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Previous discussions:(Please note that the archive page currently contains material relevant to ongoing content discussions, so you may find relevant material there)

• Archive 1 (up to May 19, 2005):
• Archive 2 (May 19 to May 22, 2005):
• Archive 3 (May 23 to May 24, 2005):
• Archive 4 (May 25 to May 28, 2005):
• Archive 5 (June7 to June 13, 2005):
• Archive 6 (June 22 to August 10, 2005):
• Archive 7 (August 11 to August 31, 2005):
• Archive 8 (September 1 to December 28, 2005):

Risk stuff...

Removed from the section on risks:

However, their argument rings hollow, for they have failed to address a situation in which the risk is not defined but seems to be (Oldberg, 2005).

This is not NPOV because, clearly, there are many proponents of nuclear power who do not think their arguments on risk are "hollow". You can say "opponents of nuclear power" or "Fred Bloggs says that...". Secondly, what the hell is the actual argument made by the reference? It's completely unclear. --Robert Merkel 07:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Also removed:

According to Oldberg and Christensen (1995) and Oldberg (2005), the implication that "Probabilistic" Risk Assessment is probabilistic is invalidated by empirical violations of probability theory which have been persistently ignored by proponents.

From what I can tell, Oldberg seems to a bit of a lone iconoclast whose views have largely been ignored. While the Google test is not infallible, nobody else seems to link to or cites the papers you've cited. --Robert Merkel 09:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Merkel's argument that "Oldberg seems to be a bit of a lone iconoclast" is ad hominem, non-peer-reviewed and unresponsive to the topic. On the other hand, my assertions are responsive and have been published in the peer-reviewed literature of science. Hence, Merkel's argument lacks standing under Misplaced Pages's rules of evidence. Why, then, did Merkel feel it proper to delete my posting?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission admits in their inspection manual that many of the probabilities involved are approximations based on the subjective assessment of the inspector, and that these highly approximate probabilities are multiplied to obtain a result. Is that not consistent with the Oldberg and Christensen reports?

The issue of whether probability values cited in nuclear power industry reports are estimates stands apart from the issue of whether these "probabilities" are probabilities. The several, peer reviewed articles that I have published since 1990 point out that the "probabilities" are sometimes not probabilities. As "risk" is measured by probability, the fact that the "probabilities" associated with the reliability of the defect detection tests of nuclear power are generally not probabilities is quite significant regarding the potentiality for risk assessment and the utility of nuclear power.

Thus far, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not admitted or addressed the problem of violations of probability theory in the defect detection tests of nuclear power. This is true, though: a) I identified the problem to the NRC while serving on the advisory committee to an NRC research projects in 1984 b) I identified the disastrous effects of this problem on the same research project in a peer reviewed article published in 1995 c) the NRC appealed the decision to publish and had its appeal rejected by referees d) the NRC has had 21 year in which to frame a refutation to my arguments and has not done so to the satisfaction of peer reviewers.

Have you checked the Thompson Science Ciation Index (SCISEARCH)? I would feel much more comfortable if you would please do so, or ask others to do so here on talk, before removing citations to peer-reviewed sources.

Finally, why did you not copy the citation which you also removed here to talk? Please copy it here. —James S. 22:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Works cited:

Oldberg, T. and R. Christensen, 1995, "Erratic Measure" in NDE for the Energy Industry 1995; The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York, NY. Republished by ndt.net at http://www.ndt.net/article/v04n05/oldberg/oldberg.htm

Oldberg, T., "An Ethical Problem in the Statistics of Defect Detection Test Reliability," 2005, Speech to the Golden Gate Chapter of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing. Published by ndt.net at http://www.ndt.net/article/v10n05/oldberg/oldberg.htm

Again, please check SCISEARCH (or at least Google Scholar) before striking that kind of thing. —:James S. 00:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Just because the NRC says something, and Mr. Oldberg also says something similar, that the NRC is even aware of Mr. Oldberg's work. I can't find a single piece of evidence that they, or anybody else, have given it attention. I did check Google Scholar already (sorry for not making this point explicit) - I would have checked Web of Knowledge but I don't have access to it over the holiday season. In any case, there's not one single mention on Google Scholar. Oh, and while the first reference appears to be peer-reviewed, an invited talk generally doesn't count as such. --Robert Merkel 06:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Great, thanks; I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

