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The section "Concerns about nuclear power" lacks common mainstream scientific rebuttals to the fringe views of the anti-nuclear campaigners. Scientific responses can not be relegated to other articles per WP:FRINGE. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:03, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please say more. What "mainstream scientific perspective" are you referring to? Johnfos (talk) 18:56, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He is probably referring to a few sentences:

Including (1) - a concern that nuclear power results in large amounts of radioactive waste, some of which remains dangerous for very long periods.

(2) Nuclear power, the industry says, emits no or negligible amounts of carbon dioxide. Anti-nuclear groups respond by saying that only reactor operation is free of carbon dioxide emissions.

(3) There is the existential threat of nuclear war by accidental or deliberate nuclear strike.

Dealing with sentence (1) - http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_169.shtml

The volume of waste from nuclear reactors is relatively small. the nuclear waste from Britain’s ten nuclear power stations has a volume of just 0.84 litres per person per year – think of that as a bottle of wine per person per year.

Most of this waste is low-level waste. 7% is intermediate-level waste,and just 3% of it – 25 ml per year is high-level waste.

The high-level waste is the really nasty stuff. It’s conventional to keep the high-level waste at the reactor for its first 40 years. It is stored in pools of water and cooled. After 40 years, the level of radioactivity has dropped 1000-fold. The level of radioactivity continues to fall until after 1000 years the radioactivity of the high-level waste is about the same as that of uranium ore. Thus waste storage engineers need to make a plan to secure high-level waste for about 1000 years.

Is this a difficult problem? 1000 years is certainly a long time compared with the lifetimes of governments and countries! But the volumes are so small, compared with all the other forms of waste we are inflicting on future generations. At 25 ml per year, a lifetime’s worth of high-level nuclear waste would amount to less than 2 litres. Even when we multiply by 60 million people, the lifetime volume of nuclear waste doesn’t sound unmanageable: 105 000 cubic metres. That’s the same volume as 35 olympic swimming pools.

Compare this 25 ml per year per person of high-level nuclear waste with the other traditional forms of waste we currently dump: municipal waste – 517 kg per year per person; hazardous waste – 83 kg per year per person.

Here's another source that says the same general thing - After from 600 to 5000 years – which is no time at all in geological terms - the radioactivity of spent fuel/waste is no more radioactive than the natural uranium ore from which the spent fuel was initially obtained. - www.efn.org.au/NucWaste-Comby.pdf international Journal of Environmental Studies, The Solutions for Nuclear waste. Similarly, The Nuclear Engineers; Benedict, Pigford and Levi have also indicated that enriched fuel from light water reactors, subjected to a typical burnup regime will be no more radioactive than the ore from which it was mined, after a period of six hundred years.

Manson Benedict, Thomas H. Pigford, Hans Levi "Nuclear Chemical Engineering" McGraw-Hill, Toronto, 1981. ISBN 0-07-004531-3 (Figure 11.2)

Dealing with sentence (2)- Yale University and many others, including the IPCC, i.e not the 'Nuclear industry', have consistently found that Nuclear power does indeed emit negligible, total life cycle, amounts of CO2. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00472.x/full Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Nuclear Electricity Generation

Finally, dealing with sentence (3) - Right, ok, Leaving aside for the moment that an accidental nuclear strike would not cause an immediate Nuclear War(see Obama's flexible response SIOP),Existential threats are those that have the capabilty to wipe out human existence, or at least our entire civilisation.

I have previously tried to inject some rationalism to counter this sentence, but it has been removed for dubious reasons, here it is-

The suggestion that the extinction of all human life would follow from a global Nuclear war is made without considering any counterexamples, and it is never explained exactly how all of human life is supposed to be entirely annihilated in a global Nuclear War with the present limited world nuclear arsenal.

http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/88spp.html

The most authoritative fatality estimates for a global Nuclear War utilizing nuclear arsenals at their peak during the cold war were calculated to result in just below 1 billion deaths.

http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/82cab/ The global health effects of nuclear war Published in Current Affairs Bulletin, Vol. 59, No. 7, December 1982, pp. 14-26. - A major global nuclear war could kill up to 400-500 million people from these effects, mainly in the United States, Soviet Union and Europe, and to a lesser extent China and Japan-

Calculations suggest that only when the megatonnage in nuclear arsenals were increased by 10 or 100 times over that of the combined world Cold War arsenal, and the entire arsenal used in war, would there be sufficient threat to all of human life. However since total megatonnage in the combined nuclear arsenals worldwide has been decreasing in recent years, this particular existential possibility remains increasingly unlikely and remote, at least at the moment.http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/82cab/

Codladh Samh!Boundarylayer (talk) 02:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no “mainstream scientific perspective” on nuclear power that I am aware of. There is just debate and controversy, see nuclear power debate, with notable scientists on both sides of the fence. Having said this, if there is one group of scientists that captures more middle ground than most it is the Union of Concerned Scientists. The UCS is neither pro- or anti- nuclear but for 40 years has been working for safer nuclear plants, better regulatory oversight, and smarter policy [1].

