Talk:Nuclear power controversy

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This page is currently cut in past mostly from nuclear power and a little bit from nuclear reactor and pebble bed reactor. I'm not interested enough to write much of this myself, but I'll probably delete uneccesary information for the controversy of a mattter of days if no one else gets to it first. I feel that there should be an article on this the controversy since so much of it has crept into other articles. I would prefer we have one site to consolidate the controversy. I was motivated to do this in the hope that in the future nuclear technology articles can concentrate on the technologies and not the controversy, and whenever this stuff gets mentioned, we can just write Energy use is a controversioal topic, see nuclear power controversy for more information. Lcolson 23:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Graphite moderators and fire risks 2 Why does this article exist? 3 Legitimate 4 Air pollution 5 Nuclear fusion

[edit] Graphite moderators and fire risks

> "Several critics of pebble bed reactors have claimed that encasing the fuel in potentially flammable graphite poses a hazard."

If I'm not mistaken it is the same kind of graphite, which spaceshuttles and such use for thermal shielding when entering the atmosphere. Does anyone have some details about it? ---cheers, t7

Generally pyrolactic carbon is used. I dunno how easily it catches fire. Of course, if the cooling system has been sufficiently damaged to allow significant quantities of air to enter the core, then you have probably lost pressure in the primary core cooling system, which in itself could easily cause a total core meltdown. In such a case I'd be more concerned about the LOCA tbh. Losing the primary cooling system is very bad, with or without carbon in the reactor. 137.205.192.27 19:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Bear in mind that Wikipedia isn't the place to express and discuss our own opinions. But it's a good place to report the opinions of notable people.

What this talk page is for is to discuss things that might improve the article. Finding suitable citations for example.

To that end, it's obviously true that there's an extra fire risk with a graphite rather than a water moderator, and interesting that the two worst nuclear reactor accidents to date, the Windscale fire and the Chernobyl disaster, were both graphite moderated reactors and both caught fire. Fire was the whole problem at Windscale, and was indirectly responsible for most if not all of the immediate deaths at Chernobyl, as well as greatly worsening the spread of contamination. For how significant this extra risk is for a PBMR, we should cite the authorities, not speculate ourselves.

Another interesting environmental sidelight to the PBMR is that, unlike any other (moderated) reactor design to date, the PBMR moderator is disposed of with the fuel, not retained to be used with the next fuel charge. This surely must be increasing the amount of waste you need to bury. I haven't seen that rather obvious (to me) observation anywhere else, however. So maybe there's something I haven't thought of.

I hope that helps to identify what we're looking for! Andrewa 20:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why does this article exist?

I was going to add some content here, but I see the article is not really finished and is cut and pasted from Nuclear power. Why was it created? What is it for? — Omegatron 01:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that this article might be used to push some POV or it might be to create a splinter page (not correct terminology but you get me, right?)--Apartmento 10:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

A WP:POV fork? — Omegatron 01:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

(First) The argument given by the originator (top of page) seems justified: Quote: I was motivated to do this in the hope that in the future nuclear technology articles can concentrate on the technologies and not the controversy. And (Second) the Nuclear power article has owergrown to app. 65.000 characters (w. spaces), 22 twpical text pages. One quarter of that would be IMO the best size. It is a matter of preference, but I prefer shorter articles and a chance to dig deeper ("research") the matter at will, through links. The beauty of hypertext!. The problem is, however, how to move text from one article to the other w/o getting into edit wars. MGTom 01:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Moving "controversy" to another article is not a good way to split an article, though. What you really want to do is break it into neutral chunks and split each one. "History of nuclear power" "Modern adoption of nuclear power" "Nuclear power technologies" etc. — Omegatron 01:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I was going to add some arguments and sources to balance this article, but I didn't bother, because that's not Wikipedia is for. The entire article is a POV piece and should be considered for speedy deletion. "Proponents note that several opponents of nuclear power have been forced to conclude..." give me a break. 212.64.98.189 20:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Legitimate

I think the page should stay, rather than arguing a point, the page could be viewed as summarizing an opinion...and no one would delete these pages: Catholic Protestant Muslim Buddhist

But they're the same thing, just talking about a point of view, not aggressively arguing it.

--24.245.11.103 12:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I too think the page is legitimate and should stay. Johnfos 04:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Air pollution

I've reverted some of the details that I included in Jan 2007. While CO2 emissions due to energy use are the main contributor to global warming, there are other gases, and also direct emissions not related to energy use. The contribution of cement, for example, is significant [1]. Excluding these aspects makes the article more concise, but risks missing some important details. GrahamP 09:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nuclear fusion

I just put back the following in the top: "For the other type of nuclear power see fusion power." Given the title, that should be pointed out. Preferably more extensively in the intro, even, but this seems like a reasonable alternative. Better still, there should be a section on fusion. There's enough controversy there too, such as about whether it is worth the cost of development of the technology and if it could work at all. I'm not sufficiently informed to write that, though. DirkvdM 07:39, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that controversy about Nuclear fusion deserves its own article and I would be happy to help with that. But to bring fusion into this article would, I think, just be too confusing for the average reader.

If Fusion power is to be referred to at the top of an article surely the reference should be at the top of the Nuclear power article. If and when we get an article on Nuclear fusion controversy then it could be referred to here... Johnfos 09:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC)