Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Two suggestions.
Hi, my degree was in Nuclear Engineering and this article isn't bad overall. I recommend renaming the article to "Nuclear Power Technology," for starters.
I know there is another article called "radioactive waste," however it seems to concern itself only with the present state of the way waste is managed, and not the way it ought to or could be managed. This article seems to be the place to discuss the potential of nuclear technology itself, rather than merely how it is currently used, which is why my next comment concerns this article and not the "radioactive waste" article. There is little discussion here of the environmental debate over the disposal/burial of nuclear waste. It would be nice to see that topic expanded here. Along with that, and more specifically, there ought to be some discussion of the advances we have made in our ability to remove particularly long-lasting isotopes from the burial wastes (that would presumably go in Yucca Mountain).
The current standard for Nuclear Power Technology waste burial is to be able to predict the location's geological movement and its relationship with said waste for one million years. Such a feat is outside the scope of our current understanding of geology and is, on its head, patently absurd. The reason for the standard, however, is because some of the isotopes in nuclear waste have half-lives in the ranges of millions of years. These isotopes make up only a very very tiny fraction of the nuclear byproduct, but in the long long long term eventually become significant. The discussion changes altogether, however, when we start to consider what would happen if we were to remove the top five or so slowest decaying isotopes from nuclear waste prior to burial. Then, the necessary standard for predicting the geology of the burial site shortens to a few thousand years (at most, a much shorter time would actually suffice), which is within the scope of present human geological understanding.
We currently have the technology to remove these dangerous isotopes from nuclear waste, and it is in fact not even particularly difficult to do. Doing so poses the question: "Then what do we do with these isoptopes once they are removed?" Keep in mind that we are talking about a few grams or so of substance per ton of nuclear waste. One could easily cask and maintain these byproducts in a relatively small facility above ground (what we currently do, sadly, with all nuclear waste). In addition, there is a process known as transmutation in which accelerators or other sources are used to bombard and change the isotope into something else that decays faster. An article concerning a newer process in the removal of but one of these isotopes can be found here: http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sabl/2005/November/05-neptunium.html Here is another article concerning older tried and true methods of removing specific isotopes: http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/554187-eGETzf/webviewable/554187.PDF And there are other methods still which I won't get into here. The point is that the technology is there and it is very important to the future of nuclear power. Thanks for your time.
Note: I am not in fact a practicing Nuclear Engineer or employed by any facet of the industry, I do however see a great deal of good in the use of nuclear power, and a great deal more potential. Sadly, misinformation is the plague of the information age, and very very few people understand nuclear power technology and its potential, but many are willing to loudmouth their ignorant opinions against it. Concerning the below comment, which requests topics be concerned with the generation of nuclear power, I would remind them that the burial of waste is one of the direct factors that has prevented the expansion of the generation of that power, and therefore directly correlates with the topic. (It fits in with the Byproducts -> What is done/can be done subsection proposed below.)
-- Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.211.28 (talk) 22 June 2008
Black Granite Countertops Pros And Cons Video
Pictures
There seems to be a stretch without pictures between the Water and Health effects sections. One of the more interesting sights at a nuclear power plant is Cerenkov radiation. The picture could go in the high-level radioactive waste section. The caption could say something like: The glow from highly radioactive fuel rods is Cerenkov radiation or The intensity of Cerenkov radiation is roughly proportional to the level of radioactivity. A different idea would be to put pictures of a recently removed fuel rod and an old fuel rod side by side... This would be visually stimulating and it would explain the principle of decay. Mrshaba (talk) 21:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
What? Its not a comic book? Im on the wrong site. And if the article has one piece of space without a picture, i find its either 1. really sad, or 2. really short :D 10max01 (talk) 23:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
More Info About Nuclear Power Plants????
I have to do a huge, fatty report/debate on the idea of buliding one of these monstocities (don't check my spelling!!) in my town. I am arguing FOR it, and need more info about this. Any percentages of accidents compared to sucesses, maybe? Idk, but anything besides the crappy articles on it would be FINE!!!
Thanks!!Iluvvampires (talk) 03:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)iluvvampires
Policy debater? If so i can help with it, but i doubt nuclear power is the best. 10max01 (talk) 23:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Dispute about new matter
- A dispute about some new matter:
- At 21:45, 31 May 2008 User:Johnfos inserted 4 Kbytes of matter about matters affecting reliability of nuclear power stations, with the edit comment "Reliability: expanding for NPOV".