In terms of the anti-nuclear concerns, they are increasingly coming to pass, with the collapse of the planned US nuclear renaissance (mainly for economic reasons) [2] and the Japanese Fukushima disaster (which involved the evacuation of 80,000 people). In terms of the energy transition that anti-nuclear groups advocate, renewable energy reached a major milestone in the first quarter of 2011, when it contributed 11.7 percent of total U.S. energy production (2.245 quadrillion BTUs of energy), surpassing energy production from nuclear power (2.125 quadrillion BTUs). [3]

Boundarylayer, you are presenting an unabashed pro-nuclear perspective which seldom lets facts get in the way of your crusade. Most of the references you use do not include full bibliographical details and are of poor quality. And you often twist what the sources actually say. If all else fails you launch into personal attacks on people who have spoken against nuclear technology, such as Benjamin K. Sovacool, in violation of WP:BLP.

Sovacool’s carbon emissions paper was favourably reviewed in Nature, [4], but you have never mentioned that in what you have written. You seem to think the Yale study is more rigorous than Sovacool and that it criticises Sovacool. In fact it says very little about him except that he has used a different methodology to the Yale study. If you really want Sovacool’s latest perspectives on nuclear power you should read Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power (2011) and The National Politics of Nuclear Power: Economics, Security and Governance (2012).

You have played down the concerns about radioactive waste in what you have said above; please see High-level radioactive waste management for a balanced perspective. Johnfos (talk) 11:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Johnfos, you have not directly cited a single source that backs up the 3 sentences I have taken issue with.

Instead, you've tried to redirect this discussion away from the anti-scientific viewpoint of this article towards unrelated issues.

Can you please stay on topic? What does the Renaissance have anything to do with this?

Secondly, The fact of the matter is, there is a mainstream scientific perspective. Yale University and many others, including the IPCC, i.e not the 'Nuclear industry', have consistently found that Nuclear power does indeed emit negligible, total life cycle, amounts of CO2. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00472.x/full Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Nuclear Electricity Generation

You do know who the IPCC are, right?

Seen as you brought up the UCS, they happen to also agree that, and I quote - "Nuclear power plants do not produce global warming emissions when they operate, and the emissions associated with the nuclear fuel cycle and plant construction are quite modest".

Nuclear Power in a Warming World Union of Concerned Scientists http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/nuclear-power-in-a-warming-world.pdf

Yet this Anti-nuclear movement article currently reads Nuclear power, the industry says, emits no or negligible amounts of carbon dioxide. Anti-nuclear groups respond by saying that only reactor operation is free of carbon dioxide emissions. - Which as presented above, is entirely false and a fringe view.

This article therefore, does indeed push many fringe views and doesn't include the scientific consensus.

By the way, for clarities sake, I didn't say anything about Nuclear waste above, if you actually read the very first reference I provided, you will notice that everything was copied verbatim from that Physicist's book, I just presented the view of a scientist, that is all.

Furthermore, I'll bite onto your attempts at changing the subject - Sovacool is not a scientist, but a lawyer, and I'm not alone in voicing concern over how his viewpoint is given undue weight here on wikipedia. Pick any Nuclear issue and he is almost guaranteed to be given at least a whole paragraph, see for example the talk page of Comparisons of life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions amd the talk page of Operation Ploughshare, and you will notice other users have voiced this concern as well. Also take note on the comparisons article that Sovacool's peers have critized him for poor methodology in the very journal he published in, Energy policy, and similarly notice the fact Sovacool's estimates stands apart from every other reputable study, which has found Nuclear Power emits comparable amounts of CO2 as Renewables do.

As for your further attempts to shift the goalposts about what we are discussing here, you say - 'The Nuclear renaissance has collapsed' yet three AP1000 are being built in the USA alone, the first to be built in over 20 years. Clearly, again this is just another false statement by you Johnfos. You also seem to base your argument on the cancelling of one reactor, the Victoria County Station, not due to safety issues, as the anti-nuclear movement might suggest, but due to gas prices being low in Texas, as some sort of vindication of the anti-nuclear movement.

