Talk:Nuclear power proposed as renewable energy

Misleading title

The title suggests that nuclear power is being proposed as a renewable energy source. This does not cover the content of the article. The title should read 'Debates on nuclear power as renewable energy' or something similar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kbasr (talk • contribs) 23:20, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Fission and fusion power as *sustainable* energy

Cambridge professor and UK Chief Scientific Advisor of the Department of Energy and Climate Change David MacKay evaluates the sustainability of fission and fusion power in his recent book Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air. Measuring sustainability in terms of the power potential available over a 1000 year period, he calculates the sustainable power levels that could be provided by fission and fusion power under a variety of technological constraints, including the absence/availability of fuel recycling, fast reactors, uranium extraction from sea and river water, thorium as a nuclear fuel, lithium extraction from seawater, and successful commercial deuterium-deuterium fusion.

The claim that nuclear power can be sustainable is clearly more defensible than the claim that it is renewable, and it is certainly the topic of more recent and lively discussion. This topic should either replace this article, be combined with this article, or be the basis for a new article entirely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ionium Dope (talk • contribs) 18:37, 30 October 2009 (UTC) eh waz good monroe

Globalize

This article hardly mentions the nuclear debates going on in the world outside the USA. The lede quickly moves into discussion of the U.S. DOE and the American Petroleum Institute. Apart from the new section re-hashing the persuasion arguments, all the rest of the article is US based.

Another, possibly separate point is that the whole thrust of the arguments put forward seem to be based on material from Bernard Cohen's 1983 paper. That was 27 years ago! There must be more recent stuff to quote from. --Nigelj (talk) 15:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

UCS quote

What is the purpose of this quote from Union of Concerned Scientists?

Nuclear power should not be eligible for inclusion in a renewable portfolio standard. Nuclear power is an established, mature technology with a long history of government support. Furthermore, nuclear plants are unique in their potential to cause catastrophic damage (due to accidents, sabotage, or terrorism); to produce very long-lived radioactive wastes; and to exacerbate nuclear proliferation.

Ref was: Koplow, Doug (February 2011). "Nuclear Power:Still Not Viable without Subsidies" (PDF). Union of Concerned Scientists. p. 10.

I understand the desire to give both sides of the debate, but the man is just bullshitting:

1. Only light water reactors are a mature technology; breeder reactors are not.
2. It's hydropower dams that can cause catastrophic damage due to sabotage, terrorism or construction faults. Light water reactors have never caused ANY damage, not to mention catastrophic! The guy is obviously referring to Chernobyl, but this is just completely irrelevant to modern nuclear power.
3. Nuclear power plants do not exacerbate nuclear proliferation. The only technology that demonstrably does it is HEU-fueled research reactors, and probably uranium enrichment (see India and weapons of mass destruction and Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction).

The only truthful claims are the government support claim (though according to this the support was lower than that given to oil, coal or renewables) and the long-lived wastes claim. --Tweenk (talk) 22:34, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I've made it clear that this is Doug Koplow's view and don't see a problem including it. But the paragraph could be shifted to Renewable portfolio standard#Eligible technologies if you would prefer, as I think it also fits in there. Johnfos (talk) 03:39, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The UCS is not a legislative body, so it certainly doesn't belong in "Legislation in the United States of America".

—WWoods (talk) 06:16, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, now shifted to the RPS page, as it fits quite well there. Johnfos (talk) 06:53, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Brundtland Report

I have had to revert the blanking of some of my work yesterday for several reasons. First, as KimDabelsteinPetersen (talk · contribs) explained clearly to Boundarylayer (talk · contribs) in this edit summary, Our Common Future, aka the Brundtland Report, is not "The United Nations". Our article explains it well:

In December 1983, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, asked the Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, to create an organization independent of the UN to focus on environmental and developmental problems and solutions after an affirmation by the General Assembly resolution in the fall of 1984. This new organization was the Brundtland Commission, or more formally, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). The Brundtland Commission was first headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland as Chairman and Mansour Khalid as Vice-Chairman. The organization aimed to create a united international community with shared sustainability goals by identifying sustainability problems worldwide, raising awareness about them, and suggesting the implementation of solutions. In 1987, the Brundtland Commission published the first volume of “Our Common Future,” the organization’s main report.