- At 03:20, 3 June 2008 User:Lwnf360 reverted this addition with edit comment "the only source used in the additional sections is rmi.org, an admited anti-nuclear group".
- At 03:37, 3 June 2008 User:Johnfos added a new section "==Complexity==", about 2 Kbytes.
- At 04:06, 3 June 2008 User:Daniel.Cardenas removed this addition with edit comment "Complexity: section moved to nuclear safety. Per agreement on talk page, this article is mostly about nuclear power technology".
- At 04:31, 3 June 2008 User:Johnfos added about 3 Kbytes about reliability with edit comment "expanding for NPOV".
- At 06:43, 3 June 2008 User:Lwnf360 removed this addition with edit comment "Reliability: removal of POV edits. I discussed this on the user's talk page. Please don't engage in a revert war on this. Rather, discuss on article's talk page."
- The disputed matter seems to me to be relevant to the operation of nuclear power stations, if it is true. Whether or not facts (rather then opinions) in this matter come from a pro-nuclear site or an anti-nuclear site or neither, they may be valid, IF they can be independently verified: please discuss their verifiability here. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
There is much debate on topic. For more information go to the subarticle... Theres going to be a lot in the debate section since the NFL has made alternative fuels their topic for policy debate next year. (and i know a few who comment here on the current topics) 10max01 (talk) 23:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Request
Persian version has been Featerud Article. I request from Administrators for add to article. Thank you Ladsgroup (talk) 00:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
GA Review
This review is transcluded from Talk:Nuclear power/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Unfortunately, I am failing this article because it is severely lacking inline citations. The section "Nuclear reactor technology", which also has a {{refimprove}} template, has no references. "Low-level radioactive waste" and "Depleted uranium" are other sections that don't have references; there are several more. Please resolve these issues and then feel free to return the article for renomination. Gary King (talk) 02:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Quick Request
I just realized that I am not yet a confirmed user, and therefore cannot edit this page at this time. In reading the section 6.3 Environmental Effects, the article states that nuclear power emits "direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions (water vapor, CO2, NO2)." While this statement is factually true, it is slightly misleading because of the three gasses listed only water vapor is directly emitted, while the more worrisome CO2 and NO2 are completely indirect. For reference, please see article Environmental effects of nuclear power and the citations within there. If an auto confirmed user would take the time to make this more clear in the primary article and then delete this section of the talk page, I would be grateful. Something like "direct water vapor emissions, indirect CO2 and NO2 greenhouse gas emissions" would be more accurate. Blazersguy (talk) 06:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Reliability
There is a section about sun/wind energy that needs to be deleted. It's got nothing to do with the subject! --Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.180.69.203 (talk) 07:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant shut down must be mentioned or else we just don't have an NPOV article... Johnfos (talk) 20:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Darn it, the thing that got reverted was a pretty significant keystone I thought.
Not included in this data is plant size, which also strongly factors into integration with the grid. For nuclear power, reliability metrics compare favorably to other power sources, it has a median unit size larger than any other power source. This means that a large grid is needed to accommodate nuclear, and a sweeping common cause unplanned capacity for many plants can put stresses on the grid.
My problem is that most readers won't be able to put something like the KK plant into perspective. -Theanphibian (talk o contribs) 12:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
The biggest problem is that the KK incident is not directly related to the reliability of nuclear power. Everything is affected by earthquakes and a power station that was shut down for inspection following an earthquake says nothing for or against the reliability of that type of power source. That could have happened to any type of thermoelectric station. The mention is superfluous. The simple reporting of the incident doesn't transmit any new information to the reader. If some sort of conclusion can be drawn from that incident at the KK or other plants then that should be part of the section using KK as an example, but as it stands that's now how the section reads. The current paragraph has absolutely nothing to say for or against the reliability of nuclear power. It needs to be removed and completely rewritten. Nailedtooth (talk) 20:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
As suggested, here is the current text for rewriting:
On 16 July 2007 a severe earthquake hit the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. The plant with seven units is the largest single nuclear power station in the world. Some release of radioactive material occurred and all of the reactors were shut down and are expected to remain closed for damage verification and repairs for at least one year.
