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Nuclear fission has four inherent liabilities - radiation, risk of accident, waste, and risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons, and is not likely to have a significant role, due to the vast availability of wind power and solar power.[164][165]
That statement seems to me to have a significant bias. We don't know how likely the role of fusion energy (or any future energy fo that matter) will have, and there are many prediction that do say fusion will have a significant role if it's efficiently achieved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.244.199.121 ( talk) 11:56, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Oh I see this came up before. In any case Andol, none of my references are from "nuclear lobby organisations". Secondly I also wish for you to apply this exacting standard of yours here and remove every use of references from the wind industry lobby groups etc. As what's good for the goose is good for the gander, is it not?
In any case, here's my edit that uses peer-reviewed journal references, the IPCC, IAEA, the UN affiliated Our Common Future & NASA to name but a few. None of which are "nuclear lobby organisations". If Grayfell or anyone else still has issues with this, please point out the specific cases, 1 by 1 and contribute as such. Do not blank again.
Proposed changes (collapsed for talk page navigability)
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Resource supplyWhile many have classified the most dominant present nuclear reactor technology, the Light Water Reactor as environmentally friendly "green energy", due to the IPCC's findings that it is essentially as non-greenhouse gas emitting in nature as wind & hydro energy. Including Greenpeace founder and first member Patrick Moore, [1] [2] [3] George Monbiot, [4] Bill Gates [5] and James Lovelock. [6] This reactor technology is not efficient enough in its use of fuel to last more than a few hundred, to at most a thousand, years or so in all likely scenarios. [7] [8] Therefore in terms of sustainable energy, apart from conventional renewable energy sources, the other major low carbon power technology that is also a sustainable source of energy, are the sustainable nuclear energy technologies such as breeder reactors, which produce/breed more fuel than they consume. [9] [10] With the use of fast breeder reactors such as the presently operating BN-600 reactor, BN-800 reactor and the conceptual Integral Fast Reactor, which all have the potential for a closed/recycled 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 known conventional land resources and phosphate ore. [11] When one also includes the resource of natural uranium extracted from seawater, this has been calculated to have the potential to supply energy at least as long as the sun's expected remaining lifespan of five billion years. [12] This was based on calculations involving the geological cycles of erosion, subduction, and uplift, leading to humans consuming half of the total uranium in the Earth’s crust at an annual usage rate of 6500 tonne/yr, which was enough to produce approximately 10 times the world's 1983 electricity consumption, and would reduce the concentration of uranium in the seas by 25%, resulting in an increase in the price of uranium of less than 25%. [12] [13] The extraction of this natural uranium from seawater would also have the long term benefit of reducing the concentration of this naturally occurring heavy metal pollutant in the world's oceans. Moreover, Thorium may also be seen as a fuel source but at present is an often overlooked alternative to natural uranium in breeder reactors,it is however several times(about 3 to 4) [14] [15] [16] more abundant on land/ Earth's crust than all isotopes of uranium combined, but 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, [17] [18] [19] [20] 3 mg( milligrams) per cubic meter/ton of water. [21] [22] [23] As thorium is about four times more abundant within the earth’s crust than uranium, the worlds current supply is capable of generating enough energy to power the world for thousands of years. [22] [23] Thorium fuels prove to be beneficial in comparison to uranium based nuclear reactors, as they have slightly greater proliferation resistance. [22] India intends to rely on thorium in its future nuclear energy mix with a projection of 30% of its electrical demands through thorium by 2050. [24] Environmental impact comparisonsWhile in comparison to wind power, which consumes no water [26] for continuing operation, and has near negligible emissions directly related to its electricity production. In full life cycle assessments(LCAs), Wind turbines when isolation from the electric grid produce negligible amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, mercury and radioactive waste when in operation, unlike fossil fuel sources and nuclear energy station fuel production, respectively. However while still low, in life cycle assessments wind turbines do produce slightly more particulate matter(PM), a form of air pollution, at a rate per unit of energy generated(kWh) higher than a fossil gas electricity station(" NGCC"), [27] [28] and also more heavy metals and PM than nuclear stations per unit of energy generated. [29] [30] Furthermore, in terms of total pollution costs of presently operating nuclear technology which does not have a closed nuclear fuel cycle, in economic terms, despite alpine Hydropower exhibiting the lowest external pollution, or Externality, costs of all electricity generating systems, below 0.05 c €/ kWh. Wind power has a 0.09 - 0.12c€/kW value, nuclear energy(due to its small volume but still hazardous spent nuclear fuel/"nuclear waste") has a 0.19 c€/kWh value and fossil fuels from 1.6 - 5.8 c€/kWh. [31] With the exception of the latter fossil fuels, these are negligible costs in comparison to the cost of electricity production, which is approximately 10 c €/ kWh in European countries. The careful monitoring of radioactive waste products is not a unique feature to nuclear fission energy, as it is also required upon the use of the widely accepted renewable source of geothermal energy, [32] and therefore is not a unique feature to fission energy. Geothermal/ radiogenic heating is a form of energy derived, in greatest part, from the natural nuclear decay of the large, but nonetheless finite supply of uranium, thorium and potassium-40 present within the Earth's crust, [33] [34] and due to the nuclear decay process, this renewable energy source will also eventually run out of fuel. As too is the fate of the nuclear fusion cycle within our Sun, being exhausted in an estimate 5 billion years, if mankind never replenishes it. However as the means of energy production from the geothermal energy resource results in much higher greenhouse gas emissions than nuclear fission, [35] it will not be discussed any further within this nuclear section to prevent confusion with the less polluting nuclear fission energy sources. In 2014, Brookings Institute published a cost-benefit analysis study The Net Benefits of Low and No-Carbon Electricity Technologies which states, after performing an energy and emissions cost analysis, that "The net benefits of new nuclear, hydro, and natural gas combined cycle plants far outweigh the net benefits of new wind or solar plants", with the most cost effective low carbon power technology being determined to be nuclear power. [39] [40] [41] Regarding energy used by vehicles, a 2008 cost-benefit analysis by the anti-nuclear advocate [42] Mark Z. Jacobson, of sustainable energy sources and usage combinations in the context of global warming and other dominating issues; it ranked wind power generation combined with battery electric vehicles (BEV) and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) as the most efficient. Wind was followed by concentrated solar power (CSP), geothermal