In the mean time, can we talk about what the actual effect of multiplying so many uncertainties implies in terms of the mathematical 95% confidence interval? I remember seeing an amortization of the cost of waste disposal that someone had written out in the mid-1980s, and I just can't see the current state of the art having advanced all that much. —James S. 08:11, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The statement that the NRC may not be aware of "Mr. Oldberg's work" reveals that UTC has not read the references on which he is commenting. Were he to read them, he would find that the NRC is a) aware of the work b) has disputed the finding c) had its position rejected by peer reviewers. Regarding which of the works cited were peer reviewed, my 1995 paper was published under the rules of peer review of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission disputed the decision to publish and had its position rejected. An abstract of my 2005 presentation was submitted to a chapter of the American Society for Non-destructive Testing and was accepted for presentation by the organization's board of directors. Following presentation, I submitted the presentation for publication to the online journal nde.net. It reviewed the paper under its rules of peer review and accepted it for publication. The same journal, ndt.net, has vetted my 1995 paper's claims over a period of more than 6 years in its online forum. No refutation or limitation of the claims have been presented. By the way, I published a third, peer reviewed article on the same theme circa 1990 in the peer reviewed journal Materials Evaluation; it claims that steam generator tube inspection methods fail to define statistical populations.

Then someone should put your comments back in the article. —James S. 07:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, I was not aware that the individual adding the references to Oldberg's work was in fact Oldberg. Frankly, on the evidence available to me I don't think a description as a "lone iconoclast" is inaccurate or an ad hominem attack. For the benefit of others who are reading this, the claim that something has been published in a peer-reviewed journal doesn't automatically make it a) correct or b) so significant that it should automatically be mentioned in Misplaced Pages. Many, many thousands of scientfic papers are published each and every year; most will go largely unnoticed. For the conclusions of a paper to be significant and appropriate to mention in Misplaced Pages, the work has to have significantly influenced thinking on the topic; generally, in the context of scientific papers this will be when *other* works cite the paper; it might also be other books, government reports, and even in the case of nuclear safety if Greenpeace or some other prominent anti-nuclear group used the work to support their campaign that would be evidence that the work has been influential. However, as far as I can tell the work hasn't been cited by anyone else, anywhere. If you can provide evidence that it has been influential in some substantial way, well and good. If not, your work shouldn't be mentioned in Misplaced Pages. --Robert Merkel 08:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Robert Merkel: The description of me as a "lone iconoclast" is an example of what philosophers call an "ad hominem argument." It is one of the logical fallicies; they are so named because they can make a false conclusion seem true. To make an ad hominem argument is to make one's opponent in debate the issue rather than an assertion of one's opponent. You have surely made an ad hominem argument, for whether there is an error in nuclear power reactor safety inspection systems is what is at issue but you have made me the issue.Terry Oldberg 20:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if the NRC appeals process is as Oldberg has described, then his work has been cited favorably in government documents. Being cited in peer-reviewed literature isn't necessary to show veracity. Of course it helps, but on controversial topics the truth often -- perhaps more often -- comes out through court or law enforcement investigation, not the peer-reviewed literature. In some cases university labs will try to get there first, but step back and think about what we are talking about. There is already a staff of dozens at the NRC, in Congress, and as various claims work their way through the courts, there are even professional expert witnesses who are thinking about these things. Even the private sector has actuaries who have to figure out what to charge in various underwritings. Oldberg's thesis is mathematically sound, because any introduction of subjective judgement magnifies uncertainty. If all references uncited by the peer-reviewed literature were excluded, I doubt that would be an improvement. —James S. 08:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily have to be cited by peer-reviewed literature, but find somebody who has given this research serious attention, be it in a court of law, in a legislative body, in the scientific/engineering literature. Unless substantial attention has been paid to it by a relevant group of people, it doesn't matter how brilliant it is, it's not for Misplaced Pages at this point in time. --Robert Merkel 09:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that just about anyone can get published in a peer reviewed journal. Some journals even make money by making authors pay money to be printed. I think something should have been verified by numeruous studies before it comes in. This is the sort of thing that ends up leading to ~1/3 the conclusions from medical stuidies being retracted and the laymans scepticism of scientific experts. If you want people to ignore wikipedia, put in lots of stuff that is cutting edge research and may eventually be proven incorrect. The previous statements are general, I haven't been keeping up with the exact discussion above. Lcolson 13:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Robert Merkel and Lcolson: You've misrepresented the system by which truths are established in science. This system is not litigation in a court of law, a vote in a legislative body or having attention paid to it by a relevant group of people. The system is peer reviewed publication. That a paper has been published under peer review signifies that: a) reviewers, who are expert in the field, have reviewed it b) the reviewers have found no errors in the logic or the facts that are presented c) the reviewers feel the topic is important enough for the paper to occupy the limited number of pages that are available in the journal. Once a paper has been published, the claims that are made in it become open for review and possible refutation within the scientific community. If a refutation is not forthcoming, the paper's claims stand. The mechanism for correcting a faulty claim is not, as you seem to think, to ignore it. It is to publish a refutation of the claim. I've published three, peer-reviewed articles on the topic of statistical anomalies in the field of defect detection testing. The first, published in the February 1991 edition of Materials Evaluation, a journal of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing, claims that inspection methods for PWR steam generator tubes do not define statistical populations. This claim has not been refuted in the subsequent 14 years. The second, published by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, claims that defect detection tests generate empirical violations of probability theory; hence they are inconsistent with conventional statistics. In 1995, Business Week magazine printed about a million copies of an article about this paper. The paper was the topic of an article in the French magazine La Reserche (sp?). I forwarded copies of it to the U.S. Nuclear Regulator Commission, the U.S. Federal Aviation Agency, the C.E.O.s of all nuclear utilities in the United States, the C.E.O.s of all U.S. reactor vendors and numerous academic scientists. Six years ago, the Web based journal ndt.net republished the article. It has been available for discussion and has been discussed in the forum of ndt.net; ndt.net has an international readership of 80,000 specialists in nondestructive testing. The paper has also been available for discussion and discussed in the online forum of the American Society for Nondestructive Testing. On two occasions, I've presented the paper to live audiences of experts in nondestructive testing. I've been a paid consultant on the paper to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Despite this vast amount of exposure, despite the great incentive that proponents of nuclear power have to refute the paper, and despite the fact that it has been in print for more than 11 years, it has not been refuted. This paper claims to invalidate research by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the reliability of PWR steam generator tube inspection methods. The NRC disputed this finding and had its position rejected by the peer review system. The scientists who had their research panned by this paper have not published a refutation. Is the thesis of my papers established within the scientific community? Yes it is. Is calling attention to this thesis contrary to the interests of promoters of nuclear power? Yes it is. Is the topic of incompetent engineering of the safety inspection systems of nuclear reactors of sufficient importance to be included in Misplaced Pages's article on nuclear power? It surely is. Terry Oldberg 20:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I met with Terry Oldberg and doubt any editor reading this would consider him "just about anyone." Among other things, he was a LLNL nuclear weapon designer with a "Q" security clearance from 1963-1968. The following comprise his peer-reviewed and invited work (NDT=nondestructive testing):