As an environmentalist, I'm incredulous that you seem to think that the building of a gas power plant over a Nuclear plant, is a victory for you? Yet you are aware that Global Warming is also caused by gas, right? and is about half as bad as Coal at ~ 500g CO2/kWh. You are, I hope, also aware that even before this reactor was cancelled,(and dashed the potential of the reactor to save millions of tons of CO2 being emitted) the IPCC already expected us to overshoot the 2 degree Kelvin of warming limit it has set, because we are increasingly using more and more fossil fuels, and this will result in the evacuation of millions of people.

Johnfos, you also seem to be operating under the assumption that I'm anti-Renewables? This couldn't be further from the truth I'm all for Renewables! when they make economic sense of course, however I'm entirely against them when they don't e.g the Solyndra debacle.

I echo the opinion of the International Energy Agency, that the use of both Nuclear power & Renewables is necessary.

(talk) 18:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Currently the lede ends with a list of countries apparently opposed to 'Nuclear power'.

However, none of those countries are completely opposed to Nuclear power, they are only opposed to Nuclear fission sourced electricity, and they certainly aren't opposed to radiopharmaceuticals produced in Nuclear fission reactors.

Therefore I have attempted to include the following section at the end of the lede, but it has been subject to repeated reverts by the user Johnfos etc.

-However, by contrast, most of the prior mentioned countries remain fully in favor and financially support Nuclear Fusion energy and research, including EU wide funding of the ITER project.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4629239.stm

http://www.ncpst.ie/news-and-events/association_euratom_dcu.htm

Is there some reason why this is continually being removed?

Boundarylayer (talk) 02:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/power/new-reactor-types/

The following sentences were copied verbatim from the above link by Johnfos into the 'Other technologies' section.

A major fusion R&D program is underway called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. (<www.iter.org>) It involves the European Union, Japan, China, India, South Korea, Russia, and the USA. An experimental plant is to be built at Cadarache in the South of France.

& Fusion power remains a distant dream. According to the World Nuclear Association (2005C), fusion "presents so far insurmountable scientific and engineering challenges".

The copying was done by Johnfos on August 20th here

Please promptly reword the offending sections Johnfos.

Sincerely, Boundarylayer (talk) 05:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Johnfos seems to be trying to censor all mention to the most successful nuclear weapons disarmament agent in history- the Megatons to Megawatts Program, He seems to think its not a good thing to get rid of tens of thousands of weapons, and to support his POV, he included this authors opinion piece on the matter, who appears opposed to the program, and who would instead prefer that-

...the weapon material could be kept in the warheads, as the Russian Ministry of Defense has a lot of spare storage capacity that's reasonably well-secured--thanks in large part to U.S. assistance

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/pavel-podvig/the-fallacy-of-the-megatons-to-megawatts-program

Apart from this being plainly the very antithesis of the main goal of the nuclear disarmament movement-getting rid of weapons. The author of this opinion piece appears to be also taking the unsubstantiated position that Trains cannot also be reasonably well secured and that stockpiling the material in big warehouses forever in a manner that can be perfectly secured, which would be needed indefinitely, is not only possible but a better solution. Bizarre. They also falsely insinuate that the trains that carry the HEU, destined to be put beyond use by downblending, are not already heavily armed to repel any terrorist group feeling suicidal enough to think they could even get near a train carrying HEU without being promptly blown away.

Here is some mention of the convoy trains armed guards - http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ENF-Kazakh_HEU_returned_to_Russia-2005094.html

Here is mention of the caliber of 'guards' the author of the bulletin piece wants to 'protect' the stockpiles- Most of the HEU in Eastern Europe has been stored since Soviet times, often in badly maintained and poorly guarded facilities where for years underpaid staff were potentially vulnerable to bribery by well-funded terrorists - So no, the author does not for one second mention that the trains are armed to the proverbial 9s, but prefers the idea of weapons grade HEU sitting in weapons stockpiles and warehouses because they personally feel it is more secure than to move it by train and downblend the HEU to a state were it can be burnt - up so it can be completely eliminated forever.

Regardless, this man has the final say what's safest.- The preferred method is to remove HEU for reprocessing. "That way it is made safe, permanently," Mr Bieniawski said. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/8053159/Mission-to-stop-nuclear-terrorism.html

I'll leave you to find out who Mr. Bieniawski is, and what his job is, but here's a hint, have you even heard of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative?

Course you haven't. Sincerely Boundarylayer (talk) 10:41, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]