Environmental Impact
I am concerned that saying a nuclear power plant does not produce any direct CO2 is misleading. Under normal operation that is indeed true, but the backup diesel genreators certainly produce greenhouse gases. Those are rarely used, but in the case of a disconnect with the grid and a SCRAM they would indeed come online. I am not sure about the percentage of the time a diesel generator is online on average, but if that information exists it may be best to mention that. Polypmaster (talk) 16:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Fusion
The article does not really indicate that fusion reactor technology, though it has been researched since the 1950s, is not yet anywhere close to actual implementation as an energy source. I think something to this effect should be added to the article, as one could easily come away with the impression that fusion work is right around the corner, when even if breakeven is achieved in the next 5-10 years (which is optimistic to say the least), actual conversion to power stations will surely take longer. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:39, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
Fuel Supply Question
At one point we read that there is an 80 year supply of nuclear fuel today, that is, U-235. In the Breeder Reactor section it says there is a 5 billion year supply of U-238 fuel. Since U-238 is only 140 times as abundant as U-235, I don't see where such a huge number can come from. DonPMitchell (talk) 23:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Does the Peak uranium pertain to this question? Simesa (talk) 22:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Improvement of Nuclear power stations.png
Hi, I have a very small suggestion for the article. Image "Nuclear power stations.png" which is actually a map should be improved: Crimea must be the same colour as Ukraine itself. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.105.131.51 (talk) 11:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
Alarming Article
Jeffrey St. Clair of Counterpunch has written an alarming article, titled Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear Nightmare in the Backwoods of North Carolina about the Shearon Harris nuclear plant there of which I think a mention should be included in "Accidents" section. I'd suggest at the bottom of the paragraph which includes the link to the report An American Chernobyl: Nuclear "Near Misses" at U.S. Reactors Since 1986. 4.246.205.246 (talk) 16:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
Map out of date
The map of countries with nuclear power plants is out of date, Ontario is building a new plant near Toronto is open by 2018. Canationalist (talk) 23:20, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Following countries are missing or incorrect:
- In Africa: Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria - considering first NPP.[1]
- Albania - considering first NPP.[2], [3]
- Belarus is still considering, construction doesn't start yet. (see Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant)
- Turkey started the bidding process [4]. Is this still considering phase or already construction phase?
- Tunisia - considering first NPP.[5]
- Azerbaijan doesn't have any NPP yet, so it should be marked as considering first, not as considering new.[6]
- Mongolia - probably considering the first NPP, not building yet.[7]
- Venezuela - considering first NPP.[8]
- Bangladesh - considering first NPP.[9], [10]
- Thailand - considering first NPP.[11]
- Bulgaria- construct for construction of new NPP has signed (see Belene Nuclear Power Plant)
Beagel (talk) 08:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
- Denmark has never had a neuclearpowerplant there was a test fasility called risรธ that now is researtch center for sustainable energy --Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.150.91.85 (talk) 02:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
Debate on Merging Criticisms Into Sections
Such merging would be a great disservice to the average reader. I understand the fervor of some to make anti-nuclear points anywhere and everywhere, but we've had this discussion before and it would make the sections horrendously long and filled with charge and counter-charge and (to the average reader) meaningless nuances. It's far superior to lay out the essentials and then concentrate the extensive debate in an appropriate section for that. Simesa (talk) 17:20, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
Environmental effects Under normal generating conditions, nuclear power does produce
The most important greenhouse gases are:
water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth.
Depletion of Freshwater Resources
Lack of contribution to hydrologic cycle.
In practice, about 60-75% is evaporative, depending on atmospheric factors.
pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen Manic mechanic (talk) 12:59, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Those are true, but I would be careful with saying 36-70% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor. Not only is this a large discrepancy, but the addition of water vapor by nuclear power is a drop in the ocean compared to the water vapor already in the atmosphere. Also, water vapor can be removed from the atmosphere far easier than CO2 can (rain). Water emissions from power plants are also a couple of orders of magnitude from having an appreciable affect on the environment. Also, the emission of water vapor into the atmosphere is not limited to nuclear plants; this is a primary byproduct of the Rankine cycle, which is used by just about every steam-driven power plant. This is emphasized more in nuclear power because it is the only emission into the atmosphere and because the standard nuclear plant is larger than the standard coal or natural gas plant.
The depletion of freshwater resources is a good point, but is only a real factor for those built on relatively small bodies of water. Those on the ocean, seas, or large lakes like the Great Lakes have little to no problem with this because their reservoir is so large relative to the amount of energy expelled and water needed. Situations like the one in France that happened a few years ago are serious events, but must remain in context with the fact that there really should not have been that number of plants along the same bodies of water. This is again not only a nuclear power problem though. Had the nuclear plants been replaced by an equal (in Megawatts) amount of coal plants, the same problem with the river temperatures would have happened. The difference is that the nuclear cores need to have adequate core cooling at all times, which proved more difficult with high water temperatures. This is more about bad placement than bad design though. It is a limitation, but with good placement does not have a serious effect on the environment as a whole.
