Talk:Nuclear power phase-out/Archive 1

Original article

It is disappointing to see such a politically-biased article as this in an encyclopedia. Simesa 12:04, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

The article is indeed biased. -- Ec5618 16:30, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Then, why don't you make it unbiased? It's a new article after all if you know what it means, smart guys. Ben ^T/_C 04:29, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting my English and for your efforts to discuss the arguments against the phase-out. I didn't think it was extemely biased, it was maybe short in arguments. I think that's ok now and I removed the tag. Ben ^T/_C 05:34, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I believe Wikiettiqute is that the NPOV sticker should be removed by Ec5618.

I find the line "The gradual closing down of nuclear power plants has been bought with concessions in questions of safety" to be highly suspect. I'd want to see a citation of who said that.

Simesa 06:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

So, do you think it's a dubious argument or it is dubious somebody has said it? I think it is maybe a dubious argument, but it is easily understood in context. Maybe you look again. I made it easier. Ben ^T/_C 07:15, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

As for the NPOV tag, it is practice to state reasons for inserting it before putting it. After relevant changes have been made and approved of it can be removed. That's the procedure. Ec5618 just jumped the point where you state the points in question, i.e. without the discussion. So, I found it appropriate after changing the whole article, to remove it - without discussion.

Oh, and as for etiquette, keep it in mind and read your first statement again. Maybe you learn something. Ben ^T/_C 07:20, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

The question is WHO said it - Wikipedia doesn't quote anonymous sources. Especially since [1], by the Director of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety says exactly the opposite.

I agree with Ec5618 that the article still isn't NPOV, so I'm changing the article.

Simesa 07:53, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

If you would have read the section, you might have noticed that the people who criticize the phase-out and the minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety aren't exactly the same people. In fact they are different people (surprise). So it is not accidental that they might have diverging opinions. What is your point, the minister states the opposite, so what, other people can't have other opinions? Help me to figure out what you tried to say. Ben ^T/_C 08:01, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

The point is we have an anonymous accusation which at least one knowledgeable source has said is unfounded. Please provide a cite (in German will do) stating WHO claims safety was compromised - I wasn't able to find one in English. Simesa 12:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Please note that not everybody is a former nuclear engineer like Simesa (Some people are sons of former nuclear engineers, like me). It doesn't make me wonder that nuclear engineers (even if retired or fired) are (unusually) supportive of nuclear energy. Simesa, if you don't agree with an article, please don't just allege original research without having reasons. Please do it only if you can give exact reasons for why you think an article might be considered original research. It might be also useful next time, to point out what exactly you mean when you state an article is "politically-biased." Ben ^T/_C 10:04, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

If the average reader can tell what the editor(s)'s point-of-view was by reading the article, it's probably not NPOV. Articles are not "for opponents" although they may be about "opponents".

I'm not sure what original research you're referring to. If you mean the paragraph beginning "Proponents of nuclear power state...", that came from nuclear power, Economy section.

I don't think of myself as being unusually supportive in articles, just as accurate while not being unusually critical. Accuracy with balance should be the goal of an encyclopedia.

BTW - I am not retired nor was I fired. Simesa 12:20, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I am not referring to original research. I simply repeated what you stated at the beginning of the section with the heading "original article" and continued by "It is disappointing to see such a politically-biased article as this in an encyclopedia." You could read the policy on original research. This here clearly does not fall into that category.

It is in the interest of everybody that articles are balanced. That's why many people should work together on an article. But, they should try at least not state an article is disappointing when the article is just a few hours young at that time... Please state, whether you still think the article is biased... in the section I created for this purpose. Ben ^T/_C 12:34, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, the term "original article" was not intended to imply "original research". Perhaps I could have said "the initial article".

The article as I found it had one unimportant line under Pros for nuclear and in "See also" made it clear that only anti-nuclear opinions were wanted. Simesa 12:59, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

You should know about the original research policy as one of the five pillars of wikipedia. If you say an article is original and couple it with your next sentence (alleging POV), then it almost certainly takes the meaning of original research and that's a very serious offense. I accept you apology. Ben ^T/_C 07:55, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Wording of sentence

In the sentence "It was also decided to annulate the decision from 1997 of the time limit until 2010.", I have no idea what the word "annulate" was intended to mean. Simesa 18:09, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

replaced with revoke. Ben ^T/_C 04:31, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Sentence disputed

• Simesa! You marked the following statement as "incorrect" in the text:

However, unlike energy companies, banks have to build up financial reserves to protect them against bankruptcy.