— Brundtland Commission

Secondly, Boundarylayer said in an edit summary, "The source doesn't appear to say anything about unsolved problems". The source in question is Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Ch 7 and in the contents, anyone can see that the whole of Section III is called "Nuclear Energy: Unsolved Problems". Apart from the section heading, in the body of the text it says,

• "At the other extreme, many experts take the view that there are so many unsolved problems and too many risks for society to continue with a nuclear future", and
• "The generation of nuclear power is only justifiable if there are solid solutions to the presently unsolved problems to which it gives rise."

The deletion and reversion of good, well-cited material on the flimsiest of excuses, as well as the addition of biassed and cherry-picked ideas, with such little regard for the content and conclusions of the cited sources, is becoming tiresome on these articles by this editor. --Nigelj (talk) 11:06, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your reply, (1) If the Brundtland Commission, is more formally known as the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), then why didn't you two give the organization its correct title? Moreover why don't you say it is an UN affiliated body?

(2) The unsolved problems section was originally attributed to Chapter 2, I read chapter 2 and did not see any mention of 'unsolved problems'. That was my justification for removing the material as it was not in the citation. You have now properly attributed the 'unsolved problems' section to the entirely unrelated chapter 7, and that's great work. Now having put that to bed, that there is in fact an 'unsolved problems' section, (3) the POV tone present in the article is not in the 'unsolved problems' section of the source, so if it were valid information then it should be reworded.

(4) Despite the filibustering, the 'unsolved problems' section in Chapter 7 never mentions Breeder reactors specifically, which they deem as renewable by the way in Chapter 2, as they do solve, most if not all, the problems of 'Nuclear power'. So cherry picking Chap 7, spinning what it actually states in relation to presently operation nuclear power reactors, and suggesting that renewable breeder reactors have these same 'unsolved problems' is a classic example of WP:SYNTH, is it not?

So I stand by my reversion, and strike that the mention to Chap 7 'unsolved problems' info is not related to Breeder reactors, as clearly the report was not describing breeder reactors here, but the technology used in the vast majority of non-breeder reactors operating in 1987. That is why they classified breeder reactors as a nuclear power technology that is renewable, in case you have forgotten, and not every single fission reactor design.

Boundarylayer (talk) 02:43, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

"has to be very carefully stored for up to a thousand years"

This sentence is misleading, if not directly wrong.

A closed cycle breeder reactor only produces fission products as waste. After 300 years, "the total fission-product inventory decays to a radiotoxicity level lower than that of the original ore". So 300 years would be the correct replacement of "up to a thousand years".

https://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/ExpandingFrontiersofEngineering7308/SustainableEnergyfromNuclearFissionPower.aspx

Here is another good source, which shows that the radiotoxicity of the waste from a closed fuel cycle is more than a factor 10^4 less than from conventional nuclear after 1000 years (table 4.3):

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-ch4-9.pdf

Overall, I propose changing this:

The American Petroleum Institute likewise does not consider conventional nuclear fission as renewable, but that breeder reactor nuclear power fuel is considered renewable and sustainable, before explaining that radioactive waste from used spent fuel rods remains dangerous, and so has to be very carefully stored for up to a thousand years.

To this:

The American Petroleum Institute likewise does not consider conventional nuclear fission as renewable, but that breeder reactor nuclear power fuel is considered renewable and sustainable. The radioactive waste from a breeder reactor decays a lower level of radiotoxicity than that of the original ore after 300, unlike waste from a conventional nuclear reactor, where this takes many thousands of years.

ref mine on water extraction

http://bravenewclimate.com/2015/10/19/sustaining-the-wind-part-3-is-uranium-exhaustible/ 92.251.175.52 (talk) 06:10, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

subsection about fissile fuel supply

In this edit, I removed a block of text and am posting it below. This text looks to be relevant to other articles, but it is not at all clear how this text is relevant to the debate over definitions and classification of nuclear power as a "renewable energy". Before any of this is restored, we should get consensus that it is relevant to this article's WP:SCOPE.