I am not sure what you mean by 'lack of contribution to the hydrologic cycle.' As far as I understand, water vapor from a nuclear plant would contribute to greater atmospheric water vapor and eventually that vapor would follow the cycle like any other water. Also, water vapor effects are mostly the problem of plants with cooling towers. Those that dump the waste heat into a reservoir like the ocean or other large body of water would not contribute significantly to the hydrologic cycle because their waste heat is minimal compared to solar radiation. I am curious what you mean, so if you could elaborate that would be great. Thanks. Polypmaster (talk) 14:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
MERGE: competing nuclear-debate articles
The article Anti-nuclear movement has a large (and very unbalanced) debate section. It didn't even link to Economics of new nuclear power plants until I put that in. We've had this debate before, but should we have one unified Nuclear Debate article? Simesa (talk) 23:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
The Energy development article also contains a list of nuclear energy pros and cons, and probably should be merged as well. Simesa (talk) 09:17, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
I posted Merge notices in Anti-nuclear movement and Energy development articles and Discussion pages just now, and suggested we debate this for a week before merging the various debate sections here in Nuclear Power. Simesa (talk) 07:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I pointed the relevant section in Nuclear energy policy to here. Simesa (talk) 22:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I did the same for the criticisms in the Complexity section of Nuclear safety. Will now merge text in here. Simesa (talk) 23:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
I removed the non-economic criticisms from Economics of new nuclear power plants and will merge them in here later today. Simesa (talk) 13:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Note: The reason the Nuclear controversy article was deleted is given in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nuclear controversy. It might not apply to a balanced and well-referenced Debate. Simesa (talk) 10:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
POV Pushing
This morning I deleted a paragraph which added nothing to the article except to push a POV allusion, which was based on an NOT-YET-ACCEPTED, NOT PEER-REVIEWED, DRAFT report by an infamous aging anti-nuclear kook which said at the top of the first page:
"A widely heralded view holds that nuclear power is experiencing a dramatic worldwide revival and vibrant growth, because it's competitive, necessary, reliable, secure, and vital for fuel security and climate protection.
That's all false. In fact, nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it's grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete--so hopelessly uneconomic that one needn't debate whether it's clean and safe; ...
I'm sorry, but based on the above the author is obviously senile. I read the job ads - China, South Africa and yesterday an unnamed very-wealthy Middle Eastern country are all hiring in droves. National governments are reversing their anti-nuclear positions. There are 35 new plants planned for the U.S. alone so far, and BOTH our Presidential candidates are anti-global-warming and receptive to more nuclear power. The actual situation is that nuclear power is currently undergoing a renaissance - to aver otherwise is strongly indicative of a loss of touch with reality. And the above is without a carbon tax ever having been enacted.
The POV-pushing that's going on in these articles is flat unconscionable. Simesa (talk) 13:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Breaking out the Debate section into a Nuclear Debate article
It's premature to do this, but Nuclear Power has gotten to be very long and the Debate section is about half of it (and about to get longer as I/we do the merges). How would everyone feel about taking the Nuclear debate redirect and making it a separate article? Please discuss before doing. Simesa (talk) 02:55, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the changes you've been making. The debate article helps keep this article concise, and I think the split was done about as POV neutral as possible. -Theanphibian (talk o contribs) 00:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
add INL to External Links section
{{editsemiprotected}} The Idaho National Laboratory is DOE's lead nuclear laboratory. Can someone please add the link to the lab's Web site www.inl.gov in the 'External Links" section.
Thanks, Htomfields (talk) 20:11, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Minor issue - not worthy of essays or insults on my limited vocabulary
Proponents of nuclear power aver that... Cool word and maybe even mainstream in some places. Is "Allege" or "claim" not sophisticated enough? --JimmyButler (talk) 15:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Too much detail of technology?
A recent edit added a couple of paragraphs on Light water reactor and Heavy water reactor beneath the cooling water section. Would the material sit better in the "Nuclear reactor technology" paragraph, above? Indeed, is the subject already adequately dealt with there? There is a {{main}} tag to the "Nuclear reactor technology" article. --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Definition of fusion power
Plant or station?