I would like you to give your reasons for that or I will put it back again. Ben ^T/_C 08:24, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

All companies, banks or not, have to have sufficient financial reserves to avoid bankruptcy. Lupo 08:35, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

That's not correct. Not all companies have to build financial reserves (see limited liability company). Aside from that, banks have to purchase a deposit insurance and they are required to keep a certain proportion of its funds in reserves. I don't know about how this is regulated in the US, but in Germany it is quite a lot of money in the reserves. Ben ^T/_C 09:01, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

BTW, Simesa... Please use <!-- and --> as markers next time when you are going to insert personal comments. Ben ^T/_C 09:46, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Banks have no tangible assets, and may not even own the buildings they operate in - so in the US at least banks are required to have a certain amount of cash on hand in case of a bank run. (In addition, in the US our FDIC guarantees a certain amount of each bank account, to help prevent runs.) Companies owning nuclear power plants, however, have billions of dollars of physical assets, and can't suffer a run and so need little cash on-hand. They have time to arrange payment for lawsuits. Simesa 12:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok. I am not sure about the banking system in the US. There are many differences internationally. In the US, there is, e.g., the distinction of investment houses and the "bank." So, the comparison makes probably not that much sense to Americans. I accept that point, though I still doubt, whether companies could pay for damages in a worst case scenario - as you imply - but be it. Ben ^T/_C 07:40, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Inappropriate name, or focus

While there has indeed been a phase-out of nuclear power in some European countries, in others use of nuclear power has remained static (such as the US), is actually growing (such as China, India, and Finland), or is planned to grow significantly (South Africa, where the PBMR is under development). Discussing the current state of the nuclear industry, in a global context, under the current article title is therefore rather misleading, implying that a "phase-out" is the inevitable and indeed desirable way for nuclear power to go.

Therefore, I would suggest that the article under this name be restristed to describing those countries, like Germany, which *do* seem to be shutting down their nuclear industries, and the global status of nuclear power described in an article under another title. --Robert Merkel 04:22, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Does it make sense to talk about Australia in this article? Given Australia does not have nuclear power, it would be difficult for it to be phased out.--nixie 06:50, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. Australia (sensibly, I think) never even "phased-in" nuclear energy and doubtfully ever will. The issue in Australia seems to mostly be about uranium mining and whether we should, as Kevin Foley put it, "dig it up and get it out as quickly as possible" or prohibit its export altogether. The information already here should be kept and moved to a more appropriate article. Alternatively, the article focus and name could change.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 10:00, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't say the name of the article suggests necessarily all of the countries are actually phasing out of nuclear energy use. The article represents now a discussion of +

1. what a phase-out is +
2. what are the reasons for it and what reasons contradict it (politics, economics) +
3. where and when it has been started or aborted (why, when) +
4. and what plans there are in other countries (political discussion, regional energy politics) +

+

I think this makes certain sense. I mean, look at Australia. Although, there are no nuclear power plants (so no phase-out), there is a lot of uranium and some people, as you say, consider building nuclear power plants. How do people think about those plans and about the dangers of mining? What is the situation there? Then, take Switzerland. There was no phase-out there, but several citizen initiatives and referenda about whether the reactors in Switzerland should be closed down. These countries are all mentioned by organizations that argument in favor or against phase-outs when they want to illustrate their points of why it makes sense to use nuclear power or why not. It is always compared with other countries. It is an international issue. I think phase-out is not a bad name, though I admit I see that misunderstandings are possible. It could be made clearer that not all of the mentioned countries are phasing out nor plan to. This article as I see it is about the development of the use of nuclear power with a special focus on phase-out as it has been discussed in several countries. And that's why we need Switzerland or Australia for that matter. --Ben ^T/_C 10:08, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

What you seem to want is a discussion of international nuclear power policy, the title does not reflect that objective.--nixie 10:13, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