power, tidal power, photovoltaic, wave power, hydropower coal capture and storage (CCS), nuclear energy and biofuel energy sources. It states: "In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts." [43] Jacobson's opinions are in part due to his internationally controversial suggestion that state civil nuclear energy stations will result in higher emissions than the international consensus on nuclear fissions Total Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions, primarily due his regarding of civil nuclear energy being inexplicably linked with nuclear weapons and therefore will result in a nuclear war and the burning of cities. [44] [45] Due in part to this background, he states that if the United States wants to reduce global warming, air pollution and energy instability, it should invest only in the best energy options, and that nuclear power is not one of them. [46] Jacobson's analyses state that " nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, when reactor construction, uranium refining and transport are considered". [47] However, scientists from Yale University and agencies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who have since analyzed the total Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of energy sources have not arrived at the same nuclear power emissions conclusions as Jacobson has, in this respect, instead finding that nuclear energy has a total life-cycle emission intensity, including construction, mining etc, similar to other sustainable solutions such as hydropower and an emission insensity lower than Solar PV and biomass. [48] [49] 178.167.204.95 ( talk) 20:52, 27 June 2015 (UTC) References
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A request has been made for a third opinion. I will respond, although a third opinion is not really applicable because there are already three editors discussing the article, User:Andol, User:Grayfell, and an unregistered editor. There isn't a specific question, and the title of this talk page section appears to be inconsistent with the content of the discussion. That is, this section is headed Nuclear fusion, but the issue really appears to be nuclear fission. Looking at the history of the article, the issue would appear to be whether to include a large amount of text that has been added by one editor and removed by two editors. There is a 2-to-1 consensus against inclusion of the text. If the author of the text disagrees, I would suggest that the next step might be a Request for Comments. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I will further point out that nuclear fission is not sustainable in the usual sense. It does not produce greenhouse gas, but, as noted above, it has other environmental issues, in particular the risk of accidents and the problem of waste disposal. For those reasons, if the question is how to get to 100% sustainable energy, nuclear fission is a transition strategy, and so including too much discussion of nuclear fission would be undue weight. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
While nuclear fusion is technically not sustainable, it would be to all practical purposes sustainable because the supply of hydrogen and deuterium is limited, but unlimited to all practical purposes. However, nuclear fusion has not been achieved as having supra-unity yield in spite of fifty years of research and development, and so including any significant coverage of nuclear fusion would be undue weight. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
At least, those are my opinions. They are not a third opinion, because they are a fourth opinion. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I stumbled upon this page because I monitor the WP:3O page. I would suggest that the IP add their points in a piecemeal fashion, taking into account comments here. If you add the stuff in one whole go, people are understandably reluctant to let it stand of POV reasons. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:35, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
The generation of renewable energy on the scale needed to replace fossil energy, in an effort to manage global climate change, is likely to have significant negative environmental impacts. For example, biomass energy generation would have to increase 7-fold to supply current primary energy demand, and up to 40-fold by 2100 given economic and energy growth projections. [1] Humans already appropriate 30 to 40% of all photosynthetically fixed carbon worldwide, indicating that expansion of additional biomass harvesting is likely to stress ecosystems, in some cases precipitating collapse and extinction of animal species that have been deprived of vital food sources. [2] [3] The total amount of solar energy captured by all vegetation in the United States each year is around 58 quads (61.5 EJ), with about half of this presently harvested as agricultural crops and forest products. The un-used half/remaining biomass is needed to maintain ecosystem functions and diversity. [4] Since annual energy use in the United States is ca. 100 quads, biomass energy could supply only a very small fraction of total energy needs.
To supply the current worldwide energy demand solely with non- genetically engineered biomass would require more than 10% of the Earth’s land surface, which is comparable to the area used for all of world agriculture (i.e., ca. 1500 million hectares), indicating that further expansion of biomass energy generation will be difficult without precipitating eco-system loss and ethical issues given current world hunger statistics, over growing plants for biofuel versus food. [5] [6]
92.251.153.186 ( talk) 19:00, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
To the IP editor: I strongly encourage you to make a username. This will make it easier for other editors to interact with you, give you more credibility in many people's eyes, and enable you to continue editing should the page become semi-protected. I haven't looked into your suggestions above but you have consensus for including sustainable nuclear energy in the article. According to WP:BRD you can simply start editing the article. You don't need to keep asking permission beforehand. -- Sammy1339 ( talk) 05:23, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
As the above discussion details the dispute, I will simply direct anyone interested in seeing the proposed changes to this article there. Specifically, I request for commentators to see the last edit of mine to the article for a more up-to-date version of what is proposed for context, as what is in the Proposed changes on this talk page, was truncated during the dispute. 178.167.204.95 ( talk) 03:51, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I'll clarify that I don't support mentioning specific technologies in the lead, or in a sense where they're made to stand out as especially promising. The article covers a lot of specific technologies, and nuclear-based specific technologies should have as much text as any others. To me, most if not all of these technologies are pet-ideas in a sense. Many of them have millions of dollars, prominent names and large research groups behind them. They still involve someone insisting that their idea is superior to all others primarily because it is their idea and not necessarily because it is actually promising (and often in spite of significant and legitimate objections). This is a viewpoint that comes from experience in science, and I don't mean it to be derogatory.
So, what I mean by that is that the people who advocate breeder reactors are people who have done extensive work with breeder reactors, and they may be overlooking the advantages of, say, thorium. This is why I think specific technologies need equal weight, and certainly nuclear-based technologies deserve as much weight as any others, 'artificial leaves' included. No current technology is especially promising.