* -- Fuel supply -- Estimates of Available Uranium-235, an isotope required for the present world fleet of light water reactors, that is, not the uranium-238 feedstock needed for some breeder reactor designs, one of which was discussed above. Available U-235 estimates depend on what ore resources are included in the simple extrapolations. The squares represent relative sizes of different estimates, whereas the numbers at the lower edge give an estimate on how long the given resource would last at present U-235 consumption rates, a consumption rate based upon the unrealistic assumption that old LWR generation II reactors will still be operating after their lifetimes are up, 30 years from now, and that no Generation III reactors or generation IV reactors replace these less efficient reactors. ██ Reserves in current mines ██ Known economic reserves, a figure that has increased from 80 to over 100 years after this estimate was made in 2005. ██ Conventional undiscovered resources ██ Total ore resources at 2004 prices ██ Unconventional resources (at least 4 billion tons, could last for millennia) The world's measured resources of uranium-235 in 2014 was estimated to be enough to last over 135 years at 2014 consumption rates. 30,000 to 60,000 years is one estimated supply lifespan of fission-based conventional/light water reactor reserves if it is possible to extract all the uranium from seawater, assuming current world energy consumption. Alternatively this is about 6,500 years with a potential nuclear reactor fleet of 3,000 GW, a quantity of electricity six to seven times higher than the current world civil nuclear power capacity. The OECD have also calculated that with fast breeder reactors such as the BN-800 and conceptual Integral Fast Reactor, which has a closed nuclear fuel cycle with a burn up of, and recycling of, all the uranium, plutonium and minor actinides; actinides which presently make up the most hazardous substances in nuclear waste, there is 160,000 years worth of natural uranium in total conventional land resources and phosphate ore. Thorium, an often overlooked alternative to fertile U-238 in breeder reactors, is several times (about 3 to 4) more abundant in the earth crust than natural uranium-238, and about 400 times as common as uranium-235, the dominant fuel for power reactors, as uranium-235 only constitutes 0.72% of all uranium. The average concentration or occurrence of thorium in seawater however is over 1000 times lower, in the range of nanograms per liter compared to uranium which is about 3 micrograms per liter, 3 mg (milligrams) per cubic meter/ton of water.

If this material is not already covered in other articles such as Nuclear power, then it sure it could be moved over there. But THIS article is about classification and definitions. I can't see how the finite supply of fissile material is relevant to this discussion, except in broad strokes, i.e, just say fission reactors split the fuel and (eventually) the remainder can not be split again. If I'm missing something and anyone wants to try to form a consensus to put any of this back, please start by explaining below how this material is relevant to this article. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:38, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I will hazard a guess that seen as the marketing term renewable is not at all scientific. Breaking the laws of thermodynamics, the issue really is one of sustainability, or you may say if certain fuel cycles approach that of the sun. How much fuel is in the sun makes solar energy sustainable, though others with a marketing Pr bent, have in more recent years invented and labelled solar as renewable[whatever that means physically no one knows, it's just designed to give one the warm-fuzzies]. The whole matter is therefore really about available fuel supply and scientists knows it's merely a matter of comparing fuel cycles.[Which is in no small part, is exactly what the UN affilliated Our Common Future organization did, to classify breeder reactors as renewable and suited for sustainable development, the phrase it also coined ;-]

So the detailing of various nuclear fuel cycles, is precisely what this article is about. Depicting why no one considers conventional nuclear as renewable but why others regard breeders as renewable and all the fuel cycles variations in-between. I don't see how this article can really be complete without showing the sliding scale of years that lays between conventional nuclear and breeder reactors. How do you figure?

Boundarylayer (talk) 14:01, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, that's what I thought was being implied between the lines. Thanks for confirmation. Your expert knowledge and opinions are great tool but they get in the way of your editing according to Wikipedia guidelines. No one cares if we think the relatively large amount of fissile material means questioning whether its renewable is silly. What we must report on are current definitions and debate in the reliable sources, period. So I'm glad I removed all of this because based on what you said above its relevance to this article, so far, is WP:Original research. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:22, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

How is it OR, when it's all referenced and secondly, I didn't write that section? Though it makes perfect sense to keep. Moreover the page WP:Original research states - To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented.

