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Good articleHigh-level radioactive waste management has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 5, 2009 Good article nomineeListed

Moved

Moved much of this material from too-large article on "Radioactive waste" and will revise that article shortly to minimize duplication. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 03:12, 24 December 2008 (UTC) reply


Article lacking

Even with a quick read-through I find this article to be sorely lacking.

  • Many weasel words
  • Passing mentioning of the Swedish KBS-3 method, not even writing its name. Containing outdated information about the progress (site selection expected to take place in 2009).
  • No mentioning of natural analogues, such as Oklo or Cigar Lake Mine Canada. In fact the article even erronously claims that "no geologic formation of adequate size for a permanent radioactive waste repository has yet been discovered that has been stable for so long a period" quite simply wrong.

This is very serious factual omissions. I cannot support the nomination for "Good article".

-- J-Star ( talk) 15:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC) reply

Do you have a verifiable reference for "site selection expected to take place in 2009?" If you do, please provide it, preferably in English language. Mere assertion is not enough. You need to present verifiable evidence.
If you have a verifiable reference for the location of a geologic formation of adequate size for a permanent radioactive waste repository that has been stable for 17 million years, please provide it. Yucca Mountain in the U.S. was thought to be one, but further investigation determined it is not. Does not meet Alfven's criteria.
Your use of profanity here is uncivil and may get you blocked. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 19:43, 30 December 2008 (UTC) reply

I mentioned two already: Oklo, and Cigar Lake. Here is a report with several more.

http://www.skb.se/upload/publications/pdf/TR-01-20.pdf

-- J-Star ( talk) 20:49, 30 December 2008 (UTC) reply

It is unclear how a study of "The applicability and limitations of the geochemical models and tools used in sumulating radionuclide behavior in natural waters" (the study linked above) demonstrates the stability of any geologic formation for 17 million years. Geochemical modeling of the migration of radionuclides in a future radioactive waste repository does not demonstrate geologic stability.
Moreover, discussion in this report of the two sites you mention, Oklo and Cigar Lake, does not demonstrate stability of any geologic formation for 17 million years. The discussion of Oklo does discuss "fracture fillings," and fractures are a pretty good indicator of historic instability, not stability. The discussion of Cigar Lake suggests the geologic structure there may have been somewhat stable for a period of 10,000 years, but not 17 million. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 21:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC) reply
So, this editor is unable to provide a reference to any known geologic formation that has been stable for 17 million years, and apparently thinks that does not matter.
Looks like "fringe science" to me. Don't know any government making actual decisions based on such nonsense. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 22:40, 30 December 2008 (UTC) reply
J-Star appears to be pushing POV of consultant's report at above link, which is not the current view of most governments with management plans identified in the article. Not NPOV, but advocacy. The article is more balanced, and if in doubt, I'll stick with Hannes Alfven, a nobel prize winner in physics on this issue. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 00:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC) reply
Alfvén was not neutral, if anything. He also uttered these staements you are refering to before nuclear power was even operational in Sweden. Over 30 years have passed. Also refereing to him as a Nobel Prize Laurelate is appeal to authority.
I am cetainly not pushing POV or advocacy. Svensk Kärnbränslehantering (SKB) is the Swedish nuclear power corporation's collaborative venture to find a solution to the Swedish nuclear waste, something which they are obligated to do by Swedish law. Their activities and decisions are subject to scrutiny and approval by Swedish authorities. Source
The source for that final location selection will take place in 2009 is here.
Their research program is by any measure massive. Anyone can download their vast library of research from here. Anyone attmpeting to claim something along the ines of SKB's research not being valid or thurough had better take a good long look there first.
As a final note... I am getting quite annoyed with accusations of advocacy, and thinly veiled threats of throwing people out of Wikipedia. I think those that review this page and this discussion are well adviced to watch for POV and advocacy from all editors, as we of course always should. I suspect that some editors are quite set in their opinions about nuclear power and the feasability of deep geological repositories and this seems to be affecting them.
I stand by my initial statement. This article is lacking in factual quality as it omitts important facts, contains obolete facts, and contains statements that by science have been proven wrong. -- J-Star ( talk) 02:10, 31 December 2008 (UTC) reply
This scientific and ethical dispute cannot be resolved here, so I've added a new paragraph in the lead outlining the dispute and providing references to both sides.
Previously I added an internal link to a poor quality article on KBS-3 and changed the date for Swedich site selection to 2009, for which I will add a reference if its verifiable. I'm accommodating unreasonable demands.
Nothing J-Star has provided contradicts the statement that "no geologic formation of adequate size for a permanent radioactive waste repository has yet been discovered that has been stable for so long a period." The references provided simply contradict Alfven on the necessity of stable geologic formations. Alven did receive a Nobel prize in physics, where J-Star and the authors of the references provided by J-Star did not. Take your pick on credibility.
Clearly this editor is a proponent of one POV, where I am trying to maintain NPOV by providing both views. Evidence to support my comments on lack of civility is apparent in the editor's comments above this one. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 16:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC) reply