That current technologies are not economically competitive is not significant. Just as technologies should not be excluded because they are nuclear, they should not have to be economically competitive now or in the foreseeable future. The future costs of energy and the costs of these technologies can't be predicted. I want to stress again that the environmental impact of any future source of energy, nuclear or otherwise, also can't be predicted. This is an important reason to include nuclear energy. Ultimately, I think the instinctive opposition to nuclear technologies as green technologies comes from the fact that the origins of the environmental movement had much in common with nuclear disarmament and nuclear power is inextricably linked with nuclear weapons. This article is based on the idea that our need for energy is also a threat to human existence, and it needs to document all current research into sustainable energy with due weight. Roches ( talk) 10:47, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
Thus, the breeding concept allows optimal use of fertile ore and development of sustainable nuclear energy production for several thousand years into the future.
Different sustainable nuclear reactor concepts are studied in the international forum "generation IV". Different types of coolant (Na, Pb and He) are studied for fast breeder reactors based on the Uranium cycle. The thermal Thorium cycle requires the use of a liquid fuel, which can be reprocessed online in order to extract the neutron poisons. This paper presents these different sustainable reactors, based on the Uranium or Thorium fuel cycles and will compare the different options in term of fissile inventory, capacity to be deployed, induced radiotoxicities, and R&D efforts.
To the IP editor: At first I thought you may have wanted to give too much weight to specific technologies. It's clear to me now that you don't; I support due weight being given to all technologies and I think you do too. I did say a lot about what I called pet ideas, by which I meant people placing undue focus on technologies they are involved with, as a sort of conflict of interest. I don't think this is happening in the article now; I just wanted to caution against it. Nothing I said about specific technologies had to do with anyone's edits to the article; they were hypothetical cases, and I could've made that clearer. Overall, what I was trying to say is that specific technologies need to be presented fairly, with due weight, and with objective discussion of pros and cons. I may have said that in a way that was too colored by personal experience.
I don't know where to find evidence about the connection between the environmental movement and the nuclear disarmament movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Earth Day and (more so) Project Survival hint at it. I'm confident that there was such a connection. Both arise from a belief that humanity could destroy itself if it continues along the same path, either by nuclear war or environmental catastrophe.
I did wish to reply but I do not want to take the RfC off topic, so it's probably best not to discuss this further here. Perhaps some progress can be made if those who opposed the inclusion of nuclear technologies discussed how they think the article should present nuclear issues. This article has to say something about the future of nuclear power; it's got to comment on all the major sources of energy in current use. Posting with sustainable, impact-free hydroelectricity, Roches ( talk) 03:03, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
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I was just taking note of this book and came here, only to find myself shocked that nuclear power is not mentioned in the lead. You can make a weakish argument that fission is not sustainable.
Thorium is three times as abundant as uranium and nearly as abundant as lead and gallium in the Earth's crust. The Thorium Energy Alliance estimates "there is enough thorium in the United States alone to power the country at its current energy level for over 1,000 years."
I supposed the following text supplies justification:
Sustainable energy is energy that is consumed at insignificant rates compared to its supply and with manageable collateral effects, especially environmental effects.
Windmills and solar hardly require less extractive mining during the capital investment cycle (on the back of the present carbon industry we sort of take for granted).
So deep down, the criteria appears to be without adding any new ugly extractive industries over and above what we've already got.
Nor is it the case that solar and wind won't generate an enormous, problematic waste stream (the mechanical build for the power levels desired is simply enormous, and all of this is exposed to the harsh elements). But again, the criteria seems to be without adding any new problematic waste streams over and above what we're already used to.
My attitude toward nuclear has long been "show me the fuel cycle". The fuel cycles adopted at the beginning of the nuclear age were adopted primarily to dovetail with existing initiatives in the military–industrial complex (nuclear submarines, see Freeman Dyson) and gave effectively no deep consideration to civilian safety or sanity, beyond vaguely plausible PR.
I believe that our best design effort on modern technology (this has not change just a little bit since the 1940s) would improve the existing fuel cycles by one or two decimal orders of magnitude (even then, I'm not sure it will be good enough under a full accounting, but it certainly makes the question worth revisiting with an open mind).
And then there's fusion.
Nuclear fusion is unlike nuclear fission: fusion requires extremely precise and controlled temperature, pressure and magnetic field parameters for any net energy to be produced. If a reactor suffers damage or loses even a small degree of required control, fusion reactions and heat generation would rapidly cease.
Additionally, fusion reactors contain relatively small amounts of fuel, enough to "burn" for minutes, or in some cases, microseconds. Unless they are actively refueled, the reactions will quickly end.
- ...
Hydrogen is highly flammable, and in the case of a fire it is possible that the hydrogen stored on-site could be burned up and escape. In this case, the tritium contents of the hydrogen would be released into the atmosphere, posing a radiation risk. Calculations suggest that at about 1 kilogram (2.2 lb), the total amount of tritium and other radioactive gases in a typical power station would be so small that they would have diluted to legally acceptable limits by the time they blew as far as the station's perimeter fence.
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The large flux of high-energy neutrons in a reactor will make the structural materials radioactive. The radioactive inventory at shut-down may be comparable to that of a fission reactor, but there are important differences.
The half-life of the radioisotopes produced by fusion tends to be less than those from fission, so that the inventory decreases more rapidly. Unlike fission reactors, whose waste remains radioactive for thousands of years, most of the radioactive material in a fusion reactor would be the reactor core itself, which would be dangerous for about 50 years, and low-level waste for another 100. Although this waste will be considerably more radioactive during those 50 years than fission waste, the very short half-life makes the process very attractive, as the waste management is fairly straightforward. By 500 years the material would have the same radioactivity as coal ash.
- ...