Is a nuclear power place called a nuclear power station, or a nuclear power plant? Everyone who I know thinks it's called a plant mainly because of The Simpsons, but then again our teachers say that it's a station. In this article, I've seen it referred to as both. Is there a specific name you should call it, or as in this article, both names are correct? Wikiert (talk) 20:22, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
VBER-300
The Russian floating nuclear power station says a VBER-300 325-MWe reactor might be used on the ship/barge. Apparently this is a relatively new reactor design [13] [14] [15] [16]. I'm going to start work on a stub article on it now VBER-300, but I'd appreciate additions. Simesa (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Made graph
I added this graph to the commons. I didn't exactly know where I would put it, so I figured I'd just post it here for now. -Theanphibian (talk o contribs) 21:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
Reprocessing
I think it should be noted that the US is currently constructing a reprocessing plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina that will blend weapon's plutonium with depleted uranium to make mixed oxide fuel.
A42579 (talk) 17:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
PLEX
Currently the Plant life extension wikilink goes to Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program. However, PLEX (nuclear usage) is actually a much more well-established process that has been performed on a large number of plants. Does anyone have the expertise to write this article and link it to Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program? Simesa (talk) 00:34, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
ITALY
Today Italian Parliament has voted to produce power by nuclear energy.It's time to change the article.Giosue' Campi (talk) 18:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
I've changed the map to reflect this. TastyCakes (talk) 15:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Economics
This article has an awkward and very undeveloped Economic section. More could and should be said in regards to this issue in this article, not just in related ones. Why nothing about the Price-Anderson Act (U.S.), without which the nuclear power industry would not exist in America? Also, nuclear power has higher capital investment costs than other sources, such as coal and wind. A balanced and developed article would surely mention this. Also, another sentence or two at a minimum is needed within the High-Level Waste subsection, as there is not enough development with regards to the [U.S., Nevada] Yucca Mountain proposal (because of various factors, such as the ascendency of Sen. Harry Reid, the repository is effectively dead). Dare I wade into editing this article?Jack B108 (talk) 19:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Total energy
This is a heads up, that there is an odd discrepancy between the electrical output of a nuclear reactor as measured by the U.S. and the IEA, in kWh and in BTU. If you ask the output in kWh, you get the right number. But heaven forbid you ask what it is in BTU, as instead of converting energy to energy (my calculator says that 1 kWh is 3412.141633 Btu), the number gets multiplied by from 2.9 to 3, making the odd assumption that you wanted to know the thermal output of the reactor before it made any electricity. For wind that would be like multiplying the output of a wind farm by 2, or 20, saying well, I thought you wanted to know the total energy in the wind that day... Only nuclear and geothermal are adjusted in this manner. The IEA multiplies nuclear by 3, using an assumed efficiency of 33%, and geothermal by 10, using an assumed efficiency of 10%. I would suggest a phone call to the DOE and the IEA is in order, asking them to use real numbers... Delphi234 (talk) 19:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Your numbers ARE wrong. Let's get something something straight first: there is no "fictitious" multiplier. There is thermal energy and useful energy. Thou shalt not compare thermal energy of petroleum to useful energy of nuclear - that is exactly what you did. According to what you said, the IEA report would contradict itself. I'm sure it makes sense in your world that you found an error they made, but in the real world, they tend to double check their calculations. You said "0.06/0.14 = 43%" would be contradict the fact that we get 14% of our energy from electricity. Umm, yeah, because you did it wrong. Try:
(.06 / (.14/.33) ) = 0.141428571
Hey! It's that 14% there. How did I get this? Because the majority of electricity generation is by thermal plants, and they generally average somewhere around 33% efficiency. If you divide by .33, you get (very roughly) the raw thermal energy being used. But we don't care about waste heat right? Right. However, the other 94% of our total energy use is also being counted in thermal input. Not useful energy. Over 50% of total energy use is oil by that very EIA report. Where is oil used? Well, over 60% of oil is used in transportation. Petroleum driven transportation is driven by internal combustion engines. Those engines have an efficiency of 20 to 40% when comparing power delivered to the crankshaft to energy content of the liquid fuel.