As a non-partisan in this rather disjointed discussion, it seems to me that J-Star is taking the more reasonable approach, with accusations and unreasonable challenges coming from Mervyn Emrys. Why the 17 million year figure, for example? Why the derogatory comments about references to a Swedish government web site and appeal to an outdated quote even from a Nobel laureate. Tone it down, please. The discussion is also scattered in three places: this page and the discussion pages of the two protagonists. Better to keep it in one place. NPguy ( talk) 18:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC) reply

Since I'd like to keep the discussion of this topic on this page, I'm copying here a recent posting from Mervyn Emryn to my talk page:

Hi NPguy. You have come to this discussion a bit late. If you examine the history page for that talk page, you will see J-Star has several times changed his edits there to clean them up. For example, his initial comment, shown as revision (last) of 01:45, 31 December 2008 included the statement "and this is - pardon the wording - bullshit!" Not a great way to begin a conversation with anyone, I think you may agree, to refer to their contributions as bullshit.
The 17 million year figure is the half-life of Iodine 129 in the lead paragraph of the article, from a referenced and respected source. Iodine 129 is particularly concerning because it is taken up by cattle and found in cow's milk ingested by infants. All of the information there is from verifiable sources, and the article is heavily referenced to scholarly sources.
I agree it would have been desirable to keep the discussion all in one place, which it was before J-Star showed up and started placing hostile comments on my personal talk page, in addition to the article talk page, instead of limiting them to the article talk page.
I have tried to accommodate his demands by adding material to the article as described above, including references he provided, but some are not useful. And he was not quick to provide them. J-Star appears to be an advocate or employee of either the Swedish agency or the consultant who prepared the report he refers to (I suspect the latter). An agency homepage listing of research performed for that agency is not a credible source on the issues raised in the research. After all, the agency paid for that research.
The methodology of such modeling as is reported there has been questioned for many years by Karen Kristin Shrader-Frechette (and others) in a series of scholarly publications by respected publishers (e.g., Univ. of California Press). Actually, she has gone much farther in publications cited, questioning the wisdom and public ethics of making official decisions based on such modeling efforts. Some have stated the methodolgy was created because the agencies charged with finding stable geologic strata were unable to do so, and needed justification for using unstable strata. This article does not say that.
Trying to maintain a balanced NPOV stance in this article in the face of such ad hominum attacks has been difficult, but I think it is there now. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 20:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC) reply
PS: Recently checked and changed the half-life of Iodine-129 to 15.7 million years, according to the Idaho National Laboratory, and added link. Small difference, as a practical matter for waste management. Looks like it was a typo left by somebody else. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 15:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC) reply
My reply is that aside from the mild expletive "bullshit" (which I had already seen in the edit history), I did not see anything particularly hostile from J-Star. To the contrary, I found the response, in the form of repeated demands on various pages for very specific technical claims, needlessly confrontational. In particular, the demand to show full isolation for 17 million years seemed pulled from out of thin air, without explanation. I had seen that this was listed as the half-life of Iodine-129, but I was not questioning the figure. Rather, I was questioning the assertion that this implied a requirement of isolation for 17 million years. This does not appear to be a requirement in either technical discussions or regulatory policy. Perhaps it should be, but such a claim needs to be justified. NPguy ( talk) 23:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC) reply
I don't understand this reply. J-Star made claims in his abrasive comment and I replied by asking J-Star to back them up with verifiable references. I understand verifiability is important to Wikipedia. Am I mistaken? It was Hannes Alfven's assertion in the article that J-Star was alleging (indirectly without saying so and without evidence) was in error, and I asked for verifiable information to support J-Star's position, that's all. What could possibly be objectionable about that?
Moreover, when J-Star did not respond to my request, I went ahead and added an entire paragraph to the lead of the article which acknowledged J-Star's position. And I added a reference and link to KBS-3 to the Swedish section of the article. And I changed the site selection date from 2007 to 2009 before a verifiable reference was provided, and when one was provided, I added it to the article.
I checked the publication about "natural analogues" which J-Star provided as evidence to support his claim that the statement in the article that "no geologic formation of adequate size for a permanent radioactive waste repository has yet been discovered that has been stable for so long a period" was "quite simply wrong," (as J-Star said) and I found that publication does NOT support his claim. Instead that publication indicates the two examples he cited of Oklo and Cigar Lake have been stable for no more than 10,000 years. That publication seems to suggest that long term stability is unimportant, but does not make such an argument, and does not refute Alfven's position with any evidence or logic. Yet I added a reference to that publication to the new paragraph in the lead so any reader can check it out for themselves.
Every source of information J-Star has provided to date has come from a single source, a home page of a Swedish government agency corporation. Some of those references have merely been to lists of titles of research projects, not to the research itself. J-Star has not provided a single scholarly source, but only references to consultant's reports and home pages. In the most basic undergraduate research papers, students at the university where I have taught for 22 years are required to back up their arguments with scholarly sources from different sources, instead of relying on a single point of view ( WP:POV). Am I to understand this is unreasonable? I don't think so.
The Swedish agencycorporation SKB was identified in the article [in a neutral manner] as the one responsible for radioactive waste in that country, with information about its activities that was comparable to information provided about several other countries. This is an encyclopedia article, and is not intended to engage the reader (or editors) in debates about their preferred modeling methodologies. If you are a geochemical model builder, I'm sorry if this does not suit your preferences. That appears to be the substance of J-Star's objections.
And please note: at no time during this discussion did J-Star propose any specific language that might have been added to the article. All we got from J-Star was rude criticism.
So, who is making the constructive additions to this article? Who is making accommodations of other viewpoints? Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 02:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC) reply