In general terms, fusion reactors would create far less radioactive material than a fission reactor, the material it would create is less damaging biologically, and the radioactivity "burns off" within a time period that is well within existing engineering capabilities for safe long-term waste storage. [ed: Don't blame me. I got it from Wikipedia.]
That's an awful lot of "could be"s in this assessment, and devil is always in the details with these things. But I wouldn't presently stamp it as intrinsically unsustainable.
Which brings us back to politics: there are probably many people in the environmental movement who think that the present economic reality does not justify chasing after the clean fusion chimera, when all that talent and effort could be directed renewable technologies, supplemented with some prudent energy-use growth-rate belt-tightening. (Clap clap, new world order with actual adults in charge, job done.)
Which makes this article about a particular sustainable energy scenario (the bird in hand coupled with a green philosophy of economic moderation) rather than sustainable energy in the large.
When I get around to reading MacKay, the main question in mind will be this: what energy cost did he assign to the problem of maintaining enough geopolitical stability to keep nuclear energy from causing more problems than it solves? If geopolitical stability is left off the balance sheet, no narrow calculation can be fully trusted, even by a bright guy like MacKay.
So the "manageability" of any technology is tied the economic cost of maintaining a compatible world order and we have now entered the domain of wicked problems.
For my money, we should point this out, rather than sweep it under the environmental consensus rug. — MaxEnt 21:26, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
I get the impression that you're hoping this article be factual and reasonable, however it is created by editor consensus which is often idealistically green and emotional. I agree that any form of energy production has a level of adverse effects, where is the cutoff line?? Dougmcdonell ( talk) 03:30, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
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It is important that this article be correct and complete.
From a scientific point of view, it has been clear since the 1970s or before that the wholesale burning of fossil fuels is unsustainable. Besides the obvious issue of the finiteness of this energy supply, science has discovered several enormous resulting problems, especially global warming. Global warming sounds simple when expressed as an average increase of temperature, but that fact expands into a changing range of higher temperatures depending on place and time. We are currently seeing record-breaking hurricaines and the beginnings of giant glacier calvings, all stemming from much higher and more variable local temperatures and moisture-loading of the lower atmosphere. Coastlines and whole countries are going to be threatened by flooding caused by local seas having levels much higher than the global average.
We long ago passed the failsafe point where feasible solutions would have solved global warming. It may be too late to avoid massive environmental changes and destruction.
Denial of these important facts (whether through distaste or politics) is bad enough. We must also ask whether alternative energy sources are really sustainable. Nature's balance on Earth was established over millions of years, before humans were on the scene. We need to ask whether ocean wave power can really produce useful energy to meet our needs without adversely affecting the orbits of Earth and Moon, and ask similar questions about geothermal power, wind power, and all the others. Each one may affect the rotation of the earth, its orbit, its gravitational relationship to the Moon, and other vital aspects of our superbly balanced environment.
Without considering the long-term impact of each alternative energy source, this article cannot be considered complete, no matter how uncomfortable the truth may make us feel.
We are also not the first civilization to be threatened by ignoring issues. The Roman Empire probably also avoided many similarly vital discussions prior to their weakening and destruction (focusing on who was Emperor when or on the greed of local despots doesn't satisfy as a principal reason for the decline of this largely successful civilization). David Spector ( talk) 12:28, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
I don't appreciate this off-topic attack on User:Jytdog when I am making what I believe to be an important and seldom-recognized point about this article. If you have references about this user to back up your criticisms, add them and move your diatribe to the proper place. Otherwise, please delete the diatribe as off-topic. Thanks. David Spector ( talk) 20:32, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
I did indeed make that confusion; please accept my apology. David Spector ( talk) 22:38, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
Boundarylayer, that is a very interesting insight about an editor. Unfortunately, few people will see your comment, buried here in one article. It would be better for you to bring up the issue in the proper forum here at WP. The voluteers who participate in the administration of WP are very concerned with issues like this one and will do something appropriate about it.
As to sustainable energy, I'm afraid not much thinking goes on about this issue. For example, many believe that using hydrogen as a fuel in cars (as opposed to its indirect use in fuel cells) would be a dandy solution to particulate pollution by cars, and indeed it may. But in addition to analyzing the efficiency of burning hydrogen in cars it is also necessary to analyze how the hydrogen would be manufactured, to be sure that the added pollution at the generation location would be enough below that of car pollution to make the scheme feasible. David Spector ( talk) 16:13, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Just FYI for those who didn't know, Jytdog has left Wikipedia. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 17:56, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
David Spector and Boundarylayer make some excellent and useful criticisms of the article. That's one of the main things a Talk page is for. For articles with issues that are deeper than a need for copyediting, taking the time to articulate the problems can be important. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 18:01, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
I broadly agree with Boundarylayer above. Reading this article makes me feel like I just came home from an industry conference in which I picked up a brochure from every huckster in the exhibition hall, and I'm now sitting down reading the entire stack of brochures. This article should, after defining its terminology, discuss various energy sources and
neutrally explain their claims to being sustainable, giving due weight to their environmental and social benefits and drawbacks. We should be sourcing this content largely to independent reliable sources - not product advertising, not investor pitches, and not grant applications. Having an article read like a series of advertisements is not only against Wikipedia policy, it also feeds the belief that "sustainability" is just flimsy hype.