You may compare the crankshaft power output of an engine to the electric output of a nuclear power plant, or you may compare the thermal content of the fuel burned to the thermal power of a nuclear power plant. You may not compare the thermal content of oil to the electric output of a nuclear power plant, which is what you just did. Furthermore, we can't get numbers for the crankshaft power of cars, we only know the amount of fuel burned and the heat content. However, that is generally considered to be roughly fair, since they have (ballpark) comparable efficiencies. If you drive an electric car, then the efficiency of wall power to crankshaft power is something like 90%, combine that with the nuclear plant efficiency, 0.9*0.33 = 30%. That doesn't even take into account the fact that a large amount of oil is burnt idling at stoplights. Even if we only used petroleum coke fired plants, electrifying transport would decrease the amount of fuel used for distance moved. Thus I make statements like I did before that even 6% is a conservative number for nuclear's share of world energy. Nuclear power makes higher quality energy for the same thermal power as oil (the elephant in the room that makes up the majority of thermal energy use).
Nuclear useful to other's thermal
0.167*0.14 = 2.3%
Nuclear thermal to other's thermal (correct)
(0.167 / .33)*0.14 = 7.08 %
Nuclear thermal to other's useful
(0.167 / .33)*(.14/((1-.14)*.3+.14)) = 17.8%
The first one and the third ones are incorrect. They are unfair comparisons. The middle one still isn't 'fair' but it's the best we can do with recorded data. -Theanphibian (talk o contribs) 01:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Lead section revised
I have revised the lead section to make it less detailed and (I hope) more coherent, and fixed some minor inaccuracies (eg, "nuclear power" is surely not a "nuclear technology"). Some of the material I have removed might go into later sections of the article. There are wikilinks to supporting materials, but several good general references to primary sources should probably be added. Wwheaton (talk) 07:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
Advantages
Please give us some advantages of Nuclear Power! --Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.108.120.248 (talk) 02:37, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Before Chernobyl, it was accounted that burning coal to produce electrical energy released more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear power (coal contains small but significant amounts of radioactive material). Since Chernobyl, nuclear power's record is much worse.... but I am not sure if coal is cleaner in this way.Edwardspat (talk) 18:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Possibly entry into article, modified or not: "Nuclear power is key to increasing productivity. The reason has to do with energy flux density. This is the density of energy flux over an area. In the case of nuclear power, it is land area, on which human activity is based. Nuclear energy delivers more energy per unit mass of fuel. Hence, the development of nuclear energy delivers more energy per unit area of land. This means the specific use of nuclear power delivers higher energy flux per land area than other forms of power. That same land, thus electrified, can be used for other purposes. This turn leads to increased productivity of the electrically powered machines and hence the personel that use them in that area. This is turn increases the productivity of a nuclear plant into societal productivity. More can be done with less. However, the overall result is not just productivity. Nuclear electrification of productive machines increases the capability of economic association between people on a given land. This is the physical quality that leads to the general formula of productivity per capita per land area, of "power of the people"". At the very least, somewhere there ought to be a list of economic advantages and reasons. 74.195.16.39 (talk) 23:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC) Your forget something the nuclear energy produces hidrogen that can be used as an energy source and purified water(it can purify salad water too) because at that high temperature everithing dies and the result is purified water. and the 95% of the things that it uses can be recicled, the japanese are looking to make something to recicle it and produce mucho more 150%. And dont think that the nuclear energy is like a nuclear bomb. You think in Chernobyl but the dams cand explode and kill you, the oil plants too, the wind turbines can hit a plane, or fall and kill you too, solar energy you need 100000 plants to make 1 volt per 1hour and only at day the wind energy needs a lot of space too. Everithing is dangerous if you don't invert the necessary money for it. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.18.178.53 (talk) 16:59, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
http://www.alternate-energy-sources.com/advantages-of-nuclear-energy.html everithing you need is here --Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.18.178.53 (talk) 16:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Debate section
The "debate" section of this article should be limited to the scientific debate on the efficacy, viability and safety of nuclear power. There should be no interest group arguments made there (either on behalf of or against the nuclear power industry). I bring this up because the section leads one to believe that certain issues are more controversial than they really are. For instance, nuclear waste storage technology isn't really controversial as a technology. In fact, it's incredibly effective. The debate over nuclear storage is more focused on who (which state/terrotiry) is willing to take nuclear waste containers and store them. Many say "I don't want it in my back yard." It's not because there's actually a substantial risk of leak (one leak in a period of hundreds of thousands of years would be exceptional and surprising). It's because, leak or not, no one wants to take it. Similar issues exist on the flip side of the debate. There are areas of debate that are minimized by nuclear proponents but remain significant. ask123 (talk) 17:34, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Baseload and France