“An Ethical Problem in the Statistics of Defect Detection Test Reliability,” Address to the Golden Gate Chapter of the American Society for Non-destructive Testing, March 10, 2005.

“Erratic Measure,” NDE for the Energy Industry 1995, pp. 1-6. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York, NY (1995).

“Concept of Concreteness and Abstraction in Estimating NDT Reliability,” Materials Evaluation, 49, pp. 297-299 (1991).

“Fission Gas Release and Fuel Reliability at Extended Burnup: Predictions by the SPEAR-BETA Code,” Meeting on LWR Extended Burnup - Fuel Performance and Utilization, Williamsburg, VA, April 4-8, 1982.

“Probabilistic Code Development,” Entropy Minimax Sourcebook, Vol. 4, p 29. Entropy Limited (1981).

“New Code Development, “ ibid, p 35.

“Spear Code Development,” ibid, p 45.

“Entropy Minimax Hazard Axes for Failure Analysis,” ibid. p 674.

“Advances in Understanding and Predicting Inelastic Deformation in Zircaloy,” Zirconium in the Nuclear Industry, American Society for Testing and Materials (1980).

“The Carnot Efficiency Principle as a Guide to Decision Making in Research,” Invited Lecture, Stanford University, circa 1980.

“Dealing with Uncertainty in Fuel Rod Modeling,” Nuclear Technology, 37, p. 40.

“Thermographic Imaging of Nuclear Fuel Rods,” Nuclear Technology (1978).

“Non-Steady-State Factors in Models for Swelling of Oxide Fuels,” Nuclear Applications and Technology, 9, p. 338 (1970).

“Important Mechanisms in the Explanation of Clad Diametral Expansion at First Startup of a Mixed Oxide Fuel Pin,” Proceedings Conference on Fast Reactor Fuel Technology, New Orleans, April 13-15, 1971. American Nuclear Society.

“Behave-2: An Oxide Fuel Pin Performance model in Two Spatial Dimensions and Time,” Transactions of the American Nuclear Society (1971).

