their homes, and sadly this is still via Fossil fuels in many countries, with France and Bulgaria being exceptions due largely to their cheap nuclear and hydro generated electricity.
Mojo-chan You don't, as you contend “sit on this article”. I asked you to reinsert a graph in October Here but you never responded. I'm still awaiting a response by the way.
All you appear to do comrade is remove large sections of well sourced material and then come up with faulty POV reasons for doing so.
By all means if you would like to get an outside moderator to look at the issue, go ahead.
Having come back to this page to continue the productive discussion SvenAERTS and I were having, I noticed that once again you've taken it upon yourself to remove large stretches of the article without posting first here on the talk page.
Boundarylayer, your response above highlights the problem with your attitude to this article. You clearly have strong opinions and they create bias in your work. For example you often cite nuclear industry sources which are clearly useless as NPOV references because they have an obvious and strong bias. Those guys have a vested, monetary interest in promoting nuclear power.
That terrible graph is a perfect example. Yeah, if we turned off all nuclear plants and replaced them with the worst possible coal fired ones and did absolutely nothing to capture the carbon then yeah, it might have some relevance. The simple fact is that it is scaremongering, and obviously so. Is there any country in the world proposing what it suggests? Is there any person in the world suggesting it?
The nuclear industry is in a panic as major first world countries decide to completely ditch it, so is producing huge amounts of FUD at the moment, which you are repeating. For example, you state "with France and Bulgaria being exceptions due largely to their cheap nuclear and hydro generated electricity" above. According to the EU (http://www.energy.eu/#Domestic-Elec) electricity in France costs almost exactly the same as it does in the UK, which has far less nuclear power. Bulgaria's low electricity price has nothing to do with nuclear and everything to do with low tax and high subsidy, since otherwise most people living there couldn't afford to turn on a light bulb. As evidence check Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_Europe_by_monthly_average_wage) which states that Bulgarians earn 17% of what someone in the UK does on average.
Most of what you keep posting is original research at best, and tries desperately to put a positive spin on everything. It's like that claim that evacuating people from around Fukushima killed more people than the radiation would. Apart from the fact that the claim itself is disputed, even if true it is irrelevant since at the time it was the only reasonable decision when faced with the unknown but clearly serious scale of the disaster. Do you expect the government to see into the future? All the stuff about how people took shelter at nuclear plants is totally irrelevant as well, having nothing to do with nuclear power safety. If there had been any other type of power plant there people would still have gathered there due to the central location and lack of other big buildings to set up a shelter in.
If you really want to put it all back in then post it here first and I'll shred it for you, then whatever is left and others agree on we can put in the article. I asked you to do that once before but you didn't.Mojo-chan (talk) 20:41, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Boundarylayer, reading your talk page it seems this is not the only instance of you not understanding NPOV. I suggest reading the tutorial. Looking at your other edits you seem to have a pro-nuclear agenda, posting all kinda of clearly biased stuff about anti-nuclear groups and describing material that disagrees with your POV as libellous. What exactly are you doing? Do you work for the nuclear industry? What is your interest, why do you take this POV? Mojo-chan (talk) 19:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
Mojo-chan yet again seeing conspiracies behind everything, As an example of his desire to remove all the well referenced facts about Nuclear power that he personally doesn't agree with, note this entire section he removed, according to what he just said, the EU are part of this grand conspiracy, why else would he remove the material? Leaving aside the fact the very same study he removed here on the Nuclear power page has been sitting on the Hydroelectricity#Reduced_CO2_emissions page for years now without so much as a contention being made by anyone else, simply because it is a rigourous study and NO respectable body has issued the faintest iota of criticism towards it, simply put, only Mojochan has a problem with it.-
This is just one of a number of instances of this user Mojochan removing material that he just does not like-
A major EU funded research study known as ExternE, or externality of Energy, undertaken over the period of 1995 to 2005 found that the cost of producing electricity from coal or oil would double over its present value, and the cost of electricity production from gas would increase by 30% if external costs such as damage to the environment and to human health, from the particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, chromium VI and arsenic emissions produced by these sources, were taken into account.