I will write more about other issues in this article later. Cheers, Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 18:16, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
I've done some thinking about how the reader would come to this article and what they might want to get out of it. Some relevant facts:
The concepts of "sustainable energy", "clean energy", and "green energy" are all fairly nebulous and difficult to define, but also very important concepts to neutrally explore. I would really like to see this article focus on 1) definitions of these terms, 2) discussion of the degree to which various energy sources are sustainable/clean/green, and 3) summary of the trends in sustainable/clean/green energy adoption. No other article on Wikipedia does these things. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 18:44, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
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Nuclear fission has four inherent liabilities - radiation, risk of accident, waste, and risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons, and is not likely to have a significant role, due to the vast availability of wind power and solar power.[164][165]
That statement seems to me to have a significant bias. We don't know how likely the role of fusion energy (or any future energy fo that matter) will have, and there are many prediction that do say fusion will have a significant role if it's efficiently achieved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.244.199.121 ( talk) 11:56, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
Oh I see this came up before. In any case Andol, none of my references are from "nuclear lobby organisations". Secondly I also wish for you to apply this exacting standard of yours here and remove every use of references from the wind industry lobby groups etc. As what's good for the goose is good for the gander, is it not?
In any case, here's my edit that uses peer-reviewed journal references, the IPCC, IAEA, the UN affiliated Our Common Future & NASA to name but a few. None of which are "nuclear lobby organisations". If Grayfell or anyone else still has issues with this, please point out the specific cases, 1 by 1 and contribute as such. Do not blank again.
Proposed changes (collapsed for talk page navigability)
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Resource supplyWhile many have classified the most dominant present nuclear reactor technology, the Light Water Reactor as environmentally friendly "green energy", due to the IPCC's findings that it is essentially as non-greenhouse gas emitting in nature as wind & hydro energy. Including Greenpeace founder and first member Patrick Moore, [1] [2] [3] George Monbiot, [4] Bill Gates [5] and James Lovelock. [6] This reactor technology is not efficient enough in its use of fuel to last more than a few hundred, to at most a thousand, years or so in all likely scenarios. [7] [8] Therefore in terms of sustainable energy, apart from conventional renewable energy sources, the other major low carbon power technology that is also a sustainable source of energy, are the sustainable nuclear energy technologies such as breeder reactors, which produce/breed more fuel than they consume. [9] [10] With the use of fast breeder reactors such as the presently operating BN-600 reactor, BN-800 reactor and the conceptual Integral Fast Reactor, which all have the potential for a closed/recycled 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 known conventional land resources and phosphate ore. [11] When one also includes the resource of natural uranium extracted from seawater, this has been calculated to have the potential to supply energy at least as long as the sun's expected remaining lifespan of five billion years. [12] This was based on calculations involving the geological cycles of erosion, subduction, and uplift, leading to humans consuming half of the total uranium in the Earth’s crust at an annual usage rate of 6500 tonne/yr, which was enough to produce approximately 10 times the world's 1983 electricity consumption, and would reduce the concentration of uranium in the seas by 25%, resulting in an increase in the price of uranium of less than 25%. [12] [13] The extraction of this natural uranium from seawater would also have the long term benefit of reducing the concentration of this naturally occurring heavy metal pollutant in the world's oceans. Moreover, Thorium may also be seen as a fuel source but at present is an often overlooked alternative to natural uranium in breeder reactors,it is however several times(about 3 to 4) [14] [15] [16] more abundant on land/ Earth's crust than all isotopes of uranium combined, but 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, [17] [18] [19] [20] 3 mg( milligrams) per cubic meter/ton of water. [21] [22] [23] As thorium is about four times more abundant within the earth’s crust than uranium, the worlds current supply is capable of generating enough energy to power the world for thousands of years. [22] [23] Thorium fuels prove to be beneficial in comparison to uranium based nuclear reactors, as they have slightly greater proliferation resistance. [22] India intends to rely on thorium in its future nuclear energy mix with a projection of 30% of its electrical demands through thorium by 2050. [24] Environmental impact comparisonsWhile in comparison to wind power, which consumes no water [26] for continuing operation, and has near negligible emissions directly related to its electricity production. In full life cycle assessments(LCAs), Wind turbines when isolation from the electric grid produce negligible amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, mercury and radioactive waste when in operation, unlike fossil fuel sources and nuclear energy station fuel production, respectively. However while still low, in life cycle assessments wind turbines do produce slightly more particulate matter(PM), a form of air pollution, at a rate per unit of energy generated(kWh) higher than a fossil gas electricity station(" NGCC"), [27] [28] and also more heavy metals and PM than nuclear stations per unit of energy generated. [29] [30] Furthermore, in terms of total pollution costs of presently operating nuclear technology which does not have a closed nuclear fuel cycle, in economic terms, despite alpine Hydropower exhibiting the lowest external pollution, or Externality, costs of all electricity generating systems, below 0.05 c €/ kWh. Wind power has a 0.09 - 0.12c€/kW value, nuclear energy(due to its small volume but still hazardous spent nuclear fuel/"nuclear waste") has a 0.19 c€/kWh value and fossil fuels from 1.6 - 5.8 c€/kWh. [31] With the exception of the latter fossil fuels, these are negligible costs in comparison to the cost of electricity production, which is approximately 10 c €/ kWh in European countries. The careful monitoring of radioactive waste products is not a unique feature to nuclear fission energy, as it is also required upon the use of the widely accepted renewable source of geothermal energy, [32] and therefore is not a unique feature to fission energy. Geothermal/ radiogenic heating is a form of energy derived, in greatest part, from the natural nuclear decay of the large, but nonetheless finite supply of uranium, thorium and potassium-40 present within the Earth's crust, [33] [34] and due to the nuclear decay process, this renewable energy source will also eventually run out of fuel. As too is the fate of the nuclear fusion cycle within our Sun, being exhausted in an estimate 5 billion years, if mankind never replenishes it. However as the means of energy production from the geothermal energy resource results in much higher greenhouse gas emissions than nuclear fission, [35] it will not be discussed any further within this nuclear section to prevent confusion with the less polluting nuclear fission energy sources. In 2014, Brookings Institute published a cost-benefit analysis study The Net Benefits of Low and No-Carbon Electricity Technologies which states, after performing an energy and emissions cost analysis, that "The net benefits of new nuclear, hydro, and natural gas combined cycle plants far outweigh the net benefits of new wind or solar plants", with the most cost effective low carbon power technology being determined to be nuclear power. [39] [40] [41] Regarding energy used by