Since NPguy would like to keep the discussion of this topic on this page, I'm copying here a previous posting from J-Star to my talk page, and my reply:

Just read through the report will you. The natural analogues demonstrates that no matter how unstable the rock is, the radionuclides are contained. -- J-Star ( talk) 22:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC) reply
Fringe science? Uhm... hate to break this to you, but this is part of the science used for the Swedish KBS-3 deep geological repository. It's not fringe science. It's the world leading science in such storage. And if you are not familiar with this, I suggest you read up a bit. You're obviously a tad out of your depths here. -- J-Star ( talk) 23:18, 30 December 2008 (UTC) reply
Uhm.... you're the one calling scientific reports that will be the basis of a parliament decision on one of the best researched deep geological repository methods "Fringe science" without even looking it up. Who's POV'ing and being rude here?
I suggest you take a good look at the publications on SKB's hompage. In 2009 SKB will report their final selection for a repository site in Sweden and file the permissions request with the Swedish authorities. They have been researching the method to use since the 80's. Calling this "Fringe science"... I'm sorry but I cannot see how this is anything but POV'ing.

http://www.skb.se/Templates/Standard____16765.aspx http://www.skb.se/Templates/Standard____17139.aspx

Read up... there's plenty to go through. -- J-Star ( talk) 01:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC) reply

The two links immediately above are (1) a five paragraph description by SKB of its research goals and the requirement that it report to the Swedish parliament, and (2) a brief "search" page where one may search for SKB publications on its home page. Both links are to the SKB home page. Neither is an appropriate reference to a verifiable source of information on a specific issue such as the one raised here.

The first link at top of this section is also to a consultant's publication posted on the SKB homepage. It now appears as inline note #9 in the lead of the article. Note SKB is a private industry organization comparable to a corporation; it is not a government organization. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 02:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC) reply

GA Review - some input

Hi to Mervyn Emrys, J-star and others. A few thoughts on this article.

  • I have made a minor restructure to confine the leading section to a factual summary of key issues in the article.
  • I think there should be an introductory section that outlines the issues / debate in this field. I have titled it 'The radioactive waste management challenge' and placed some existing text there, but see next point.
  • As an introduction to the issues, the first two paras, that make use of a quote of Alfven to identify key points, are good. However, hte following two paras then too quickly move to certain specifics in the debate, and also contain elements that might not be NPOV. I think this section might be improved (if slightly less exciting) if written along these lines: There is a debate over what should constitute an acceptable scientific and engineering foundation for proceeding with radioactive waste disposal strategies. There are those who have argued...(blah blah). However, on the other hand... (blah blah). One point i would make: the fact that national government(s) may be taking certain approaches is not in itself relevant to a philosophical or scientific discussion of waste management approaches nor to determining the soundness (in scientific, engineering or other terms) of the strategy. The article should concentrate on going to the technical underpinnings of policies in this section of the article. Policy aspects are better dealt with in the 'national management plans' section.
  • I hope this helps, and I will try to come back to do some more edits later.

Regards. hamiltonstone ( talk) 09:24, 2 January 2009 (UTC) reply

This is useful. I'll give it a try. One difficulty described in a new section below is that the article is getting too long and perhaps slightly unbalanced, favoring issues of concern mostly in Sweden.
I separated the "References" from "Further reading" sections again because the Vandenbosch cite is referenced several times in the preceeding section and that particular Shrader-Frechette cite is not. Also added another cite to "References" which is cited several times above. "Further reading" section may get another couple references or may go away in future. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 13:05, 2 January 2009 (UTC) reply

A fundamental question

Please allow me to pose a fundamental question: Why are we here? Are we here to write an encyclopedia for Wikipedia? Or are we here to put down the good faith efforts of other editors?

It seems to me that anyone who criticizes the efforts of other editors has a moral obligation to propose constructive alternatives in the form of specific language or edits to an article. Merely providing criticism without constructive alternatives is the equivalent of throwing rocks or firebombs at some establishment—not constructive, but merely tearing down the efforts of others.

J-Star’s initial comments here appear to amount to a criticism that the article did not lavish sufficient praise on Sweden for its laudable efforts in high-level radioactive waste management research. The activities of 13 governments are briefly summarized in the article, so there are at least that many opportunities for the nationalistic argument to be made. However, J-Star did not propose additional language for inclusion in the article, but subsequently and repeatedly demanded one read the entire contents of the Swedish research effort as listed on the SKB web site.