“Mechanical Model of Thermal Differential Expansion at First Startup of a Mixed Oxide Fuel Pin,” Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 13, p 573 (1970).

I think his views are proper to include. —James S. 04:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Well that is fascinating (there's lots of questions I'd love to ask Mr (Dr?) Oldberg, virtually all of which he wouldn't be permitted to answer and to which he'd probably have to dumb down the answers for me to comprehend), but it still doesn't alter the fact that none of the above provides any evidence that other people are paying attention to his views expressed the two papers being cited. See WP:NPOVUW.--Robert Merkel 12:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The statement "Such probabilistic assessments have been criticized by authorities because they lack mathematical rigor and involve subjective assessments" quotes unnamed "authorities" - you'll have to cite a source for them. In addition, in 2005 Oldberg himself said that his 1995 paper was being ignored (after skimming it, I can understand that - he obviously knows nothing about steam generators or water chemistry in nuclear power plants). I'm removing the sections involved (can't revert - there's some renewable stuff in the way). Simesa 17:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Simesa: You're wrong when you say "...he obviously knows nothing about steam generators...". From 1982 to 1886, I was one of about 6 people who managed the 30 million US$ research project of an international group of owners of pressurized water reactors calling itself the "Steam Generator Owners Group." Among my responsibilities was management of research and development on methods of steam generator tube inspection. In the same period, I sat on the steering committee of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's research program on steam generators, a large portion of which was devoted to an attempt at measuring the reliability of inspections. I'm a co-author of "The Steam Generator Reference Book." Electric Power Research Institute, 1995. Terry Oldberg 20:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Oldberg and Christensen are the authorities in this case. What does nondestructive testing of dry cooling pipes have to do with water chemistry? The fact that the pressurized cooling pipes corrode at unpredictable rates is not in dispute. The fact that the means of testing them for corrosion is not mathematically rigorous (as explained by Oldberg and Christensen 1995) is peer-reviewed, and has not been answered in the literature. Please do not remove the assertions unless doing so is supported by peer-reviewed sources. Furthermore, the comment that punped hydro power storage is "prohibitatively expensive" is nonsense. Pumped hydro sotrage has been in use for almost 100 years, and at the lowest efficiency configurations barely doubles the resulting cost. —James S. 19:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I stand corrected - I should have read Oldberg's website, not just the references and the list of publications above. Water chemistry in a nuclear power plant tells you how many tubes are already leaking - they know about what they're going to find before they do the inspections. Exact location would seem to be unimportant - a sufficient indication anywhere on the tube causes it to get plugged (plug enough tubes and you have to de-rate the plant). Oldberg is one authority and should be cited explicitly, not in as generic a statement as "the authorities" (implying all qualified engineers).

Prohibitively-expensive, or something like it, is justified. The reference in this section says:

In a March 2004 report Eurelectric and the Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers in Europe pointed out that "Introducing renewable energy unavoidably leads to higher electricity prices. Not only are production costs substantially higher than for conventional energy, but in the case of intermittent energy sources like wind energy, grid extensions and additional balancing and back-up capacity to ensure security of supply imply costs which add considerably to the end price for the final consumer." "Reducing CO2 by promoting renewable energy can thus become extremely expensive for consumers," though both organisations fully support renewables in principle.

Note that pumped storage absorbs about 25% of the energy it can produce (see Pumped-storage hydroelectricity

I ask pardon for not checking earlier. I'm involved in college and an arbitration, and could use a wikibreak.

Simesa 22:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Image

I have replaced the image of a nuclear powerplant with sunflowers (Image:Nuclear Power Plant.jpg) in the foreground with this (Image:Nuclear_Power_Plant_Cattenom.jpg) much higher quality image. Which I believe was the original image here anyway. I think that the image with sunflowers may be construed as being pov. The sunflowers are purposefully juxtaposed with the power plant in the background (it is an image taken by the plant organization itself, afterall) likely in order to portray an image of environmental consiousness or one of "being green". The image I replaced it with is merely one showing a power plant and a blank field (slightly brownish grass even) with nothing in it. It is much more honest/neutral and the reader can see much more detail of the power plant. (full disclosure: I am very "pro nuclear" when it comes to nuclear power, I just feel that it should be represented as honestly as possible when being professionally presented, as is the case here.)--Deglr6328 02:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the original picture was a very good aerial view of Leibstadt - Image:Nuclear_Power_Plant_Cattenom.jpg is also used on nuclear power plant. The Image:Nuclear Power Plant.jpg was obtained with some difficulty from the Nuclear Energy Institute as a free-to-use picture showing the key buildings without revealing details. The name of the plant is even unknown, as the utility insisted on anonymity. Simesa 17:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

uranium-235 and/or plutonium vs fissionable

The opening paragraph mentions that:

