Talk:Nuclear power phase-out/Archive 2

message: As Talk:Nuclear power phase-out/to do hasn't been updated since last November, IMO it is serving no purpose to have it at the top of this talk page. Feel free to reinstate it if you wish to use it, it's just a matter of adding  to the top of the page (or wherever you feel it belongs on the page). Many of the issues raised are still outstanding, as are several others, but it needs to be updated to reflect the activity that has occurred over the past two months. 
I'd suggest that if it is reinstated, it should be in bullet-point form. It's far too long to be useful as is. Andrewa 03:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed '''todo''' list

message: Is there a Wikipedia convention for using the word 'billion' in the sense of 109 exclusive to 1012 (British)? --DV8 2XL 18:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: While I cannot find a Wikipedia convention, the long scale is falling out of use in British English.  The UK government, in official documents, exclusively uses short scale.  For reference, see Names_of_numbers_in_English. S.N. Hillbrand 23:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion is "don't use billions", use "1,000 millions" instead. Long and short scales are a subtle argument and many take their own custom for granted, resulting in misunderstandings. --Orzetto 14:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. IMO there should be a Wikipedia policy don't use the term "billion" if you can avoid it. It could be unavoidable in a quotation for example; It could even be the case in some quotations that we don't know which figure was intended, only what was said! But otherwise, as well as 1,000 million (or million million for the British billion) there are a number of other avoidance strategies, such as scientific notation and the correct (please!) use of SI prefixes. Andrewa 02:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Million-billion 

message: As asked by Ben on the Danish wikipedians notice board, here are some facts about Danish Nuclear Power. Since it is not in the article, i would like to point your attention to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Danish_wikipedians%27_notice_board#nuclear_power_phase-out
(unsigned comment by User:87.49.114.61. Attributed by Ben  T/C  20:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuclear power in Denmark 

message: Ok, since my (relatively minor) revision was reverted, I'd like to ask about the support for the statement "# Wind power - the only alternative which directly mitigates the effects of global warming"
Is this anything other than an opinion? Aren't there other options that "mitigate the effects of global warming"? How does wind power mitigate said effects? This seems to me to be a statement openly biased in favor of wind power. I'll admit I'm not in favor of that power source (finding it horribly inefficient, especially on calm days), but I don't go to the alernative energy article and lampoon it as the joke I believe it is.--G 1 17:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wind the "only" alternative? 

message: Is it proofed that there is no realistic way for a "fast" nuclear power phase-out?
Seems to be a bit unneutral!
--Edroeh 16:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Belgium 

message: This segment:
"
a nuclear reactor can operate for 9-12 months on a few million dollars worth of fuel and maintenance while a coal-fired plant consumes tens of thousands of dollars of fuel a day.
"
We probably shoudn't compare one year of operation with one day of operation. Mathiastck 18:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lets compare like periods 

message: This article has come a long way, and it is much better now.  But I still take issue with certain points in the article.  Let me show what I think should be changed:
:Arguments for the phase-out:Economy
I feel this whole section is bad.  First of all, it is from a source which is ten years old.  It says:
:•	Costs of competing sources of energy, as oil, natural gas and coal should increase unrealistically for nuclear power to be competitive".
Nuclear power has always been one of the cheapest forms of energy, even back then and that shouldn't be controversial.  On top of that, it is saying that the price of fossil fuels 'probably won't increase enough to make nuclear competitive'.  Well this prediction turns out not to be true.  Back then, natural gas was expect to stay around $2/MMBTU.  Last winter it went over $15/MMBTU, and right now is steady at over $6/MMBTU: http://www.wtrg.com/daily/oilandgasspot.html
It also states: 
:•	The plant fleet seldom operates at full power capacity, but only at a fraction (Paine reports 58% as typical), since some plants must periodically stop for safety controls. Increasing this percentage would therefore pose an inherent risk.
When all 104 nuclear power plants are operating at full capacity is a very curious and misleading number to use.  First of all, there is no context to this.  All the wind farm plants in the US would NEVER operate at full capacity.  Nuclear power plants would undoubtably actually be the highest out of all the types of energy prodution.  Second of all, once again this data must be 10 years old, and capacity factor of nuclear power has nearly maxed out since then.    Thirdly, the number that should be used is the "average capacity factor", in which I believe for nuclear power plants is about 92%.  Finally, the main reason nuclear power plants stop is to refuel, not because they are not safe.
:•	Construction cost are unlikely to be recovered by operating the plant, with expected lifetime and revenue;
If that was true, nuclear power plants would not be built because they would never turn a profit...and yet they are all over the world in Japan, China, India, Finland, etc.  Furthermore, in the US, the NRC expects about 12 applications for 18-20 nuclear power plants in the coming years. 
:Paine does not discuss environmental issues such as waste disposal. He also laments that precise data on the economic viability of nuclear power is not made available to the public.
This does not have much to do with this sub-topic and should be moved/deleted.  As a whole, the entire sub-section should probably be deleted since the argument doesn't hold any water.
______________________________
:Arguments against the phase-out:Greenhouse gases and environmental protection
:There has recently been a renewed interest in nuclear energy as a solution to dwindling oil reserves and global warming because electricity demand is increasing and nuclear power generates virtually no greenhouse gases, in contrast to common alternatives such as coal. It has been proposed as a solution to the greenhouse effect (e.g. "nukes are green."[59][60][61]) This has been disputed by several environmentalist organizations.[62]
"This" is ambiguous.  What do they dispute? Certainly because nuclear power doesn't emit GHG, it is a possible solution.  It should read:  Several environmental organizations dispute nuclear power is a good solution.
______________________________
:Nuclear reactors do not emit greenhouse gases or ash during normal operation; however the mining and processing of uranium involves emissions. Emissions that arise from the whole life cycle are comparable to wind energy.[64] However, an issue of debate [65] is that greenhouse emissions from mining, milling and enrichment may be substantially greater in the future as the world's reserves of high grade uranium are depleted, and low grade uranium is increasingly used.[66] This view is not supported by the nuclear power industry.
What constitutes "substantially greater"?  Could it be MORE than coal plants?  ...or would it still be LESS than solar power?  Some context would be nice here.
_______________________________
:After 50 years 99.1% of radiation will have been emitted.
This is worded badly.  For someone reading this who doesn't know what radiation is, they may ask, "Emitted where? Into the atmosphere?  Into my lungs?"  It should say: "99.1% of the radioactivity will be gone after 50 years."
_______________________________
Also, I believe that the section Countries that have initiated a phase out or have discussed it should be split into two sections since some countries which have "discussed it" are actually ALSO discussing building new ones (such as Switzerland): http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/06/world/main1183535.shtml
Finally, this article could also use some context.  As a whole, more than 70 nuclear power plants (by many countries) are being built/planned around the world, which I bet is more than the ones being "phased-out". http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf47.htm
That is my two cents.  I put this all in here to discuss these things first before I make changes, because I know many people are opinionated about this article. Ajnosek 20:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Random POV and other needed changes 