If J-Star is already familiar with the contents of that research, as appears to be the case, J-Star might have contributed two sentences summarizing it, but did not do so. That would have been a constructive contribution to the article. More than two sentences would be too much, making an already long article much longer and more cumbersome, and unbalancing the article with respect to the summaries of the other 12 country efforts described there. Yet, a longer contribution might be appropriate for the separate, shorter article on KBS-3, or a new article on SKB. Either of those would be constructive contributions to Wikipedia.

This article on High-level radioactive waste management contains only brief, thumbnail summaries of national plans by several countries to manage their accumulations of radioactive wastes. Discussion of those plans requires a brief mention of the difficulties of high-level radioactive waste management, but it does not require comprehensive treatment of all of the research that has yet been done on the subject.

The Swedish research efforts are not similar to those of the United States, France, Russia, Canada, or several other countries. This article is not and cannot be about the research efforts by any country or group of countries. Such treatment, if balanced, would require much more lengthy and comprehensive discussion of numerous methods and technologies for waste storage, reprocessing and disposal that have been actively considered around the world. Consider how many hundreds of pages of such research are contained on the Swedish home page of SKB alone. If J-Star or anyone else wishes to write such an article, they are welcome to put forth the effort.

Why are we here? Is it to write an encyclopedia for Wikipedia? Or are we here to obstruct the good faith efforts of other editors? The nationalistic impulse is a strong one, but in the context of this article, it is not constructive. Rather than tearing down the efforts of other editors, it would be more appropriate for some to put forth more positive and constructive efforts of their own.

Hamiltonstone's suggestions for new language are concrete and constructive. Let's see if something can be made of them that will allow this process to move forward. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 13:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC) reply

I'll just take a few words to respond to so many. It's not my subject and I don't want to pretend to expertise by editing this article. Sometimes in the fervor of writing about something one knows well - and in responding to someone else who does not share the same understanding - one comes off as more aggressive and confrontational than one intends or perceives. I'm told I sometimes come off that way myself. NPguy ( talk) 01:56, 4 January 2009 (UTC) reply

National management plans

Finland, the United States and Sweden are the most advanced, is maybe Finland and Sweden are the most advanced since yucca mountain is off, an update in time. Mion ( talk) 05:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC) reply

Removal of debatable material

I have concerns about the following material taken from the beginning of the article, after the introduction:

Hannes Alfvén, Nobel laureate in physics, described the as yet unsolved dilemma of high-level radioactive waste management: "The problem is how to keep radioactive waste in storage until it decays after hundreds of thousands of years. The geologic deposit must be absolutely reliable as the quantities of poison are tremendous. It is very difficult to satisfy these requirements for the simple reason that we have had no practical experience with such a long term project. Moreover permanently guarded storage requires a society with unprecedented stability."[8]
Thus, Alfvén identified two fundamental prerequisites for effective management of high-level radioactive waste: (1) stable geological formations, and (2) stable human institutions over hundreds of thousands of years. As Alfvén suggests, no known human civilization has ever endured for so long, and no geologic formation of adequate size for a permanent radioactive waste repository has yet been discovered that has been stable for so long a period.[8] Nevertheless, avoiding confronting the risks associated with managing radioactive wastes may create countervailing risks of greater magnitude. Radioactive waste management is an example of policy analysis that requires special attention to ethical concerns, examined in the light of uncertainty and futurity: consideration of 'the impacts of practices and technologies on future generations'.[9]

This quotation has gained widespread currency within the anti-nuclear movement for two reasons: 1) it's written by a nobel laureate; and 2) it supports their position regarding the undesirability of nuclear power.

There are two problems with the quotation, however. 1) I don't think the quotation represents the consensus view of scientists and engineers concerned with the disposal of radioactive waste. 2) The quotation takes a viewpoint which is opposed by many scientists concerned with this issue (like Bernard Cohen and others), and their viewpoint is not represented.

There are several specific points in that material which seem to be disputed.

First, the material claims that "no geologic formation" has ever been discovered that is stable for 100,000 years. Whereas I can find many sources (for example, Cohen's book The Nuclear Option, DOE documents, canadian gov't documents) which claim that there are many geological formations which have been extremely stable for millions of years. For example, some text from ref#25 directly contradicts the original claim, as follows: "The deep geological sites provide a natural isolation system that is stable over hundreds of thousands of years to contain long-lived radioactive waste."

Second, the quotation claims that "stable human institutions over hundreds of thousands of years" are required. However, that point is disputed by almost everyone involved in rad waste disposal. The very point of burying rad waste underground in yucca mountain permanently is that it does not require human maintenance. For example, another quotation from ref#25: "Geological media is an entirely passive disposal system with no requirement for continuing human involvement for its safety. It can be abandoned after closure with no need for continuing surveillance or monitoring."