It was estimated in the study that these external, downstream, fossil fuel costs amount up to 1-2% of the EU’s entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and this was before the external cost of global warming from these sources was even included.[1] The study also found that the cost to the environment and to human health from Nuclear power, per unit of energy delivered, was lower than that caused by biomass and Photovoltaic solar panels, but was marginally higher than the external costs associated with Wind power and alpine Hydropower.[2]
I'd love to see Mojochan try attempting to “shred” this reference. I really don't have the time to deal with someone so clearly biased against facts and simple reality.
Yes the UK has almost as low an electricity price rate as France, but France provides the holy grail- cheap electricity prices and low CO2 emissions. France produces ~1/10 the CO2 per GDP as the UK. Why is that, you may ask? because despite the UK operating a few nuclear power plants, unlike France, it still operates a massive amount of Coal and gas power plants. Which you should know produce massive amounts of CO2 and is aggravating global warming.
You clearly did not read - nuclear power in france
In respect to Bulgaria, have you any references that back up your wild claim that the government their subsidize the price of electricity moreso than in the UK?
No you don't.
In fact the opposite of what you claim is true, Bulgarians actually have a HIGHER rate of taxation and VAT on their electricity bill than the British. A total of 16.71 % of a Bulgarians electricity bill goes towards taxes and VAT, whereas the richer UK population just pay 4.75% of their bill in taxes and VAT, yet Bulgarians still have the lowest residential electricity price rate in Europe, followed by the French.
See table 2-
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Energy_price_statistics
BoundaryLayer, the reference you cite about external costs does not say what you claim it says. For example you claim that nuclear has lower external costs that solar PV is clearly bollocks, being based on a single data point in a sparsely populated table. The document does not draw the conclusions that you do, so at best it is Original Research and in any case wrong. You selected certain facts that support your point of view very carefully. Again, please try to understand what NPOV is.
Your argument about the cost of nuclear power is destroyed by your own reference. Countries like Greece that don't have any nuclear power are as cheap as France. Again, your reference does not say what you claim it says, you are drawing conclusions that it does not make. It is Original Research, based on a carefully selects stats you found to support your own point of view.
Find references that back up your claims and have some credibility (i.e. not from or funded by industry shills).Mojo-chan (talk) 23:14, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Once again you show contempt for rigorous EU studies, and use inappropriate language. I am sorry that you are wrong, and you feel the need to lash out at others when you are. However you demonstrate a complete disregard for science, and a censorship compulsion if anyone writes anything that you preceive as positive in relation to nuclear power. Quite frankly I do not understand your unwillingness to accept the reality of affairs, nor do I understand why you continue to censor studies that are sitting on other pages without contention?
This EU study done by competent professionals( read- people who aren't 'industry shills' as you put it)-
on page 35, figure 9, it demonstrates in very clear terms that the externality/cost to the environment from PV solar is HIGHER than that of nuclear power plants.
On page 37 it states- Nuclear external costs are below 0.19 c€/kWh.... Monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) panels of European fabrication, installed in Southern Europe cause nearly 0.28 c€/kWh, which would mean 0.41 c€/kWh for the average yield of 800 kWh/kWpeak·a in Central Europe. ::Assuming improvements in manufacturing technology of crystalline silicon, improved cell efficiency and an expanded photovoltaic market, 0.21 c€/kWh has been estimated for future (2010) systems...Hydropower exhibits the lowest external costs of all systems, below 0.05 c€/kWh, but.
You do realize Nuclears 0.19 cents is below Solars 0.41- 0.21 cents...right? That's basic counting How many times do we have to go over this?
What YOU removed from this nuclear power page was all references to this study and my summary of the studies findings. -The study found that the cost to the environment and to human health from Nuclear power, per unit of energy delivered, was lower than that caused by biomass and Photovoltaic solar panels, but was marginally higher than the external costs associated with Wind power and alpine Hydropower.
That is exactly what the study found, so what's your problem with it? and why the hurling of insults?