That's right... Okay, I think you are all right. Let's change the name, keep most of what the article is, have a small explanation of "phase-out" and a link to here at nuclear power phase-out. What about International nuclear power policy? Other suggestions? --Ben ^T/_C 10:28, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Seems like a good name to me, you might want to ask User:Fastfission for name suggestions, he seems to have written many of the articles on nuclear weapons and User:SEWilco who seems to have been pretty active in the development of the nuclear power article.--nixie 10:35, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll tell them what we are discussing and ask them to look over. --Ben ^T/_C 10:47, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I had a second thought about the name. First, not power, but energy. Then, there are strong cases for a dropping of "international" and/or "nuclear," i.e. Nuclear energy policy or International energy policy or a merger with Energy policy (what I just found). --Ben ^T/_C 11:37, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I suggest moving to Nuclear energy policy. Opinions? --Ben ^T/_C 13:19, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I decided to remove the part about Australia and some other parts. Other parts of it will have to be shortened. I copied great parts of the article to Nuclear energy policy but I am open to renaming it again or merging it with Energy policy it just seemed too big a change at once. I put a cleanup tag on the article there because the focus has to be sharpened. Please help here to improve the focus. --Ben ^T/_C 14:57, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Australia does have a small nuclear reactor, mainly for research and medical purposes (it doesn't produce a significant amount of power). See OPAL, HIFAR and MOATA for more detail. CA 10:46, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Split

I think an article on Nuclear power phase-out is warranted, but IMO if this article is NPOVd, it may offer little comfort to those who are promoting the phase-out. Neither the scope of the movement nor its effects where it has been adopted are quite as rosy a picture as this article currently presents. So we can expect some interesting times with it.

I'll try, but duplicating much of the text in a second article at Nuclear energy policy isn't terribly helpful IMO. I don't really want to need to update it in both places, especially as there are many other issues with this article apart from NPOV. We don't normally imbed external links, for example. We cite such sources in an External links section instead. In this and several other ways the style of this article is still more suited to an essay or an original research paper than to an encyclopedia article. There is a lot to do.

Some mention of France and the Philippines would not go astray somewhere, the Philippines as the only Asian industrial economy to reject nuclear power to date, France as a major supplier of nuclear electricity to countries that have adopted phase-out locally. The fact that neither of these were mentioned but Australia was (perhaps under the mistaken idea that Australia had renounced nuclear energy, see Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#Nuclear power plants in Australia) says a lot IMO. But I think we need to fix the focus and style of the articles first.

Personally, I'd stubify the current Nuclear energy policy and start the split all over, this time moving text rather than copying it. They are both good topics, but any text that does need to be duplicated (there will be some) we should get into good shape before doing this duplication. Andrewa 18:43, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

There are some problems with this article that's right and that's why we still work on it. I will change the style of citation as you asked. As next, the article doesn't paint a "rosy picture" of the phase-out. I think it is relatively balanced, though the arguments can become more elaborate on both sides. As you see above there are other people that don't quite feel the way you do (and they are rather anti phase-out). If you feel it is too positive, please try to balance it. We will all support you if you improve it. As I recursed on the Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#Nuclear power plants in Australia you probably had a misunderstanding and I got the impression you didn't read the article carefully enough. Please feel free to add the Philippines and France. Do not stubbify the Nuclear energy policy. It was not just duplicated (again you make the terrible impression of not reading the articles and then coming up with generalizations) but there is information here that is not there and information there that is not here. Please note that I put work in both articles and I will not let you go nullify it. If you can improve the articles, go for it, but don't go arbitrarily removing contents. --Ben ^T/_C 03:31, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Well, IMO the article still does paint a rosier picture than the facts would indicate. And I'll try to improve it. But I think it's useful to discuss these things. As for adding the Philippines and France, I've made a start at this in another way, see the new stubs at Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and Jervis Bay Nuclear Power Plant.

I'm sorry you feel that I didn't read the article carefully enough, but frankly I don't think my comments have been read very carefully either! As to the alleged misunderstanding, can you be specific? I didn't say it was just duplicated. As to what you will and won't allow, the community will decide that, not just you. As to arbitrarily removing contents, AFAIK I never have or do, thank you very much, so I think that's a bit over the top. If I was going to stubify the article without discussion, I would have done so, and you probably would have just reverted it. Much better to discuss it, as we are doing.