I understand that nuclear power is baseload power, meaning that it can only cover the lowest power consumption level (at night) because once you start up a nuclear power plant, you have to keep it running. Is this correct? If so, that should be explained in the article. But this makes me wonder, how can it be that in France, 78% of the electricity is covered by nuclear power? Do they store the excess power at night and then use that stored energy during the day? Or do they maybe export power at night (and then maybe in exchange import during the day)? DirkvdM (talk) 19:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't really feel that the section about baseload power or flexibility of nuclear power plants is really clear. At first, I thoughs ALL nuclear reactors had fuel issues, so they couldn't vary their output without losing economics effectiveness. Now, it's seems that new designs can vary their output but are still limited to 100 "output holes" per year without having fuels "economics consumption problems" (I'm pretty sure gas stations can have something like more then 400 variation without a single loss in economy, THEY can meet daytime demand)
Plus, it would be pertinent to talk about the low marginal cost of nuclear, i.e., nuclear is baseload because its cheap to operate, costly to build, hence it should sell power all the time. Second, it's baseload because it may use its fuel less economically if they lower output too much, i.e. more then 100 times a years, and that is for newer designs, older or some others design have more limitations then economics of fuel. 132.203.171.42 (talk) 11:34, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Impartiality
Please can someone change the line '(including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union)' to order countries alphabetically. I dont understand why there is a US bias I dont beleive US were leaders in this case. Thanks. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.203.204.146 (talk) 11:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Kool Aid
This paragraph:
Spent fuel is highly radioactive and needs to be handled with great care and forethought. However, spent nuclear fuel becomes less radioactive over the course of thousands of years of time. After about 5 percent of the rod has reacted the rod is no longer able to be used. Today, scientists are experimenting on how to recycle these rods to reduce waste. In the meantime, after 40 years, the radiation flux is 99.9% lower than it was the moment the spent fuel was removed, although still dangerously radioactive.
not only shows bias; it makes no sense.
Compare "thousands of years" with "40 years"
Tyrerj (talk) 06:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Although clumsily written, it is more or less correct and makes perfect sense. Obviously the contributor was attempting to put the radioactivity of spent fuel in some sort of context. If on Day 1 you walked up to a freshly discharged spent fuel assembly and gave it a big hug you might recieve a potentially lethal radiation dose in, say, 1 second. But if you waited 40 years, you might have to fondle it for 1,000 seconds, about 17 minutes, to get the same dose (I just say this for illustrative purposes, I don't know how long it really takes to recieve an LD50 dose from spent fuel), so the spent fuel would still be considered dangerously radioactive. It would take thousands of years more before the radioactivity dropped to levels comparable to the ore the Uranium was originally mined from to be considered "safe". Whether the paragraph is biased is subjective. The sentence, "After about 5 percent of the rod has reacted the rod is no longer able to be used." appears to be a crude attempt to convey that only a small fraction of the original fuel is responsible for the bulk of the radioactivity but I think it just confuses the issue and is addressed in the reprocessing section later on. I would be OK with dropping that sentence. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Blubbaloo (talk o contribs) 13:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Edit request (footnote 46)
{{editsemiprotected}}
Dead link @ footnote 46. New link structure ("new-reactors" vs "new-licensing"), root filename @ link unchanged. Please replace --
<:ref> [http:://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf "Expected New Nuclear Power Plant Applications"] (PDF). U.S. [:[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]]. 2008-07-24. Retrieved 2008-07-25. </ref>
with --
<:ref> [http:://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf "Expected New Nuclear Power Plant Applications"] (PDF). U.S. [:[Nuclear Regulatory Commission]]. 2009-09-28. Retrieved 2010-01-08. </ref>
--Sparks1911 (talk) 18:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Edit request
{{editsemiprotected}}
Under origins, there is a for parallel uranium enrichment. The statement before that mentions that Hiroshima and Hagasaki were the first cities bombed by nuclear weapons. The phrasing of that sentence implies that both cities were bombed with plutonium weapons, which is incorrect (Nagasaki was bombed with Uranium based Little Boy, Hiroshima with plutonium based Fat Man). That needs to be clarified, and the citation needed for the uranium enrichment can easily be done with a point the to the Wiki article about Oak Ridge, Tennessee (one of the major sites for enrichment, with K-25, S-50, and Y-12 working on U-235 and X-10 plutonium production feasibility plant.) Both Hanford, WA and Oak Ridge, TN were important enrichment sites, so it seems the previous authors knew about Hanford, but not Oak Ridge.