Third, the quotation claims that "The geologic deposit must be absolutely reliable as the quantities of poison are tremendous". That quotation contains two claims: 1) that storage must be absolutely reliable; and 2) that the quantities of poison are tremendous. Both those claims are debatable. With regard to reliability of storage, the DOE documents claim that small leakage of rad waste after hundreds of thousands of years would present a tolerable health problem since nobody would be exposed to radiation in excess conservative EPA limits. This obviously presents a tremendous ethical problem, and we should point that out; however we shouldn't take the opinion of this author as an undisputed fact. With regard to the quantities of poison, it seems debatable that the quantities are tremendous. The sum total of all rad waste from US reactors is 77,000 tons, of which ~94% is U-238 which is almost inert and which is identical to what was found in the ground. Much of the remainder consists of short-lived elements which have decayed already by themselves in spent fuel pools. The remainder includes things like transuranics and long-lived fission products, which together represent about 1,500 tons from all US nuclear reactors over 50 years. That is not a "tremendous" quantity, since it could fit easily in a large closet and is absolutely tiny compared to the amounts of other toxins which industrial society produces.

...The material I indicated is an opinion which violates NPOV and is not the consensus view. It should either be labelled as opinion and qualified with countervailing opinions to maintain NPOV, or it should be removed and replaced with material which is undisputed or largely agreed-upon fact. Even if it remains, it should be given an amount of space proportional to the acceptance of those ideas by experts in the field, so as to avoid undue weight. It does not matter that the author of the quotation is a notable physicist since his area of expertise has nothing to do with the disposal of rad waste. Twerges ( talk) 07:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC) reply


Twerges, could you split this up in multiple sections, so they can be handled one at the time ? and you say, i can find sources, plz provide proper references to support your statement. Thanks Mion ( talk) 09:23, 26 November 2009 (UTC) reply


I'm not sure how I could conveniently split it up into sections, since it all revolves around two paragraphs of material.
With regard to sources. The source I listed (ref #25) refers to reference #25 from the article at present, which is:
Rao, K.R. (December 2001). "Radioactive waste: The problem and its management". Current Science (81): 1534–1546.
That's the source of the quotations I provided regarding stable geological formations and no requirement of human maintenance.
With regard to the issue of "absolute reliability" of the repository. Here is a US EPA document which states on page 2 that:
Compliance will be judged...against a standard of 1 millisievert per year (mSv/yr) (100 mrem/yr) CEDE at times after 10,000 years and up to 1 million years after disposal.
...which contradicts the claim that "absolute reliability" of the geological repository is required. Obviously, this raises tremendous ethical issues which should be pointed out in the article. However, there is definitely not a presumption of absolute reliability over long periods of time, as the original quotation from the article claims. It's assumed by experts that rad waste could be dispersed after hundreds of thousands of years and would supply modest amounts of radiation (100 mrem/yr) to inhabitants of the surrounding area.
With regard to the issue of geologic stability. Here you'll find Cohen's book, the nuclear energy option, chapter 11. It states that:
If all the rocks under the United States more than 1,000 feet deep were to have a newspaper, it couldn't come out more than once in a million years, because there would be no news to report. Rocks at that depth typically last many tens of millions of years without anything eventful occurring.
..which contradicts the claim that there are no stable geological repositories lasting longer than 100,000 years.
With regard to my remarks about the quantity of radioactive materials. From cohen's book, same chapter:
The first (difference) is in the quantities involved: the nuclear waste is 5 million times smaller by weight and billions of times smaller by volume (than coal waste). The nuclear waste from 1 year of operation...would occupy a volume of half a cubic yard, which means that it would fit under an ordinary card table with room to spare. Since the quantity is so small, it can be handled with a care and sophistication that is completely out of the question for (other forms of waste).
...which contradicts the claim from the original quotation that "tremendous quantities" of waste are involved.
The quotations and sources I provided above, are representative of the scientific consensus, to the best of my knowledge. We should represent the scientific consensus in the article and not the opinion of one man. Twerges ( talk) 10:54, 26 November 2009 (UTC) reply

Refactor, don't remove

Agree that there's a problem.

But the quotation from Hannes Alfvén is encyclopedic IMO. The problems are twofold:

  • The phrasing. As is it could be have been taken verbatim from an anti-nuclear pamphlet (and if so it might even be a copyvio if we knew where to look for the original, but let's not go there).
  • The undue weight given to this particular quotation. Other views exist and should be represented.

For example, the phrase the as yet unsolved dilemma is not attributed to Alfvén here, but is part of our article text, so as it stands it's Wikipedia expressing the opinions that the problem is unsolved and a dilemms, in clear violation of NPOV and several other basic Wikpedia principles.

It's blatant enough to be a good example of exactly how not to write an article. In time we might even incorporate it into the MOS as such.