Frankly, I still think that it would have been less work to abandon your split and start again. That's all I was suggesting, owing to the number of identical edits required to the duplicated text. But, if you and/or others are prepared to do the work required on the two articles, that's fine. Andrewa 04:01, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

The misunderstanding was that I noted on the Australian Noticeboard (here) that, searching for material about phase-outs, I stumbled upon Australia several times, characterized by environmental organizations as a anti-nuclear country.

I did make one mistake for which I apologise: When you said articles, I thought you meant Wikipedia articles. This is fairly standard shorthand around here, for example the main namespace is often called the article namespace.

I didn't say it was my opinion nor did the article ever make any statements that said something like "Australia renounced nuclear power" or "Australia is against nuclear power." That would just have been blatant propaganda. It never said anything like that and still you alleged it would say or I thought so or the article would convey it or whatever.

I formed the opinion that you were seeking to justify that view, yes. Why else would you say Australia is noted in many articles as a country which renounced nuclear energy? Even now understanding that by articles you meant external sources? And let me say again, I accept responsibility for that misunderstanding, you used perfectly clear English, which I mistook to be our local jargon.

I mean you needed just to look at the article to find out that was just not the case. You probably just misunterpreted my statement and concluded the article would tell what you understood I had said. You combined that with seemingly random and very general attacks on the article here without giving any specifics.

I'm afraid I regard that as bordering on a personal attack. I did read the article. But I was specifically commenting on what you said in the talk page, not on what the article said.

I still think you misunderstood what I was saying and what the article was saying. If you want to suggest some changes to both article you have to be specific and say what you mean.

I've been trying to do that. I'm sorry you haven't found my input constructive so far.

If you announce that you want to remove half of the text I have written for both of the articles without even selecting

(...which I never did...)

(BTW, that is what is called arbitrary [2]) then of course I understand that as a threat. If I came and said I want to delete one of the articles you have created without even giving reasons I doubt you would rejoice and say "go on, please remove just everything what you don't like."

It wouldn't worry me greatly. Wikipedia has very effective software, policies and procedures that protect our work. I'm confident that no admin would delete an article under those conditions, and even if they did it's not hard to recover it.

If you think you want to start over from scratch with the nuclear energy policy and that you can do better then please do so at another address like User:Andrewa/Nuclear energy policy and put a link to it on Nuclear energy policy. I think we could all only profit from that. Ben ^T/_C 05:50, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

No. That's called a fork, and we don't generally find them helpful. And, as I said before, if you or others want to do the extra work required by your split, that's fine by me. I was just proposing an alternative for discussion. Andrewa 06:52, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I just suggested that instead of deleting what we have at Nuclear energy policy you could do it your way, show it, and we discuss it and (optionally) merge it. Depends on you. BTW, still waiting for the "rosy image" to emerge from your comments. Ben ^T/_C 07:39, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I see on your user talk page a link to WikiLove. OK, maybe I haven't shown a lot of that either. I did not mean to attack you, and I feel you have attacked me and continue to do so.

Your suggestion of forking the page is contrary to the policy of not linking from articles to user pages, and I've no interest in doing it anyway. I think there are better ways.

I will continue to work towards making this article and others on the subject accurate and NPOV. I'm open about my pro-nuclear POV, and suspect you have one too in the opposite direction. But as you have pointed out, the various POVs can be an advantage. When we achieve consensus, we'll have a very good product. Andrewa 10:04, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I liked a lot what you said about wikilove and joined forces of mixed POVs (I admit I am anti-nuclear) and I would be happy if you stay and bring in your experience and the knowledge that you showed earlier. We had a bad start but that makes it easy to improve ;).

As you already pointed out, there is a lot of work needed for both articles. I just tried to clean up most of nuclear energy policy and I removed the cleanup tag and replaced it with "limitedscope" and section cleanups for Australia and the discussion of nuclear energy (because of redundancy with nuclear power phase-out - maybe a merge tag would be better?). Another (new) problem are redundancies and intersections with nuclear power (e.g. Current and planned use). I also found two new very promising links ([3], [4]). Please check the article now and tell me what you think. (And let's copy this discussion to Talk:Nuclear energy policy.) Ben ^T/_C 12:05, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