Nuclear power plants generate power by nuclear fission reactions which occur when sufficient amounts of uranium-235 and/or plutonium are confined to a small space

Is this strictly speaking true for the small number of fast breader reactors? From the article Fissile material:

Notably, uranium-238 is fissionable but not fissile. Fast fission of uranium-238 in the third stage of the fission-fusion-fission weapons contributes greatly to their yield and fallout. Fast fission of uranium-238 also makes a significant contribution to the power output of some fast breeder reactors. However, uranium-238 on its own cannot achieve criticality, so these uses are both dependent on there being fissile material present to sustain the chain reaction.

My understanding is that there are also small amounts of other transuranic isotopes created in a fast breader which then can go on to contribute to the reactions. My question is are we close enough in the opening paragraph not ot mention any of this? Or should we perhaps change it so that it says fissionable instead of uranium-235 and/or plutonium? Dalf | Talk 09:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that, in practice, the isotopes which participate to the reaction in standard, water-moderated reactors (relevant for this article) are either uranium-235 or plutonium-239 (transuranic elements are created during drift through neutron capture). The other transuranics are usually not fissile. --Philipum 15:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

This is nto strictly speaking true. At least according to this (or last) months Scientific American where they had an article about Fast Breader reactors (3 or 4 of which are currently in use globally and a number more are under construction in several contries) as much as (and I am going from memory here) 5% of the total energy in these types of reactors are from the transuranics and a even larger % from depleated uranium (which the Fissile material article discusses. That is to say fissile and fisionable are not equvilent terms (according to that article and the Scientific american article). I will try and see if there is an online copy of the article I read and provide a link here. Dalf | Talk 02:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The article I read is here (this is the format their "link to this article" thing generated):

Scientific American: Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste it looks like you ahve to be a subscriber to see the whole thign. When I get home from xmass tomorrow I will look up the actual numbers and I think the article might even have refrences to primary sources. Maybe. Dalf | Talk 02:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

These other compounds which are not Fissile are called Fertile material meanning that they can be changed in a breeder to fissile elements I think via nutron capture). Anyway I think its significant for the article in that I suspect a lot of the new construction on reactors that we are going to see in the near future will be this type of reactor. Dalf | Talk 00:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Intresting page on Nuclear Power in Finland

I just read this article which is about nuclear power in Finland and about the new reactor being built that will go oinline in 2009. Reading the cost per Kwh and other considerations made me think that the diffrences in cost of nuclear power really does seem to differ drastically from country to counrty. I though we might want to include a look at the factors that contribute to these diffrences in the article. Dalf | Talk 02:00, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Unverified price assertion

] This section asserts that nuclear power is less expensive that Wind power without attribution. Accordingly, it is unverifiable and I suggest violates NPOV.

"Although the subsidized cost per megawatt for a nuclear power plant is less than that of a natural gas plant and more than that of a wind farm, ..."

Could this be improved? Benjamin Gatti 06:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps by reading it: "...the subsidized cost per megawatt for a nuclear power plant is ... more than that of a wind farm, ..." Presumably that's not including the cost of the back-up power supply for the wind farm.

—wwoods 09:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

does this cost per megawatt for a nuclear plant also includes the cost for nuclear waste transport and storage?--Enr-v 14:19, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure where the price comparison came from, although I have seen it before, but yes, in the US the price of nuclear power includes disposal. A disposal charge is added to the cost charged to consumers (I think the amount of money accumulated now is somewhere near $20 billion?). I believe nuclear power is the only power source that adds the decommissioning and disposal costs up front. As a side note, the last source that I saw that compared the cost of nuclear, wind etc... had wind being less costly than nuclear when it was by itself, once you added in energy storage or standby generation nuclear was less expensive. Lcolson 14:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

A 2004 UK Royal Academy of Engineering report giving price comparisons is cited in "Economy", just two paragraphs above the sentence in question. Simesa 16:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem I have is that it's weaselly and the source is unidentified. Given that (in this state any way) the one and only consideration for building new energy plants is the burden on the state and ratepayer (without respect for associated health costs or federal subsides) - I suggest that we could treat the subject with more than a passing glance. I would very much like to see a section on the relative price which lists a plurality of sources and their conclusion in a traceable fashion. (BTW - In a recent energy conference in NC, the state regulator indicated that the total cost of ownership for nuclear was less than wind, so the issue seems to deserve more clarity. Benjamin Gatti 15:49, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