vehicles, a 2008 cost-benefit analysis by the anti-nuclear advocate [42] Mark Z. Jacobson, of sustainable energy sources and usage combinations in the context of global warming and other dominating issues; it ranked wind power generation combined with battery electric vehicles (BEV) and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) as the most efficient. Wind was followed by concentrated solar power (CSP), geothermal power, tidal power, photovoltaic, wave power, hydropower coal capture and storage (CCS), nuclear energy and biofuel energy sources. It states: "In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts." [43] Jacobson's opinions are in part due to his internationally controversial suggestion that state civil nuclear energy stations will result in higher emissions than the international consensus on nuclear fissions Total Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions, primarily due his regarding of civil nuclear energy being inexplicably linked with nuclear weapons and therefore will result in a nuclear war and the burning of cities. [44] [45] Due in part to this background, he states that if the United States wants to reduce global warming, air pollution and energy instability, it should invest only in the best energy options, and that nuclear power is not one of them. [46] Jacobson's analyses state that " nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, when reactor construction, uranium refining and transport are considered". [47] However, scientists from Yale University and agencies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who have since analyzed the total Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of energy sources have not arrived at the same nuclear power emissions conclusions as Jacobson has, in this respect, instead finding that nuclear energy has a total life-cycle emission intensity, including construction, mining etc, similar to other sustainable solutions such as hydropower and an emission insensity lower than Solar PV and biomass. [48] [49] 178.167.204.95 ( talk) 20:52, 27 June 2015 (UTC) References
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A request has been made for a third opinion. I will respond, although a third opinion is not really applicable because there are already three editors discussing the article, User:Andol, User:Grayfell, and an unregistered editor. There isn't a specific question, and the title of this talk page section appears to be inconsistent with the content of the discussion. That is, this section is headed Nuclear fusion, but the issue really appears to be nuclear fission. Looking at the history of the article, the issue would appear to be whether to include a large amount of text that has been added by one editor and removed by two editors. There is a 2-to-1 consensus against inclusion of the text. If the author of the text disagrees, I would suggest that the next step might be a Request for Comments. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I will further point out that nuclear fission is not sustainable in the usual sense. It does not produce greenhouse gas, but, as noted above, it has other environmental issues, in particular the risk of accidents and the problem of waste disposal. For those reasons, if the question is how to get to 100% sustainable energy, nuclear fission is a transition strategy, and so including too much discussion of nuclear fission would be undue weight. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
While nuclear fusion is technically not sustainable, it would be to all practical purposes sustainable because the supply of hydrogen and deuterium is limited, but unlimited to all practical purposes. However, nuclear fusion has not been achieved as having supra-unity yield in spite of fifty years of research and development, and so including any significant coverage of nuclear fusion would be undue weight. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
At least, those are my opinions. They are not a third opinion, because they are a fourth opinion. Robert McClenon ( talk) 01:52, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I stumbled upon this page because I monitor the WP:3O page. I would suggest that the IP add their points in a piecemeal fashion, taking into account comments here. If you add the stuff in one whole go, people are understandably reluctant to let it stand of POV reasons. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:35, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
The generation of renewable energy on the scale needed to replace fossil energy, in an effort to manage global climate change, is likely to have significant negative environmental impacts. For example, biomass energy generation would have to increase 7-fold to supply current primary energy demand, and up to 40-fold by 2100 given economic and energy growth projections. [1] Humans already appropriate 30 to 40% of all photosynthetically fixed carbon worldwide, indicating that expansion of additional biomass harvesting is likely to stress ecosystems, in some cases precipitating collapse and extinction of animal species that have been deprived of vital food sources. [2] [3] The total amount of solar energy captured by all vegetation in the United States each year is around 58 quads (61.5 EJ), with about half of this presently harvested as agricultural crops and forest products. The un-used half/remaining biomass is needed to maintain ecosystem functions and diversity. [4] Since annual energy use in the United States is ca. 100 quads, biomass energy could supply only a very small fraction of total energy needs.
To supply the current worldwide energy demand solely with non- genetically engineered biomass would require more than 10% of the Earth’s land surface, which is comparable to the area used for all of world agriculture (i.e., ca. 1500 million hectares), indicating that further expansion of biomass energy generation will be difficult without precipitating eco-system loss and ethical issues given current world hunger statistics, over growing plants for biofuel versus food. [5] [6]
92.251.153.186 ( talk) 19:00, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
To the IP editor: I strongly encourage you to make a username. This will make it easier for other editors to interact with you, give you more credibility in many people's eyes, and enable you to continue editing should the page become semi-protected. I haven't looked into your suggestions above but you have consensus for including sustainable nuclear energy in the article. According to WP:BRD you can simply start editing the article. You don't need to keep asking permission beforehand. -- Sammy1339 ( talk) 05:23, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
As the above discussion details the dispute, I will simply direct anyone interested in seeing the proposed changes to this article there. Specifically, I request for commentators to see the last edit of mine to the article for a more up-to-date version of what is proposed for context, as what is in the Proposed changes on this talk page, was truncated during the dispute. 178.167.204.95 ( talk) 03:51, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I'll clarify that I don't support mentioning specific technologies in the lead, or in a sense where they're made to stand out as especially promising. The article covers a lot of specific technologies, and nuclear-based specific technologies should have as much text as any others. To me, most if not all of these technologies are pet-ideas in a sense. Many of them have millions of dollars, prominent names and large research groups behind them. They still involve someone insisting that their idea is superior to all others primarily because it is their idea and not necessarily because it is actually promising (and often in spite of significant and legitimate objections). This is a viewpoint that comes from experience in science, and I don't mean it to be derogatory.
So, what I mean by that is that the people who advocate breeder reactors are people who have done extensive work with breeder reactors, and they may be overlooking the advantages of, say, thorium. This is why I think specific technologies need equal weight, and certainly nuclear-based technologies deserve as much weight as any others, 'artificial leaves' included. No current technology is especially promising.