Moving on now to what we were discussing previously, and not what was once in the article, haven't you read- Cost of electricity by source yet, all the references you seek are there. Hydro, Coal, Gas, Wind & Nuclear all have the lowest price per unit of electricity delivered. Solar & biomass are far more expensive right now! As for Greece, Yes, they have relatively cheap electricity, but only due to their use of coal. They would save the environment if they built Wind, Nuclear or more Hydro plants. Unfortunately however because they have a lot of cheap lignite they produce most of the countries power from that. See List of power stations in Greece. Everyone knows that hydroelectricity and Coal based fuels are still the two cheapest ways to produce electricity. However as we both know, Coal based fuels do produce a considerable amount of downstream pollution that has historically not been incorporated into the final price. As The EU study I linked above puts the externality cost of all fossil fuels at 0.6-2 cents per kWh because of CO2 and other pollutants effects on the economy which is naturally linked to the environment.
My point is the same, and you completely ignored or misunderstood it. I'm not saying that the EU's study is not accurate, I'm saying it doesn't draw the conclusions you think it does. Where is the sentence in that report that supports your argument? It isn't there. You are doing your own interpretation of the results they found, i.e. original research.
I did read the article you mention about the cost of electricity by source, and it has many many issues of its own. Don't try to change the subject, address the point I have put to you. Where does your reference back up your claim? Mojo-chan (talk) 11:48, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
The use of the word bollocks is classified as inappropriate language. Furthermore, you removed the following reference from the article and have still not furnished a single reason why you removed it. You alledged on the 17th of January that, and I quote, the reference you cite about external costs does not say what you claim it says. For example you claim that nuclear has lower external costs that solar PV is clearly bollocks... Once again Mojochan you are wrong the EU study does state that fact: Nuclears external cost of 0.19 cents/kWh is lower than Solars 0.28 and 0.21 cents/kWh. I simply summarized the studies findings. Page 37 the external/environmental costs of each energy source.
Nuclear external costs are below 0.19 c€/kWh....Monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) panels of European fabrication, installed in Southern Europe cause nearly 0.28 c€/kWh, which would mean 0.41 c€/kWhfor the average yield of 800 kWh/kWpeak·a in Central Europe.Assuming improvements in manufacturing technology of crystalline silicon, improved cell efficiency and an expanded photovoltaic market, 0.21 c€/kWh has been estimated for future (2010) systems...Hydropower exhibits the lowest external costs of all systems, below 0.05 c€/kWhbut this may increase on sites were higher direct emission of GHG from the surface of reservoir occur.
So where exactly did I mislead readers with the following edit ->
The answer of course is, I did not. The following is an accurate summary of what the reference states, yet you removed all reference to this study and its findings.
Bollocks is not swearing. This was proven in court. My dictionary lists it. Maybe things are different where you live, but that's the nature of the internet and the various English variants I'm afraid.
Okay, on this one limited point I put my hands up and say you were right. When I looked at the reference I saw a different document with just a table in it, only two or three pages long. I think the references got confused somewhere along the line of all the edits. Post your proposed edit on this talk page first and we can agree it. Everything else I said stands. Mojo-chan (talk) 18:26, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
You put your hands up a month ago and admitted your error, yet there has not been a single sign that you have made any efforts to fix your censorship compulsion, nor any signs of you putting the data I presented back into the article.
I'll try again, using your favourite attribute: Post your proposed edit on this talk page first and we can agree it.Mojo-chan (talk) 14:53, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
My proposed edit was in the article before you removed it. Please take a look at it. Unless you now forget what you removed? As for the bold, ok you got me, I really love using bold, as I'm half blind and to sum up a salient point, bold helps greatly.
^http://www.externe.info/externe_2006/exterpols.html ExternE-Pol, External costs of current and advanced electricity systems, associated with emissions from the
operation of power plants and with the rest of the energy chain, final technical report. See figure 9, 9b and figure 11
Dam failure
Dam failure related deaths are not countable towards hydro power. A dam with hydro is primarily a dam in most cases, and none that were built primarily to generate electricity have ever failed. There has never been a single incident where the hydroelectric power itself caused dam failure either.