message: According to all official reports (they can be seen at IAEA website number stands at 41. Others are unofficial and if quoted they must be named as such.
--Trigor 10:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be important to include the best estimates for latent fatalities too, and talk about why these estimates vary so much.  Maybe we could provide some figures of deaths per TWy to provide some context with other energy sources. (or just refer to the chernobyl accident page.)  Ajnosek 06:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I reverted to a previous text until we don't get this straight here in discussion. Here's the deal. There is only one official estimate. The rest are unofficial and private papers. If you insist on putting it make that clear. Next according to that official estimate that can be obtained for free on www.iaea.org 43 includes latent casualties as well. They have estimate that based on 25 years of experience they estimated that up to 4000 people could and I repeat could die as a consequence of Chernobyl, including accident and emergency response crew. Please review this report. Here's the link [www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf]. This is official report. Up till now 43 people died (including latent causes). THe paper also warns of exaggerations that have been made. This is preview. There are also more detailed documents available from IAEA. In case your bandwidth is limited you can also order the report from IAEA, to be delivered by post. Pages of interest are 12 to 14 although whole report is very interesting for reading. --Trigor 15:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chernobyl figures 

message: According to http://www.uic.com.au/nip19.htm :
Spain has a program to add 810 MWe (11%) to its nuclear capacity through upgrading its nine reactors by up to 13%. For instance, the Almarez nuclear plant is being boosted by more than 5% at a cost of US$ 50 million. Some 519 MWe of the increase is already in place.
That's not the impression you'd get from the current article, which reads as though Spain is closing down its nukes, not investing heavily in upgrading them. Andrewa 02:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spain

message: "As of 2005, South Korea has 18 operational nuclear power reactors, with two more under construction and scheduled to go online by 2004." - Do i have to say more? Experts in temporal relations needed.... or indeed this is a very sarcastic comment, and therefore unsuitable in an encyclopedia.-- ExpImptalkcon 22:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  contradict 

message: (See also Talk:Nuclear energy policy#Separate but not)
It seems to me that we've gone from one extreme to the other by the merge to nuclear energy policy. 
A nuclear power phase-out remains a policy of several political parties in Europe, and has from time to time been government policy in several countries too. That makes it an encyclopedic topic. It has also of course been a policy of many lobby groups worldwide, but it's the adoption (or otherwise) of the policy by significant political parties and by governments that is most notable. 
What the article should say is who has supported the policy and when, concentrating on parties that had at least one elected representative in the parliament of the country concerned at the time. Unattributed arguments in favour or against the concept aren't what we want, they belong on political websites instead. Even statements attributed to lobby groups or political hopefuls with no electoral following are of dubious historical interest. Perhaps the test should be, that the person or organisation quoted is significant enough to themselves be subject of a Wikipedia article.
And of course there should be a balance. Many people have rejected the idea, even in Western Europe. And in Asia, there has never been any significant support. Andrewa 07:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A nuclear power phase-out policy is a one segment of overall nuclear policy. I don't see any reason why this information can't be included in the nuclear energy policy. Beagel 05:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's one policy option. And of course it can be included in the other article. I think it's a newsworthy enough policy to warrant its own article. Andrewa 10:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed new article