Hang in there! Andrewa ( talk) 14:08, 10 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Andrewa,
My problem is this. That quotation is taken from an op-ed written for a political advocacy magazine decades ago. The quotation was written by someone expressing a political opinion outside his field of expertise. The quotation comes from an op-ed which is factually mistaken on almost every major point. The quotation does not have any counterbalancing viewpoints from other political magazines or op-eds. The quotation is mis-sourced and does not have the correct pages for where the quotation was taken from, leading me to question whether the person who placed the quotation there has even read the source material, or if he is just cutting and pasting a quotation from an anti-nuclear pamphlet (in which this particular quotation circulates widely) and then making up page numbers.
The quotation is in lieu of any actual correct material about the topic. We do not include anything from the thousands of pages of actual research, journals, or textbooks, in the introduction to this article. We do not include any of the basic factual material about radioactive decay. Instead, we include a quotation from a political rant because that quotation circulates widely in political pamphlets from the anti-nuclear movement.
There are serious questions of bias, undue weight, and factual inaccuracy.
There have been many thousands of pages written in magazines about nuclear power, pro and con. None of that is represented in the article, except this one op-ed. The only reason this particular op-ed circulates so widely, is because it was written by a famous scientist and makes factual errors which are amenable to a particular political viewpoint, so adherents of that viewpoint quote it quite often.
This is an article about a scientific topic. As such, there is no room for advocacy of any kind. The only thing in this article should be scientific facts, taken not from magazines, but from journals or textbooks.
I hope I'm not sounding too vehement, but I think that the presence of this material in the article is extremely silly. I can't see any reason to retain it.
Twerges ( talk) 03:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
If one thinks Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is political advocacy, one really hasn't a clue. It's a respected peer-reviewed journal. I have photocopies from my university library.
Did one even notice the cites to Shrader-Frechette and Vandenbosch? I think one mischaracterizes the contributions of this editor to this article, which have been substantial. If one has another view with reliable sources, by all means post it. But please, one must not push ones own POV here while accusing others of same. That is a prohibited practice here, I believe. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 03:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Please read the next paragraph after the ones you deleted, Twerges. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 03:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Mervyn, I disagree with everything you wrote.
If one thinks Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is political advocacy, one really hasn't a clue.
Actually, I do have a clue.
I've actually read prior editions of that magazine. That magazine has always been devoted to political advocacy, which is entirely obvious to anyone who has read it.
You could read the online edition of the bulletin right now. You would find that the bulletin is "an award-winning magazine...we reach policy leaders and audiences around the world... With fellowships for...young journalists, we help educate the next generation." (Taken from the first paragraph of the "purpose" section of that magazine, linked from the homepage).
...Even if the disputed quotation were taken from a peer-reviewed journal (which it's not), there would still be the question of undue weight. We must give each quotation a weight and length appropriate to its significance and its agreement with consensus. We cannot allow a single isolated advocacy piece to be quoted at great length, to be treated as fact, and to dominate the introduction of the article, like at present.
We could resolve this situation by adding other contrary opinions from other political advocacy magazines. But we shouldn't do that; we shouldn't fill the introduction of the article with quotations of opinions taken from magazines.
Did one even notice the cites to Shrader-Frechette and Vandenbosch? I think one mischaracterizes the contributions of this editor to this article, which have been substantial.
I'm glad that editor has contributed other substantial things. Good for him. I hope he continues to make substantial contributions in the future.
But we cannot judge this issue based on his reputation. We must judge this issue based on the quotation itself, on the relevant wikipedia policies, and on commonsense notions like balance.
I did notice your citations, but I ignored them because I don't see the relevance. If you feel those citations are relevant to the discussion at hand, then please point out the relevance.
But please, one must not push ones own POV here while accusing others of same. That is a prohibited practice here, I believe.
That makes no sense. I certainly haven't done any POV-pushing here, because I haven't inserted any claims whatsoever into the article, POV or not. In order to do POV-pusing, I would have to add some claim to the article which supports a POV. Or, I would have to remove some claim in order to unbalance the article and to enhance other claims; however, there are no other claims in the article at present to be enhanced by removing this one. Your argument makes no sense to me. It's like you're accusing me of graffiti, when I alone haven't touched the spray can. You have it exactly backwards. Twerges ( talk) 07:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Hmmmm. I wonder can we focus on a simpler issue? My original assertion is that to call the problem of nuclear waste unsolved or a dilemma is POV. Is anyone seriously questioning this? If so, let's talk about it. If not, let's either remove the terms unsolved and dilemma, or source them to a notable source and make them quotes. Andrewa ( talk) 12:19, 14 December 2009 (UTC) reply
I think, the discussion about the unsolved dilemma is still on Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository#Alternatives, to state that the problem of nuclear waste is solved or to state that there is no dilemma when it comes to long term storage is also POV, (the swedisch statement), to reach NPOV both are included. Mion ( talk) 13:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Agree that to state that the problem of nuclear waste is solved or to state that there is no dilemma when it comes to long term storage is also POV, I was not suggesting that at all.
NPOV does not mean making two inconsistent statements, it means reporting both (assuming both views are notable, as is the case here) but supporting neither.
If this or any other Wikipedia article states that the problem is solved or that there is no dilemma, then that's POV too. Two wrongs don't make a right. Let's fix them both. Andrewa ( talk) 18:00, 14 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Reversion

I have reverted the omission by Twerges, who unfortunately omitted to include the reliable sources in the article in the discussion on this talk page. One would have great difficulty finding a more reliable source on this subject than Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which is peer reviewed by nuclear physicists, including those involved in developing technologies for permanent deep geologic disposal of high level radioactive waste.

Twerges cites sources asserting the longevity of geologic resources exceeding 100,000 years but fails to note that assertions of greater longevity have not been empirically verified. And he ignores the statement that "no geologic formation of adequate size for a permanent radioactive waste repository has yet been discovered that has been stable for so long a period." There well may be small geologic resources that have been stable so long, but not any of sufficient size in which to locate a permanent repository. Twerges also ignores the published scholarship cited in the article of Shrader-Frechette on precisely this issue.