Of course hydro has had deaths, just not from dam failure. Dams have had deaths from dam failure. Mojo-chan (talk) 12:17, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Interesting attempts to change the criteria to fit your own world views. Despite only you two having this opinion, and it not being endorsed by any of the references, and therefore your own point being rendered completely invalid, I will entertain your point for friendlinesses sake, You see, you have essentially contradicted yourself by writing - none that were built primarily to generate electricity have ever failed.- Well apart from the obvious fact that is completely false see List of hydroelectric power station failures, The RBMK reactor(used at Chornobyl) wasn't designed 'primarily' to generate electricity either! So if you want to exclude all generating devices that were not designed 'primarily' for electricity production, you exclude the Chornobyl accident along with that rationale! I count this now as ~12 edits made by you two that are completely your own anti-science points of view.
We could also include that some failed dams were not built for hydro-elctricity but hydro-mechanical power, such as the Dale Dike Reservoir which was built to supply water to power mills. It failed nearly immediately after it was built, causing a flood and 244 direct fatalities. Energy is energy, so there is no effective difference between hydro-mechanical power dams and hydro-electric power dams. Furthermore, Boundrylayer is correct about the RBMK reactors at Chernobyl. Nearly every feature they were designed with allows them to efficiently produce plutonium for nuclear bombs. The fact that they also produced electricity was a convenient bonus for the Soviets rather than the intended purpose. However, personally, I'd rather we didn't go about nitpicking over minor semantic or definitional questions and instead went about the business of actually improving the article. Nailedtooth (talk) 16:07, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree comrade, however I was simply responding to Mojo-chans attempts at skewing the playing field by attempting to do his own redefining of total life cycle(LCA) energy deaths. I however do not see how I can add to the article, when every time I do Mojo-chan completely edits/censors, the material as frequently as he does. I have explained numerous issues to and walked him through things, but although at times he has put his hands up, and admitted he was wrong, he has taken no measures to correct his own mistakes. It is, as I've said refreshing to be greeted with someone else that appears to have a familiarity with this subject.
Thank you again for giving your two cents! What are your particular ideas on improving the article?
There is a flaw in your logic, BoundaryLayer. You say that there are no supporting references showing that dam failure deaths are not counted towards hydro power deaths, but that is trying to prove a negative. There are many, many sources referenced on the hydro page that don't mention dam failures because... well, why would they?
Your point about Chernobyl misses the point entirely. The original design was to produce weapons grade plutonium, but the specific reactors that failed were built for civilian energy production purposes.
Look at it another way. Imagine if someone was hurt in a car accident because the brakes failed. They wouldn't blame the radio. The car has a radio, but its primary purpose is not to allow you to listen to the radio. The radio is just a nice extra feature tacked on to a device designed to get you from A to B. It failed in its primary purpose, and just happened to have a radio in it at the time.
Stop making ad hominem attacks. Mojo-chan (talk) 23:12, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
You are entitled to your personal opinion mojo chan, but without references backing up any of your statements, or even a logical display in the form of a scientific rebuttal to the numerous safety studies, you are simply doing nothing but infecting this talk page with you own POV, and not to mention parroting fallacies. You constantly assume your personal opinion is somehow more important than peer reviewed risk assessments made by safety experts in the field.
I originally wrote a response to your car radio analogy, but then I thought, why am I wasting my time, your analogy is so broken and twisted to fit your own way of thinking it is entirely beyond recovery.
You may not be aware of this, but on my talk page someone who has had to deal with you before communicated to me you had an anti-science 'I know best' attitude when it came to being an editor, I have tried to forget their summation of your character and to accommodate you, to let my own experience color my opinion of you rather than what someone else has said, but I'm afraid you have not changed one iota. Their analysis of your behavior was more accurate than I even thought possible.
Do you even know what "ad hominem" means? Look it up and try again. Mojo-chan (talk) 14:54, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Improving the article
Some areas were this article falls down is that -
President Obama said nuclear power is no panacea, but we'll need it.
(1) More emphasis should be given to the low total life cycle deaths from nuclear in comparison to all other forms of energy, including the Lancet paper I presented here on the talk page, and including latent cancer deaths, with the Chernobyl death toll sadly dominating the deaths from nuclear, a predicted to be 4000-30,000 total by 2065 according to most authoritative analyses e.g the UN, this compares to the instant deaths from the Banqiao dam disaster ~30,000, with latent deaths in the 100,000s.