A PDF of the full UK RAE report is at . I'll add it to the article. Simesa 20:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I notice on Page 10 that this study fails to include the societal costs of known externalities - such as the health costs related to coal pollution, the cost of invading oil suppliers in order to secure their oil reserves, and the cost of securing nuclear waste against malicious re-purposing indefinitely, as well as the cost of insuring against the risks of each technology. And I note that here, the risk of inoperation is included for wind, while the risk of meltdown is unincluded for nuclear. So I would suggest that this section is a work of fiction with a bias against safe. clean energy. Benjamin Gatti 23:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Your assertions are garbage and so are your wikilinks (i.e. secure). I think that you would question any source of information that is contradictory to your "belief system". The sources the article is currently using is adequate for the price assertion. Lcolson 00:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The term "a work of fiction" is definitely uncalled for. Sorry, it's a fact that windmills are non-operating when the wind doesn't blow. As for nuclear accidents, I suggest that realistic numbers and probabilities be used instead of the "wildly conservative" (as stated to me by a Sandia National Labs researcher) super-worst-case estimates found in the 1975-data-based CRAC-II study -- also bearing in mind that any new nuclear units will be several orders of magnitude safer than the current ones. Simesa 01:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

All I'm proposing is a properly formatted NPOV section: ie:

1. this study reported the cost of nuclear energy as 2 cents per kw - while the cost of alternatives such as oil, coal and wind were reported to be 3, 5 & 9 cents respectively.
2. this other study held that the cost of nuclear (including subsides) is some 4 cents - compared to oil (3 cents), (coal 5 cents) and wind (8 cents).

I think its clear that any single assertion of the price is fiction given that there is no single accepted accounting practice for energy, and many various studies of the projected price. Is that so disagreeable? Benjamin Gatti 17:26, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

It is commonly accepted in law that industry standards are credible, as well as most government reports and professional group guidlines. While it is true that not everyone will agree on all methods used, it is not true that there is no commonly accepted method to account for price assertions. There are many accepted accounting practices. As with drawing conclusions from all research, you just have to uderstand the assumptions used and who are making them and see if they are applicable for the given situation. I have no problem with multiple studies being used, as long as they are explained properly. If you want cost in the US, say its for the US and use DOE data (or say who did the study and what it was intended to show). If you want global costs, use the equivelent international organization (I know this data exists somewhere). Lcolson 19:10, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

(back left) I understand that c.1988 in countries where the nuclear industry is required to get insurance but the insurance is not offered by the government for free as a subsidy as it is in U.S., U.K., France, etc., the projected cost was estimated by Lloyds of London about USD$0.50/kilowatt-hour, more than twice the cost of solar photovoltaic. I say "projected" because that was always too high so none of those countries ever developed much more than a few research reactors. Lloyds and other insurers no longer even quote such insurance, last I heard. It would be great if someone could ask around and see what the last such quote was. --James S. 22:21, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Those numbers would be based on probabilities and projections of damage. Since the next generation of plants will be over 100 times safer than previous ones (ABWR, ESBWR, AP-1000, although I can't speak for the EPR beyond its four-train ECCS system), one would expect the insurance cost estimates to be lowered by a factor of at least a hundred. I haven't seen a source saying that lack of insurance kept any nation from developing nuclear power. According to , Lloyds offers nuclear insurance at least in the UK (but apparently not in the U.S., as Lloyds isn't licensed except in Kentucky and Illinois - I didn't check for the other 28 nations that have NPPs). Simesa 00:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, to do this completely right, we'd need to amortize the waste disposal cost, which has a huge confidence interval at this point. In fact, back in 2004, that is what I was working on when I learned about uranium combustion product inhalation poisoning. I still don't have a projected cost on the waste disposal with a magnitude more than a tenth of the width of the confidence interval. Even if there was no DU used in battle or on the interstate highways, the projected cost would still be way up in the air because of all the political horse-trading. --James S. 00:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Those numbers would be based on probabilities and projections of damage. Since the next generation of plants will be over 100 times safer than previous ones (ABWR, ESBWR, AP-1000, although I can't speak for the EPR beyond its four-train ECCS system), one would expect the insurance cost estimates to be lowered by a factor of at least a hundred. I haven't seen a source saying that lack of insurance kept any nation from developing nuclear power. According to , Lloyds offers nuclear insurance at least in the UK (but apparently not in the U.S., as Lloyds isn't licensed except in Kentucky and Illinois - I didn't check for the other 28 nations that have NPPs). Simesa 00:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

So now we have a range of costs from 2 cents to 50 cents for nuclear energy. The reports cited don't even claim to be comprehensive, nor consistent with some "standard" accounting system. Pretending that the cost just "is" is a fiction. The cost quite unfortunately is wildly speculative for almost all energy sources. I think neutrality requires that we strive to reflect that simple fact. The arguments that standard accounting exists leads inescapably to the conclusion that one's pet study is standardized.