That current technologies are not economically competitive is not significant. Just as technologies should not be excluded because they are nuclear, they should not have to be economically competitive now or in the foreseeable future. The future costs of energy and the costs of these technologies can't be predicted. I want to stress again that the environmental impact of any future source of energy, nuclear or otherwise, also can't be predicted. This is an important reason to include nuclear energy. Ultimately, I think the instinctive opposition to nuclear technologies as green technologies comes from the fact that the origins of the environmental movement had much in common with nuclear disarmament and nuclear power is inextricably linked with nuclear weapons. This article is based on the idea that our need for energy is also a threat to human existence, and it needs to document all current research into sustainable energy with due weight. Roches ( talk) 10:47, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
Thus, the breeding concept allows optimal use of fertile ore and development of sustainable nuclear energy production for several thousand years into the future.
Different sustainable nuclear reactor concepts are studied in the international forum "generation IV". Different types of coolant (Na, Pb and He) are studied for fast breeder reactors based on the Uranium cycle. The thermal Thorium cycle requires the use of a liquid fuel, which can be reprocessed online in order to extract the neutron poisons. This paper presents these different sustainable reactors, based on the Uranium or Thorium fuel cycles and will compare the different options in term of fissile inventory, capacity to be deployed, induced radiotoxicities, and R&D efforts.
To the IP editor: At first I thought you may have wanted to give too much weight to specific technologies. It's clear to me now that you don't; I support due weight being given to all technologies and I think you do too. I did say a lot about what I called pet ideas, by which I meant people placing undue focus on technologies they are involved with, as a sort of conflict of interest. I don't think this is happening in the article now; I just wanted to caution against it. Nothing I said about specific technologies had to do with anyone's edits to the article; they were hypothetical cases, and I could've made that clearer. Overall, what I was trying to say is that specific technologies need to be presented fairly, with due weight, and with objective discussion of pros and cons. I may have said that in a way that was too colored by personal experience.
I don't know where to find evidence about the connection between the environmental movement and the nuclear disarmament movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Earth Day and (more so) Project Survival hint at it. I'm confident that there was such a connection. Both arise from a belief that humanity could destroy itself if it continues along the same path, either by nuclear war or environmental catastrophe.
I did wish to reply but I do not want to take the RfC off topic, so it's probably best not to discuss this further here. Perhaps some progress can be made if those who opposed the inclusion of nuclear technologies discussed how they think the article should present nuclear issues. This article has to say something about the future of nuclear power; it's got to comment on all the major sources of energy in current use. Posting with sustainable, impact-free hydroelectricity, Roches ( talk) 03:03, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
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I was just taking note of this book and came here, only to find myself shocked that nuclear power is not mentioned in the lead. You can make a weakish argument that fission is not sustainable.
Thorium is three times as abundant as uranium and nearly as abundant as lead and gallium in the Earth's crust. The Thorium Energy Alliance estimates "there is enough thorium in the United States alone to power the country at its current energy level for over 1,000 years."
I supposed the following text supplies justification:
Sustainable energy is energy that is consumed at insignificant rates compared to its supply and with manageable collateral effects, especially environmental effects.
Windmills and solar hardly require less extractive mining during the capital investment cycle (on the back of the present carbon industry we sort of take for granted).
So deep down, the criteria appears to be without adding any new ugly extractive industries over and above what we've already got.
Nor is it the case that solar and wind won't generate an enormous, problematic waste stream (the mechanical build for the power levels desired is simply enormous, and all of this is exposed to the harsh elements). But again, the criteria seems to be without adding any new problematic waste streams over and above what we're already used to.
My attitude toward nuclear has long been "show me the fuel cycle". The fuel cycles adopted at the beginning of the nuclear age were adopted primarily to dovetail with existing initiatives in the military–industrial complex (nuclear submarines, see Freeman Dyson) and gave effectively no deep consideration to civilian safety or sanity, beyond vaguely plausible PR.
I believe that our best design effort on modern technology (this has not change just a little bit since the 1940s) would improve the existing fuel cycles by one or two decimal orders of magnitude (even then, I'm not sure it will be good enough under a full accounting, but it certainly makes the question worth revisiting with an open mind).
And then there's fusion.
Nuclear fusion is unlike nuclear fission: fusion requires extremely precise and controlled temperature, pressure and magnetic field parameters for any net energy to be produced. If a reactor suffers damage or loses even a small degree of required control, fusion reactions and heat generation would rapidly cease.
Additionally, fusion reactors contain relatively small amounts of fuel, enough to "burn" for minutes, or in some cases, microseconds. Unless they are actively refueled, the reactions will quickly end.
- ...
Hydrogen is highly flammable, and in the case of a fire it is possible that the hydrogen stored on-site could be burned up and escape. In this case, the tritium contents of the hydrogen would be released into the atmosphere, posing a radiation risk. Calculations suggest that at about 1 kilogram (2.2 lb), the total amount of tritium and other radioactive gases in a typical power station would be so small that they would have diluted to legally acceptable limits by the time they blew as far as the station's perimeter fence.
- ...
The large flux of high-energy neutrons in a reactor will make the structural materials radioactive. The radioactive inventory at shut-down may be comparable to that of a fission reactor, but there are important differences.
The half-life of the radioisotopes produced by fusion tends to be less than those from fission, so that the inventory decreases more rapidly. Unlike fission reactors, whose waste remains radioactive for thousands of years, most of the radioactive material in a fusion reactor would be the reactor core itself, which would be dangerous for about 50 years, and low-level waste for another 100. Although this waste will be considerably more radioactive during those 50 years than fission waste, the very short half-life makes the process very attractive, as the waste management is fairly straightforward. By 500 years the material would have the same radioactivity as coal ash.
- ...