Lives saved by the use of nuclear powerhttp://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3051197?source=cenPrevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power - Nuclear power plants have saved approximately 80,000 lives from dying by displacing fossil fuel use, which results in many direct and indirect deaths e.g particulate matter, fossil fuels that would have been burned, and therefore people that would have died if nuclear power never existed.
(2) More emphasis given to the fact that Nuclear power is the only dispatchable/reliable low-carbon power energy source, poised for full grid penetration everywhere in the world, with the ability to supply not only grid base load power and therefore entirely replace Coal but also to replace a lot of fossil aka natural gas, as nuclear power plants can operate to meet grid load following needs/ Nuclear power is capable of replacing Coal and Gas with yesterdays technology (see Nuclear power in france), without any costly upgrades in grids e.g European Super Grid which would be necessary for wind and Solar to have the same capabilities as nuclear power. As Nuclear power in France points out, they're already producing the lowest CO2 of any industrialized country per GDP, were ~80% of the electricity is provided by nuclear.
It is often claimed that nuclear stations are inflexible in their output, implying that other forms of energy would be required to meet peak demand. While that is true for the vast majority of reactors, this is no longer true of at least some modern designs.[1]
Nuclear plants are routinely used in load following mode on a large scale in France.[2] Unit A at the German Biblis Nuclear Power Plant is designed to in- and decrease its output 15% per minute between 40 and 100% of its nominal power.[3]
(3) Provable reserves of uranium are available, evidence of which is also here on the talk page.
(4) impact on the environment and health(including Wind Bird deaths)- I originally had the ExternE study/'Externality of energy' material in the article but Mojo-chan removed it. The three lowest impact energy sources were Hydro(alpine) Wind and Nuclear, with Hydro(alpine) the lowest.
(5)Resource usage. The amount of steel concrete etc. per MW in comparison to other energy sources. Nuclear power plants require more concrete and steel than Gas plants, but less concrete and steel per MW than Wind power. The USGS have some good info on the present and prediction 2030 Wind data that I have on my talk page, and the data on the AP1000 was already given but removed(because others scoffed at because it compared Nuclear from the 70s with Wind from the 90s). Well the USGS give present and future wind steel and concrete requirements in a Tons/MW format so that reason is now void.
(6)More emphasis showing Chernobyl can't happen in OECD countries which have a containment building as standard, unlike the Chernobyl RMBK(Soviet) design. Just have a look at the amount of material released after four of the six reactors in the Fukushima I power plant went out of control, these four combined they have emitted about 20% of the total radiation emitted by 1 ruskie reactor-Chernobyl. Proving that Containment buildings have, and do, work.
(7) More emphasis on the AP1000 construction by the Chinese ~30 reactors are being built, under budget and on schedule, with plans to build more. The EPR isn't doing so well, but we should be fair and state that if more reactors were built the costs would come down(as with everything- the economies of scale)
(7) More emphasis that Nuclear power already has a proven design, its safety was demonstrated with the Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant being the closest to the earthquake and tsunami in japan 2011.
(8) Nuclear safety concerns with nuclear power are paramount. I grew up with an almost supernatural fear of all things nuclear due to indoctrination by the TV. Can Nuclear power plants explode like a nuclear bomb? etc. these were all questions I had and no doubt others will continue to have them: Gwyneth Cravens (previously an anti-nuclear protester) has an excellent talk where she expresses all those usual 20 questions and how she sifted the scaremongering from the reality. http://cravenspowertosavetheworld.com/
(9) Atomic Obsession is also a book to reference a good bit about the near impossibility of terrorists actually being able to pull anything off with nuclear material(not least of which because most terrorists are incompetents).
(10)Did I mention that the United Arab emirates are building nuclear reactors? An oil rich nation! Oil is getting mighty expensive these days.