He also ignores the fact that U.S. federal funding for the Yucca Moutain repository was recently terminated precisely because new data indicates the site has not been geologically stable for the requisite period of time.

Moreover, Twerges exceeds himself when he purports to speak in behalf of "the consensus view of scientists and engineers concerned with the disposal of radioactive waste" because there is no consensus at this time, as I think is evident. There is ferment, over what to do with the substantial quantities of waste already produced, and which is continuing to be produced in the absence of any viable technology to manage it in perpetuity. Expressing his opinion about this ("I think...") is just POV pushing. And attempting to minimize the magnitude of the difficulty by suggesting that the existing waste could be stored in a "large closet" is just silly and insulting to the intelligence of our readers and other editors.

If Twerges wishes to add another viewpoint to the article on matters of controversy I have no objection, but deleting this entire important discussion is improper, verging on censorship. But as one who has actually worked and published in this area, I would hope a more moderate approach to editing the article would be taken. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 03:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply

In future, I request that Twerges please refrain from deleting or reverting my edits until I have had at least a couple of minutes to compose and post a discussion on this talk page. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 03:39, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Mervyn, your post was wrong on every point, IMO.
One would have great difficulty finding a more reliable source on this subject than Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which is peer reviewed by nuclear physicists, including those involved in developing technologies for permanent deep geologic disposal of high level radioactive waste.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists may sound like a journal, however it is a political advocacy magazine, with op-ed pieces that are not peer-reviewed. That publication is the source of the famous "doomsday clock," in protest of cold war policies. I doubt very much that the "doomsday clock" is peer-reviewed.
Here is the first sentence from the wikipedia article about that magazine: "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nontechnical online magazine that covers ... issues ... related to the dangers posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction."
Furthermore, the particular edition of that magazine, from which that quotation was taken, consisted entirely of opinion pieces regarding environmentalism.
And attempting to minimize the magnitude of the difficulty by suggesting that the existing waste could be stored in a "large closet" is just silly and insulting to the intelligence of our readers and other editors.
You are wildly misquoting and misrepresenting what I wrote. You pulled those two words ("large closet") utterly out of context and ignored completely the rest of the sentence, and also ignored what that sentence was referring to.
That quotation ("large closet") was not about the general difficulties of rad waste disposal. That remark was made in the context of a discussion about the volume of rad waste. That remark was relevant to the claim (from the article) that "the quantities of poison are tremendous." That is what those two words ("large closet") were referring to, which was quite obvious from the context.
He also ignores the fact that U.S. federal funding for the Yucca Moutain repository was recently terminated precisely because new data indicates the site has not been geologically stable for the requisite period of time.
That is a red herring, and has no relevance to this discussion. Even if Yucca Mountain is a bad idea, that doesn't support anything within the disputed quotation or indicate that we should include that quotation.
Moreover, Yerges exceeds himself when he purports to speak in behalf of "the consensus view of scientists and engineers concerned with the disposal of radioactive waste" because there is no consensus at this time, as I think is evident.
Again, you are pulling words completely out of context. You are not even quoting full sentences here but are picking out individual words and phrase fragments.
I was referring to the consensus of experts regarding basic facts like the quantity of waste produced, and so on. There is absolutely a consensus about that, and other things. That consensus should be represented in the article, and not claims like "tremendous quantities of poison" and so on.
Even if there were no consensus about some point, we still shouldn't present an opinion piece from one man as if it were a fact. If there is no consensus about some point, then we should indicate that there is no consensus and present a range of views from experts, each weighted according to its acceptance. Almost no weight should be granted to individual isolated opinion pieces.
Expressing his opinion about this ("I think...") is just POV pushing.
Again, you are picking out individual words and fragements of phrases, out of context. This time, you have picked two words and separated them from the rest of my sentence.
When I said "I think," I was referring to discussion. I wrote those words on the discussion page. I was not adding what I think, or even suggesting we add what I think, to the article text itself. Therefore, I am not POV-pushing.
On the other hand, this article was POV-pushing already, to an absurd and hilarious extent, long before I arrived. It's a POV piece. The entire first section of the article revolves around a single isolated quotation which obviously was carefully selected for its POV.
The disputed quotation is familiar to me. I have read that exact quotation, over and over again, in various forums, for example, in many environmentalist pamphlets and websites. That quotation is a mainstay of anti-nuclear political pamphlets.
Since the quotation was originally fairly obscure, it's absolutely obvious that someone carefully trawled through decades of opinion pieces in old magazines to find that quotation. Then, the same quotation was copied to the wikipedia article, and presented as fact. I can't even imagine a more absurd example of POV-pushing.
I wish to avoid any undue weight being given to isolated quotations, whether those quotations were written by scientists or not. How much weight should be accorded to an isolated political opinion expressed decades ago by one man? Zero. I know he is a scientist, but unless he's Einstein and this is an article about relativity, his opinions do not warrant such extensive treatment in the encyclopedia.