Benjamin Gatti

No we don't have a range. We have a rumor of a number, basis completely unknown, that certainly doesn't apply to the plants being ordered now. Simesa 13:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The next generation of wind turbine will be ten times more efficient, etc etc ... I believe Misplaced Pages is not a crystal ball - in other words the projected future improvements on nuclear reactor isn't fact. (plans, tests, and simulation results are just that - plans and tests). Are we any closer to a firm cost estimate? Benjamin Gatti 01:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Projections can be made because new nuclear powerplant designs are being constructed in various countries in Asia on time and on budget. Like in Korea and the ABWRs in Japan and the Candu's and other reactor types in China. Lcolson 01:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

New designs do not mitigate the fatigue caused by irradiating construction materials, nor the risks associated with using reprocessed fuel such as mox, nor the risk associated with housing said materials endlessly. I take this as an admission from the pro nuclear editors that they are injecting unfounded speculation into the article, and I find it very objectionable. 20% of the world electricity comes from nuclear, a few new designs being built hardly changes the cost of that 20%. Now it we want to compare an insignificant future best case - then we need to compare that to the future best case scenario for its alternatives. Benjamin Gatti 03:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Benjamin, you completely ignored the point Lcolson made about costs. Try responding to the point made rather than changing the subject. --Robert Merkel 03:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Second attempt then. Lcolson says that "Projections can be made." I would suggest that "Projections" do not belong on Misplaced Pages; however, third party research which makes noteworthy projections is reportable - but only if and when it is fully described and identified as such. Benjamin Gatti 04:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

In any case, you're on shaky ground if you want to argue operating costs; existing nuclear plant is very cheap to run. --Robert Merkel 03:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Wind Turbines have nuclear beat on that. Very cheap to run. no fuel, no security, no insurance. Benjamin Gatti 03:50, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

But the same is not true of their necessary back-up power. In any event, we don't have a range - we have a rumored value, one that isn't applicable to the plants that would be built next. Simesa 11:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone object to my removing assertions of "projected" price or prices based on original research or otherwise not properly attributed? Benjamin Gatti 04:31, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

just a quick observation

hey Gatti, i don't know if my input matters but i'd support it. I've not read the previously archived talk pages but have read through this one and found it fascinating for a number of reasons. Put briefly - great to see vigorous debate involving Wiki-heads with widely varied levels of knowledge almost invariably inversely proportional to their arrogance. "The electrical power facilities combined take in 1.69 trillion gallons (6.4 billion cubic meters) of water annually, more than three times the water used each year by New York City's 9 million residents and two neighboring counties. The study found that the greatest harm came from billions of fish and larvae being sucked in (entrained) into the station cooling condensers and killed upon discharge to the river with the heated water (up to 35° Fahrenheit (19° Celsius) hotter than the intake water temperature).

The state study further concluded that there was greater harm from the heated water being discharged back into the Hudson's tidal estuary than previously assumed. The three electrical generating facilities' combined thermal discharge, 220 trillion BTUs per year (232 million GigaJoules), is the equivalent amount of heat generated by the detonation of a Hiroshima-size nuclear bomb approximately every two hours " from http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/591/5536.php

Not only is the creation of nuclear power destructive in this sense, but the argument that it is a non-contributor to global warming, recoined 'climate change' by one of G W Bush's wordsmiths (google Luntz speak) is opportunistic spin. Not only are the general public swallowing this spin, but long-time conservationists are starting to fall into line because they're ill-informed. Major bodies of water are massively important as climate controls. Superheating huge masses of water continually over a long period of time will, logically, further contribute to, if not worsen, global warming as well as, with time, affect ocean currents and the huge bodies of air above them which determine weather.

The Alex Gabbard article which is a primary resource for the coal-power-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-power argument is thoroughly researched, but falls down in its manipulation of information gathered. The conclusion that coal power is a greater radioactive risk than nuclear power comes from a long range projection of drastically increasing coal usage until 2040, measuring radioactive element ouput over a period of around 100 years (many of which have not yet happened), and doesn't consider the introduction or use of power saving technologies or the possibility of changes in consumer behaviour.