Of course we should have a balance to the article, and that's were Mojo chan(anti-nuclear folk) should come to raise questions and so on, but the material should be challenged and discussed first, not simply deleted! Areas(and valid points are that) the industry needs to improve waste management(although there's not a lot of it by volume, it's Uranium so its very dense, it takes up 19 times less space than water on a mass by mass comparison.) Fast reactors and Deep geological storage solve the waste issue. Most people recoil at the thought of putting radiation into the ground. Although, did you know that its standard practice in the Gas industry? Just look up what they do with Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material the gas guys just inject it back into the ground. So what's the problem? The EPA state the gas industry practice of injecting their nuclear waste back into the ground(where it should go after all). geological storage of nuclear waste is standard in other industries.
(11)Proliferation. This is a valid(although vanishingly small but massive 'if') risk. Proliferation resistant reactors like Thorium reactors should be given more ink. Furthermore the following document gives a balanced look at the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership which is a plan for new countries to get their fuel from stable countries like the USA, France etc. instead of them going it alone like Iran. The partnership, if implemented, would remove the need for countries to build their own enrichment and reprocessing facilities, if it was in place now Iran would have no rational explanation(other than a nefarious, or quite possibly an energy security rationale one) for continuing its enrichment program if it was offered a boat load of low enriched fuel. - page 16 http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-update2009.pdf
Furthermore, although not very popular(and initially hard to accept) Nuclear peace should be presented as it counters the argument against trying to stop proliferation. Kenneth Waltz a leading international affairs author argues 'more countries with nuclear weapons= more deterrence and therefore less war' via the stability-instability paradox.
Water usage is not much different and therefore comparable to a gas and coal plant of the same power output and cooling loop system- http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5923
Nuclear technology cannot be put back into the bottle. Its benefits and pitfalls are with us no matter what we do, better to engage and rationally appraise the dangers than to cower away.
We're going to need Nuclear power for colonizing space and achieving Kardashev civilization status. NASA are again working on a Nuclear Thermal Rocket engine.
Boundarylayer (talk) 17:02, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Nuclear power is a largely non dispatchable energy supply in fact. Nuclear power plants are designed to run more or less flat-out as much as possible, with only occasional scheduled shut-downs for maintenance. That's because the nuclear reactions are time consuming to both start and stop, and because the plants are really expensive to build, so you want them running 24x7 to help recover the build costs.
This causes problems, because demand largely follows the daylight cycle, and this also adds to the costs, because you really want energy storage on the grid.Teapeat (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Any references to back up your wild claim that nuclear power isn't really dispatchable? Is this just your opinion, and that you want the (similarly really expensive) energy storage instead? In both cases you are incorrect. The EIA classify Nuclear power as dispatchable. The article's references already confirm this(unless you censored it). Secondly, 'Throttling' of nuclear reactions is also standard procedure, France do quite a bit of load following with their reactors. A separate question is : Is that the most efficient use of fuel? no, but that's not unusual, the throttling of coal and gas plants also doesn't produce a scenario with the most efficient use of the fuel. However that doesn't stop them from being classified as dispatchable, which is what I think you are trying to argue.
It's used nearly always as baseload power due to its relatively poor dispatchability. See Base_load_power_plant#Base_load_power_plant_usage. Countries with large amount of nuclear generally have to have hydroelectric power of some kind for temporary storage. Also see Nuclear power in France.Teapeat (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Your opinion is not supported by what the EIA, nor any other energy agency, have stated, and that is nuclear power is dispatchable (because it is, contrary to your POV). Nor, for that matter, is it supported by the internal wikipedia links you have provided. Nuclear power plants are routinely operated in load following mode, especially in France. Furthermore, the European Pressurized Reactor has been designed to have even greater ability to load follow than the current Generation II reactors.
Again, even though I've asked twice now, you have still yet to supply a single references to support your POV. I'll explain it to you again, just because it is usually used for baseload doesn't exclude it from operating in load following mode. They are not mutually exclusive capabilities friend.
From the Nuclear power station page - It is often claimed that nuclear stations are inflexible in their output, implying that other forms of energy would be required to meet peak demand. While that is true for the vast majority of reactors, this is no longer true of at least some modern designs.[4]
Nuclear plants are routinely used in load following mode on a large scale in France(see Nuclear power in france.[2] Unit A at the German Biblis Nuclear Power Plant, designed in the 1970s, the reactor is designed to in- and decrease its output 15% per minute between 40 and 100% of its nominal power.[5]
You replied to yourself in order to contradict yourself. BL, sometimes you crack me up :-) Mojo-chan (talk) 14:56, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm not replying to myself, I'm replying to Teapeat who appears to have ran away, I'm also just collating the information in one place to help with eventually fixing the article and presenting the reality of affairs. The reason why I included the claverton reference above was to lure him in, of course the claverton reference above is false, as load following in Germany and France is done routinely in old reactor designs, so I'm not contradicting myself. As I've been saying all along, just because nuclear power is generally used as a base load power source does not exclude it from routinely operating in load following mode, France do it all the time. & just try and find me one energy source that is more efficient in load following mode than in base load mode. You won't find one. All power plants operating in load following mode, that includes hydro, nuclear and gas, are all less efficient,(in comparison to the efficiency when operating in base load) when operated in this way.
It's the same when you look at 'mileage' in your car, your car is designed to be most efficient in its fuel usage at the speed that the designers of the car assumed you would most often be speeding along at. No point designing a car to be most efficient in fuel usage when its going at a snails pace if customers want to be driving faster than this. So the speed designers generally settle on is at a speed of approximately 80 km/h, any speed lower or higher than that produces a situation were a less efficient use of fuel results,(in 'mileage' units of liter of fuel consumed per kilometer of distance traveled). Just look up to compare, or experimentally measure, your cars mileage under 'highway' and city conditions. You will find you have better fuel efficiency under highway conditions, because all the starting and stopping in city conditions(akin to load following) results in a less efficient usage of fuel.
It's not a lot to do with efficiency, it's to do with cost. Nuclear power plants are quite costly per kilowatt; (with all forms of supply cost of energy is mostly infrastructure, and nuclear power plants have got almost all the stuff you have with a coal-fired power station, plus a nuclear reactor, plus the containment building, plus extra cooling requirements) so the only way to bring the cost per kilowatt hour down is to run them more or less flat out; that way you get (say) twice as much energy for almost the same (high) cost. That brings the cost of the electricity (almost) in line with coal, gas and wind, which only normally run at a ~25 - ~60% capacity factor, but which they can do because they're cheaper to build. If you run nuclear in load following mode, that electricity's kWh cost doubles or whatever, and starts to look very uneconomic. So wherever possible you don't. That's why the UK for example madly started building hydro power storage when it looked like they were going to use lots of nuclear, but that stalled right out when Chernobyl and Three Mile Island went down.Teapeat (talk) 22:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
France already have a fair amount of hydroelectricity, so they can trade off running just some of their reactors more expensively in load following mode with just scheduling the hydropower as they need it. France naturally has advantages for nuclear power deployment just due to their geography.Teapeat (talk) 22:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
Efficiency and cost are intrinsically related Teapeat. if your car isn't efficient in burning fuel, it is going to cost more to run. So it has a lot to do with efficiency.
France only have 10-15% of their energy supplied by hydro, but 75-80% from nuclear power. They also have one of the lowest electricity cost rates in Europe despite their 'inefficient' load following, the 7th cheapest in the EU for that matter. I know anti-nuclear folks don't like to accept this, but you need to look at reality as of 2013 and stop looking at decades old 1960s technology to support your unsubstantiated view. Just read - Nuclear power in france, a country that does lots of load following with decades old nuclear reactors, and notice too on that page that with the popularity of electric cars increasing year on year, greater demand will be put on the electricity grids of the world as everyone plugs in, this will make Base load power sources far more attractive than intermittent power sources. This is going to make base load power plants, (a role which nuclear power plants fill quite well, even by your own admission) far more attractive as time goes by and automotive fuel and home heating costs continue to rise, and that, is an inescapable fact my friend.