In general terms, fusion reactors would create far less radioactive material than a fission reactor, the material it would create is less damaging biologically, and the radioactivity "burns off" within a time period that is well within existing engineering capabilities for safe long-term waste storage. [ed: Don't blame me. I got it from Wikipedia.]
That's an awful lot of "could be"s in this assessment, and devil is always in the details with these things. But I wouldn't presently stamp it as intrinsically unsustainable.
Which brings us back to politics: there are probably many people in the environmental movement who think that the present economic reality does not justify chasing after the clean fusion chimera, when all that talent and effort could be directed renewable technologies, supplemented with some prudent energy-use growth-rate belt-tightening. (Clap clap, new world order with actual adults in charge, job done.)
Which makes this article about a particular sustainable energy scenario (the bird in hand coupled with a green philosophy of economic moderation) rather than sustainable energy in the large.
When I get around to reading MacKay, the main question in mind will be this: what energy cost did he assign to the problem of maintaining enough geopolitical stability to keep nuclear energy from causing more problems than it solves? If geopolitical stability is left off the balance sheet, no narrow calculation can be fully trusted, even by a bright guy like MacKay.
So the "manageability" of any technology is tied the economic cost of maintaining a compatible world order and we have now entered the domain of wicked problems.
For my money, we should point this out, rather than sweep it under the environmental consensus rug. — MaxEnt 21:26, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
I get the impression that you're hoping this article be factual and reasonable, however it is created by editor consensus which is often idealistically green and emotional. I agree that any form of energy production has a level of adverse effects, where is the cutoff line?? Dougmcdonell ( talk) 03:30, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
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It is important that this article be correct and complete.
From a scientific point of view, it has been clear since the 1970s or before that the wholesale burning of fossil fuels is unsustainable. Besides the obvious issue of the finiteness of this energy supply, science has discovered several enormous resulting problems, especially global warming. Global warming sounds simple when expressed as an average increase of temperature, but that fact expands into a changing range of higher temperatures depending on place and time. We are currently seeing record-breaking hurricaines and the beginnings of giant glacier calvings, all stemming from much higher and more variable local temperatures and moisture-loading of the lower atmosphere. Coastlines and whole countries are going to be threatened by flooding caused by local seas having levels much higher than the global average.
We long ago passed the failsafe point where feasible solutions would have solved global warming. It may be too late to avoid massive environmental changes and destruction.
Denial of these important facts (whether through distaste or politics) is bad enough. We must also ask whether alternative energy sources are really sustainable. Nature's balance on Earth was established over millions of years, before humans were on the scene. We need to ask whether ocean wave power can really produce useful energy to meet our needs without adversely affecting the orbits of Earth and Moon, and ask similar questions about geothermal power, wind power, and all the others. Each one may affect the rotation of the earth, its orbit, its gravitational relationship to the Moon, and other vital aspects of our superbly balanced environment.
Without considering the long-term impact of each alternative energy source, this article cannot be considered complete, no matter how uncomfortable the truth may make us feel.
We are also not the first civilization to be threatened by ignoring issues. The Roman Empire probably also avoided many similarly vital discussions prior to their weakening and destruction (focusing on who was Emperor when or on the greed of local despots doesn't satisfy as a principal reason for the decline of this largely successful civilization). David Spector ( talk) 12:28, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
I don't appreciate this off-topic attack on User:Jytdog when I am making what I believe to be an important and seldom-recognized point about this article. If you have references about this user to back up your criticisms, add them and move your diatribe to the proper place. Otherwise, please delete the diatribe as off-topic. Thanks. David Spector ( talk) 20:32, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
I did indeed make that confusion; please accept my apology. David Spector ( talk) 22:38, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
Boundarylayer, that is a very interesting insight about an editor. Unfortunately, few people will see your comment, buried here in one article. It would be better for you to bring up the issue in the proper forum here at WP. The voluteers who participate in the administration of WP are very concerned with issues like this one and will do something appropriate about it.
As to sustainable energy, I'm afraid not much thinking goes on about this issue. For example, many believe that using hydrogen as a fuel in cars (as opposed to its indirect use in fuel cells) would be a dandy solution to particulate pollution by cars, and indeed it may. But in addition to analyzing the efficiency of burning hydrogen in cars it is also necessary to analyze how the hydrogen would be manufactured, to be sure that the added pollution at the generation location would be enough below that of car pollution to make the scheme feasible. David Spector ( talk) 16:13, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Just FYI for those who didn't know, Jytdog has left Wikipedia. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 17:56, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
David Spector and Boundarylayer make some excellent and useful criticisms of the article. That's one of the main things a Talk page is for. For articles with issues that are deeper than a need for copyediting, taking the time to articulate the problems can be important. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 18:01, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
I broadly agree with Boundarylayer above. Reading this article makes me feel like I just came home from an industry conference in which I picked up a brochure from every huckster in the exhibition hall, and I'm now sitting down reading the entire stack of brochures. This article should, after defining its terminology, discuss various energy sources and
neutrally explain their claims to being sustainable, giving due weight to their environmental and social benefits and drawbacks. We should be sourcing this content largely to independent reliable sources - not product advertising, not investor pitches, and not grant applications. Having an article read like a series of advertisements is not only against Wikipedia policy, it also feeds the belief that "sustainability" is just flimsy hype.
I will write more about other issues in this article later. Cheers, Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 18:16, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
I've done some thinking about how the reader would come to this article and what they might want to get out of it. Some relevant facts:
The concepts of "sustainable energy", "clean energy", and "green energy" are all fairly nebulous and difficult to define, but also very important concepts to neutrally explore. I would really like to see this article focus on 1) definitions of these terms, 2) discussion of the degree to which various energy sources are sustainable/clean/green, and 3) summary of the trends in sustainable/clean/green energy adoption. No other article on Wikipedia does these things. Clayoquot ( talk | contribs) 18:44, 3 February 2019 (UTC)