When the Atoms For Peace program it was started with the promise that there would be a safe way of dealing with the waste developed within a small number of decades. This has not yet happened, and American and Australian governments at least are still taking the stick-it-in-a-big-hole approach. Not very reassuring to anybody who knows anything about halflives, and I find this Wiki article's claim that nuclear waste is safe after 40 years laughable at best.

As for claims that the US government does not recycle nuclear waste, perhaps Mr Oldberg (given that he knows what he's talking about) is revisiting this page and would care to weigh in as to whether military use of depleted uranium and denutritionalising food irradiation facilities might be fairly described as 'recycling'. Of course the question is open to anybody, be they a blinkered reactionary with no sense of the WHO's historical involvement with the IAEA or not.

As for the gang-up approach that has been taken by some people who share similar viewpoints, though disparate commitments to this topic, 'democracy' has frequently been the majority of wrong-thinking people being right. The fact that you have to resort to stating 'there's more of us here than of you' in the face of an argument you can't engage suggests the weakness of your position when challenged.

oh yeah, and that bit about a tenfold increase in leukaemia and other illnesses being attributable to immigrant populations - was that sponsored by Pat Robertson or Justice Alito? Holigopoly 10:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)Holigopoly

Agreeing in part. I too cringe when I hear a pol say "most of the American people support X" as if that argument alone were the test of important subjects. As if the purpose of the bill of rights weren't precisely to protect us from a mindless majority of the selfish uninformed. "Most" Americans, by that standard have supported slavery - or at least grossly oppressive discrimination, the oppression of any minority from Japanese in WWII, to women until ~1950, Blacks until ~1960, Chinese during their immigration, to say nothing of those damn Italians (me) and Irish (me too), the Jews, Catholics, Mormons, and Heathen. In fact it is with great difficulty that one try to imagine a group of people which "Most American People" would not, or did not at some point, willingly oppress. You've raised a good point which hasn't been discussed lately, and that is the fishkill effect. As for the effect of nuclear plants on directly warming the globe, that's an easy logical case, but a difficult mathematical case to make - compare the sun's incidental energy to global energy production to realize that isn't likely to be a major source of additional heat. Care, Benjamin Gatti 23:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Two comments with regard to fishkill: wouldn't a coal-fired steam turbine potentially have the same fishkill problems as a nuclear-fired one; secondly, as the environmental article itself notes, you can use cooling towers instead of straight-through cooling. Some current reactors, and notable future designs, don't use any water cooling at all. --Robert Merkel 00:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The article suggests that coal plants can be made smaller (without sacrificing economies of scale). I suspect the security issues, borders, fences, 24 7 guards, no fly zones, jets to enforce a no fly zone - etc... make a strong economic argument for operating nukes in fleets with large thermal footprints in a single location. Coal on the other-hand can justify more distributed operation - with presumably less impact on fish in the area of operation. (anyone else offer an explanation). Benjamin Gatti 03:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

WRT depleted uranium, it's the waste left over after uranium has been enriched, rather than the spent fuel from a reactor. It's quite different from spent fuel reprocessing.

As to the safety of nuclear waste, I invite you to compare the safety of nuclear waste with the safety of the emissions from coal-based power stations, which has been estimated to kill 30,000 Americans every year, and even with stringent pollution controls will continue to kill thousands of Americans (and probably hundreds of thousands of Chinese; I have some work colleagues from northern China and they tell me the air pollution there has to seen to be believed) each and every year. --Robert Merkel 00:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes - I agree with you there. Coal really is a problem. But wind is safe, clean and less expensive than alternatives (assuming energy on demand is an overrated luxury). The risks of nuclear are highly concentrated on the high-exposure/low-probability end of the risk continuum. I only advocate for a fair hearing of all options. Benjamin Gatti 03:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

NRC's Position on CRAC-II and NUREG-1150

I just received an e-mail from the NRC, which I'll add to CRAC-II and NUREG-1150 as they requested. Please see the Discussion for those articles. Simesa 08:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Good work, I'll check it out Benjamin Gatti 19:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Davis-Besse Indictments

For news on the Department of Justice indictment of First Energy and several employees/contractors, see Davis-Besse and the reference. (I have to read it all myself yet.) Simesa 21:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Apologies from wikipedia editors which have used wikipedia to downplay the dangers of nuclear energy are being accepted at User Talk:Benjamin Gatti ;-) I told you so doesn't even begin to describe it. Benjamin Gatti 18:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

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