Nuclear power produces electricity at a cheaper rate than all 'new renewables', see the references in the other sections of this talk page, yes the upfront cost of nuclear power is high, but like a hydroelectric plant you get a big solid nameplate ~1000+ MW energy source that will last 60+ years out of the bargain when it's built. Wind and Solar are small fry, the biggest Wind turbine is ~2-5 MW nameplate and will last ~25 years(if you're lucky), and due to the weather, Wind's power output is intermittent, operating at that nameplate installed capacity only 20-40% of the time. Come back to me when you jot-up how much Wind power will cost to supply what a nuclear plant does: 1000-1650 MW's 80-90% of the time for 60+ years. Moreover Babcock and Wilcox's recently(Feb 2013) approved B&W mPower a Small modular reactor is an alternative to large reactors if you don't think large reactors can economically load follow(which they can). SMR's follow the design philosophy of economies of manufacture(exemplified by the model T) and Wind turbines, rather than economies of scale - which is the design philosophy behind the massive 1650 MW European Pressurized Reactor.
Moreover, Wind and Solar are not even regarded as dispatchable by the EIA, let alone load following, only Hydro and Nuclear power can economically preform load following. I generally don't like sound bites, but as NASA climate scientist James Hansen has noted, a modern world run on 100% renewables is equivalent to believing in the easter bunny or tooth fairy.
Nothing new, MIThttp://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-full.pdf on page 48 to 49 determined the same thing years ago, but rightly pointed out, as I do below, that this methodology of projecting past experience onto the future is simply not realistic. With regard to implementation of the global growth scenario during the period 2005-2055 both the historical and the PRA(probabilistic risk assessment) data show an unacceptable accident frequency.... We believe a ten-fold reduction in the likelihood of a serious reactor accident,a core damage frequency of 1 in 100,000 reactor- years is a desirable goal and is also possible, based on claims of advanced LWR designers, that we believe plausible. n fact, advanced LWR designers claim that their plant designs already meet this goal, with even further reduction possible.
In the words of Wolfgang Pauli, the German papers' fantasy number of 1 severe accident every 10 or 20 years is -Not even wrong. A total bunk number, and easily demonstrated to be so. Do you know of any severe reactor accidents in Europe 10 years ago? Or even a severe accident 20 years ago in Europe? Didn't think so. Now, you may be wondering, how did these chemists arrive at this obviously fantastically high severe accident rate? Well no surprise, in the link you provided it reads- To determine the likelihood of a nuclear meltdown, the researchers applied a simple calculation. - oh that seems rigorous alright, as is - The Mainz researchers did not distinguish ages and types of reactors. Wow I'm amazed, what a shining example of scientific rigor, in their fantasy scenario, a 14 meter high tsunami hits Europe sometime soon, and not only that, no reactor owner learns a single thing from the lessons learned at Fukushima I. Both are highly likely, because Europe has a record for events like that right? and we just stubbornly refuse to learn from accidents, right? It seems anything will get published these days.
A simple thought experiment - How about I do a calculation of the accident rate of your car, but wait for the kicker, I base my car accident rate from data collected from crashes from cars that are decades old, I'll pick the soviet Model T Ford for example. Now, would you then regard the result to be in any way useful, in the real world, to give you a feeling of how safe your actual modern car is? I really hope not, but yet this is exactly the methodology these German's have presented as scientific. You know, I wonder if this same sloppy safety analysis methodology is entertained when discussing the safety of other objects, say airplanes? Would you think it is scientific to project the accident rate of 1960s designed airplanes onto those from the 1980s? Or even from the 2000s? and whilst doing so, not even correct for the various types of aircraft from those decades? I hope you wouldn't think so. The difference is like night and day, ~1960s designed Chernobyl and Fukushima I vs the ~1970s designed closest reactor to the earthquake & tsunami that struck Japan in 2011 If you assume one is as accident prone as the other, you produce fantastical junk numbers. But what else can you expect when you assume instead of rigorously analyze? You always get Garbage in, garbage out.
^Robert Gerwin: Kernkraft heute und morgen: Kernforschung und Kerntechnik als Chance unserer Zeit. (english Nuclear power today and tomorrow: Nuclear research as chance of our time) In: Bild d. Wissenschaft. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1971. ISBN3-421-02262-3.
^Robert Gerwin: Kernkraft heute und morgen: Kernforschung und Kerntechnik als Chance unserer Zeit. (english Nuclear power today and tomorrow: Nuclear research as chance of our time) In: Bild d. Wissenschaft. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1971. ISBN3-421-02262-3.