Reliably referenced estimates made on fuel-supply by various nuclear fuel cycles, are directly related to an article on if an energy source should be classified as sustainable or not and they do support the material being presented. As much as the remaining age of the sun, would relate to how sustainable solar potentially is.

I mean here is literally a Harvard University page, doing exactly the same thing, presenting the same information in words. Conventional uranium resources represent 270 years of current annual consumption. Recovering uranium from other resources, such as phosphates, seems achievable at a cost close to the current spot market price, and would extend this number to roughly 700 years. In addition, with the development of the next generation of nuclear technologies such as fast neutron reactors with closed fuel cycles, this figure rises to tens of thousands of years

Harvard International Review, Is Nuclear Energy Sustainable?

So what were you sayin about OR?

Boundarylayer (talk) 18:30, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Simple.... remember the context for this discussion is THIS article's topic.....
(A) I am only going to answer based on the text in the grey box.
(B) Re your comment that you did not write this text or that, who cares? I'm not hunting you. I'm critiquing article text of whatever authorship.
(C) We agree the text in the grey box says there is a lot of fuel.
(D) I asked how are those facts relevant to this article.
(E) In your earlier answer, I think you said the large amount of fuel somehow negates the "constantly renewed" criteria of one of the main definitions of renewable energy
(F) The text in the grey box does not say, much less cite an RS, the stuff in (E). Since the grey-box text only appeared because some wikipedia editor(s) wanted to imply the "constantly renewed" part of the definition is negated or satisfied, that's OR on the part of those editor(s).
(G) If there are RSs that say the stuff in (E) .... i.e., that there's so much fissile material the "contantly renewed" bit is negated or satisfied.... then we can just say that in two sentences or less, and put all these well referenced details in the articles that are about those details.
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:52, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

There are many definitions of renewable energy, reliable Harvard references discuss the fuel supply when analysing the matter that this article is about. Therefore is this material OR? Or not? The litmus test is you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented.

Lastly, I wouldn't read into your personal notion that the material was added [in your personal view] by some wikipedia editor(s) wanted to imply the "constantly renewed" part of the definition is negated or satisfied. I'd imagine whomever added it, just did so to give readers facts about the common estimates of remaining fuel via various fuel cycles, facts that directly support the material being presented. Whch the fuel supply material definitely does. Giving readers the underlaying facts on why some organizations do and don't classify nuclear as renewable. Shall we cite Harvard and put the material back in?

Boundarylayer (talk) 11:01, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

We can say there is a lot of X (cite), Y (cite), and Z (cite) and use [{Template:Main]] to point to the article that drills down. But we can only say there is a lot if we also explain, with citations, why the amount is relevant to a discussion of classification as renewable. I've now said the same thing 3 different ways. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:59, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

So you're saying we can put the various estimates on the fuel cycles back in and cite the Harvard reference alongside it. You just don't want to say, that's fine.

Boundarylayer (talk) 17:41, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

In my earlier comments I made a vague suggestion that these off point details would be welcome in some other article. Today I found a good candidate - Nuclear fuel. Notice I am not opposed to saying, in summary form, there is a lot of material-X, provided we use an RS to say why this is relevant to classification as a renewable energy source.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:05, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

refs for this section

References

supporters .... and opponents

For now I have moved the following section listing supporters here to talk, because just adding a supporter section without an opponent section is UNDUE and POV. The section I have moved reads

Supporters Nuclear energy has been referred to as "renewable" by the politicians George W. Bush (2006), Charlie Crist (2007), and David Sainsbury (2005).

I see little value in creating and maintaining for and against WP:Embedded lists of this sort. If this is important to you, please explain the how, the why, and show how we can avoid the POV/UNDUE problem of just pushing one side of the other? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:00, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

refs for this section

References

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