NPOV discussion

If there are people, who find this article is biased, please discuss it here and tell the other people who are working on the article Ben ^T/_C 09:41, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I felt the article was politically biased when I first saw it. The exact points don't matter any more, and they seem to have been addressed, as far as I can assess. Nevertheless, the article was not NPOV, and should therefor have been labeled as such. Perhaps even by the initial author, to request help and comments. And yes, I should have commented more clearly what I found to be POV. -- Ec5618 13:03, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

As of the latest version, I feel the article is acceptably accurate and NPOV. Simesa 13:05, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I hope, Ec5618, you had more reasons than Simesa for seeing a bias (see above). Next time, you should address the points you feel uncertain about. However, we seem to agree now and that's a good thing. I thank both of you for helping to improve this article. Please stay and help here. Ben ^T/_C 07:43, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

I think the following is POV, misleading, and factually incorrect:

Activists refer to many nuclear accidents in the past that have released large amounts of radioactive contamination killing and hurting many people and rendering large amounts of land unusable for the next few centuries, e.g. the zone of alienation.

If you take a look at the Chernobyl accident article, it says this:

The Chernobyl accident was a unique event, on a scale by itself. It was the first time in the history of commercial nuclear electricity generation that radiation-related fatalities occurred. (Note: an accident at the Japanese Tokaimura nuclear fuel reprocessing plant on September 30, 1999, resulted in the radiation related death of one worker on December 22 of that same year and another on 27 April 2000.)

The link to the article List of nuclear accidents is misleading and inappropriate, since the out of all the accidents on the list, Chernobyl is the only one that actually fits the description in the text: a power plant releasing "large amounts of radioactive contamination killing and hurting many people and rendering large amounts of land unusable for the next few centuries, e.g. the zone of alienation." I'm going to make appropriate changes to the text.--Bcrowell 03:38, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Male1979 reverted my edit without participating in the discussion here. I've reverted it back to my version.--Bcrowell 03:57, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Male1979 has again reverted my edit, and again without participating in the discussion here. I've reverted again.--Bcrowell 04:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I removed and I made other changes. I didn't see your comment here. It seemed you were refering to somebody elses comment without discussing. Sorry for that. I understand your concerns now. I did not just revert your edits. I changed them. What about this:

Nuclear accidents in the past have released radioactive contamination, the biggest, the accident at Chernobyl killed and hurt many people and rendered large amounts of land unusable for the next few centuries (the zone of alienation). It is feared such accidents will happen again. It is feared such accidents will happen again.

Please let's work on this sentence. --Ben ^T/_C 04:21, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

How about this:

In the past, nuclear accidents, including some at civilian power plants, have released radioactive contamination. The biggest, at Chernobyl killed and hurt many people and rendered large amounts of land unusable for the next few centuries.

I think the part about "including some at civilian power plants" is necessary, because a lot of List of nuclear accidents is crashes of bombers, or even nuclear tests(!).--Bcrowell 04:30, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I thought it would be good to include the link to zone of alienation but I don't know how exactly. Your paragraph is definitely much better than the one you took out. I also want the "feared"-part. --Ben ^T/_C 05:15, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

I just included your two sentences plus a "feared"-addition. I changed to "Nuclear accidents in the past" because of the next wikilink to "accidents". Please change again it if you have more good ideas.

Nuclear accidents in the past, including some at civilian power plants, have released radioactive contamination. The biggest, at Chernobyl killed and hurt many people and rendered large amounts of land unusable for the next few centuries. It is feared more accidents will happen.

--Ben ^T/_C 06:27, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

I think this version of the paragraph looks fine. I don't think the link to zone of alienation made sense in the text, and the information in it doesn't support the point being made in the text any more than the Chernobyl link already does.--Bcrowell 15:48, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok. I am happy you approve. And probably the zone of alienation is superfluous. Then we agree on our version. --Ben ^T/_C 15:56, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

It's been a pleasure working with you. It's unfortunate that we got off on the wrong foot due to a misunderstanding :-) --Bcrowell 17:09, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. That's nice to hear. :) --Ben ^T/_C 01:56, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Additional info

Ben - you have been requesting additional information regarding the Danish "phase out". Denmark never actually had any nuclear plants due to a strong and very vocal anti-nuclear movement in the 70-80s. If you want information about this period place a notice on my talk page and I will translate the relevant information for you. (Celcius 18:23, 17 August 2005 (UTC))

Seems this time I fell for one of those lists... Ben ^T/_C 05:38, August 18, 2005 (UTC)