I'm not sure how one would describe this on the "Nuclear_Power" page, so I was going to put this on a talk page anyway, before finding out about the semi-protection. I do know the paragraph is clumsy, and the information requested by the is well laid out in sister pages about the Manhattan Project.
-- Tir-Gwaith (talk) 13:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Not done: Welcome and thanks for wanting to improve this article. When using the {{editsemiprotected}} template, the request needs to be specific to a 'Please change X to Y' level of detail. If you'd like to provide that level of detail, someone will insert the change for you unless there is a good reason not to do so. Alternatively, you can leave the suggestion here and an editor who is interested in this subject may choose to work it into the article. We do not allow other article to be used as references, but you could look at the sources in the other article and see if one or more of them covers this. Enjoy, Celestra (talk) 05:49, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Reprocessing + fast breeder reactor
Both in this article + the nuclear reprocessing article, it isn't well described how the reprocessing is done. For example, is the reprocessing a seperate step, or is it simply immediate consumption by other reactors (such as the Integral Fast Reactor) ? Please clarify and add required modifications to article.
In addition; nowhere in the article is a link to fast breeder reactors, nor are they described here. 87.66.48.19 (talk) 09:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Footnote 19% not substantiated
For reference #6 of percentage of electrical energy created by nuke reactors the referenced link does not prove that... in fact by calculation you only get something like 11.2%. The place that references the 19% is the US EPA here: http://www.epa.gov/RDEE/energy-and-you/affect/nuclear.html
Maybe someone can make that change?
98.168.148.62 (talk) 06:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Recent Edits by FellGleaming: what and why I've reverted
Randall Thompson can not be called an "unreliable source." [23]
The word "claims" is frequently used in debates. "Concludes" is not accurate when there is a debate around the meaning of the study.
Nuclear waste is unarguably an "unsolved problem" and it is fair to use those words in the text. [24]
The edit here is innacurate[25]. The report says: "But, says the MIT report, even reducing completion time to just four or five years, and lowering construction costs by a quarter, would still not put the plants in contention with coal, and would just barely match the price performance of a CCGT using high-cost gas." Rndm85 (talk) 02:00, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Don't remove sources/info. The statement is a counterpoint to the conclusions of the study. Rndm85 (talk) 02:51, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory's study is also self-published. They have a $1.4 billion budget and benefit from construction of nuclear plants. There are few unbiased sources on controversial topics. Controversial articles are made up of differing opinions, and the readers can read the original sources and decide for themselves. The Wikipedia article should be unbiased, but it can reference unbiased sources as long as they are credible and well referenced (as ISS is). Your personal opinion about whether a well-cited source like ISS is innacurate is irrelevant. If you disagree with a source, you can add another sentence with a counter-source, but don't delete sources in an attempt to skew Wikipedia articles in favor of your personal political opinion. "Travelling circus performer" is obviously highly biased language. Thompson has a long history in the nuclear industry, and therefore deserves to be mentioned. If you have a source that credibly calls him a "travelling circus performer" then you can add it to the article as a counterpoint to what he says.
"Thompson and his wife, Joy, a nuclear health physicist who also worked at TMI in the disaster's aftermath, claim that what they witnessed there was a public health tragedy... Randall Thompson could never be accused of being a knee-jerk anti-nuclear alarmist. A veteran of the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine program, he is a self-described "nuclear geek" who after finishing military service jumped at the chance to work for commercial nuclear power companies. He worked for a time at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant south of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania's York County, but quit the industry six months before the TMI disaster over concerns that nuclear companies were cutting corners for higher profits, with potentially dangerous results."[26]
You are also deleting references to studies by MIT and Princeton in order to further your political views. You can add whatever sources you want to the articles, but stop deleting credible sources just because you disagree with their conclusions. Rndm85 (talk) 01:20, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
- ^ Nuclear Energy Now: Why the Time Has Come for the World's Most Misunderstood Energy Source
- ^ a b The Great Sustainability Debates - Nuclear Energy
- ^ Pros and Cons of Nuclear Power
- ^ a b The nuclear power debate - handle with care
- ^
- ^ United States Advocates Major Expansion of Nuclear Energy
- ^ Nuclear needs 'huge expansion'
- ^ Nuclear power - not worth the risk!
- ^ The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2007 p. 23.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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