If Twerges wishes to add another viewpoint to the article on matters of controversy I have no objection, but deleting this entire important discussion is improper, verging on censorship.
I did not delete an entire important discussion. I deleted a single long quotation, and some text about that quotation.
The quotation was somebody's opinion. It's not censorship to remove somebody's opinion from the encyclopedia.
I do not wish to add another viewpoint to the article. I wish to remove viewpoints from the article, which are present in the article already. There is far too much viewpoint in the article already.
The article is not a forum for viewpoints or political quotations. Twerges ( talk) 05:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
I was the one who asked mervynn to have a look at this discussion as i'm not an expert on this, ( and he made a substantial contribution to this article) but i do have some questions. The inclusion of Yuca is questioned, why is that ? its one of the approaches in management, that it wasn't succesfull is less relevant, but i see no reason to remove such information from the article.
Secondly if sources are disputed, best is to make a request on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard to discuss the matter to get a second opinion, as long as the discussion goes, the section stays. Cheers Mion ( talk) 09:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Hello Mion.
We should definitely include information about Yucca Mountain in the article. I don't dispute that, and haven't removed information about Yucca. What I was disputing, however, was whether the termination of the Yucca repository somehow justifies or supports the disputed quotation. IMO, Yucca is not relevant to that discussion.
With regard to RS source disputes. I would have solicited outside opinion if I had thought this issue would be so disputed. However, I encountered no great dispute when I initially posted this issue to discussion. I left it for several weeks, without any significant argument, before performing my edit.
I prefer to try to resolve things with editors of an article before soliciting outside opinion. If we cannot reach any agreement, then I can post to a noticeboard at that time. Twerges ( talk) 12:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Mion, I have since read through the discussion history of this article. I see now that the discussion has focused almost entirely on this particular issue. Apparently, this issue is a contentious one. Apparently, other editors have repeatedly objected to exactly what I'm objecting to, and for similar reasons.
Perhaps it would be best to involve a few more people on this. Twerges ( talk) 12:55, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Yes, input from more people would help here, maybe the inclusion of additional views on the subject might help as well, as the original source of the statement (as i understand it) is a good start, progress in time should be added as well to the article. Mion ( talk) 13:14, 13 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Please allow me to point out that this article was approved in an extensive good article review involving MANY editors not so long ago, and the disputed quote was in the article at that time.
Yes, it is POV pushing to delete two full paragraphs quoting someone an editor does not agree with from a good article. Sweeping the problem under the rug will not make it go away.
And it is certainly curious that Twerges is so reluctant to post the Bulletin to the reliable sources board, as I have just done. Every nuclear physicist at my university reads it, despite whether they agree with the contents of a particular article or not. It functions as a conscience for nuclear physicists in the world, including those in the arms control policy making and radwaste disposal making communities.
The quote at issue was chosen not because it is pro-nuclear power or anti-nuclear power, but because it encapuslates the major ethical and technical dillemmas inherent in permanent geologic high-level radioactive waste disposal. A considerable amount of the discussion historically of technologies for such disposal has centered on attempt to engineer technical solutions to mitigate the ethical dimensions of burying such deadly materials in a location, knowledge of which may be lost over time such that a future civilization might stumble upon it and do itself considerable harm. It is a fact that no technology currently exists that will guarantee this will not happen. A FACT.
It is also a fact that government design standards for such facilities as Yucca Mountain were promulgated with the full knowledge that they do NOT deal adequately with either the technical or ethical dimensions of this dillemma. And it IS an unresolved dilemma, as anyone not involved in promoting nuclear power will tell you.
Until now, the article has attempted to reveal the dimensions of that important dilemma, rather than conceal them. Deleting those two paragraphs concealed them, apparently intentionally. That act did not improve the article, but degraded it.
Yucca Mountain is directly relvant to this discussion. It is the single repository under construction in the United States designed for permanent deep geologic high level radioactive waste disposal. It is the BEST the US has been able to come up with to resolve this major problem, and it has failed miserably to meet its own design criteria, criteria that were a poor attempt to deal with the ethical and technical issues raised by Alfven.
It is also apparent that as far as Twerges is concerned, he is right and everyone else is wrong, regardless of substantial thought and effort by previous editors in a good article review. When one admits one has no desire to improve an article by adding relevant material to it, but prefers only to delete relevant material with which one disagrees, THAT is an admission of POV pushing, in my estimation. Even his characterization of the edit history of the article is biased. Twerges is editing in an area outside his expertise, trying to conform it to his own narrow POV. If allowed to continue, that will surely push Wikipedia towards the lowest common denominator. I, for one, will have no interest in editing in such a forum. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 19:19, 14 December 2009 (UTC) reply

(out-denting)

Mervyn,

I have objected to a particular quotation, on the grounds of accuracy, verifiability, reliability, and undue weight.

Your responses to my objection have been totally irrelevant. Your responses have been about Yucca mountain; about whether Yucca mountain was promulgated with knowledge of its inadequacy; about unsolved ethical dilemmas of nuclear waste disposal; about the absence of any guarantees that rad waste will be permanently sequestered; about the Bulletin and how often your colleagues read it (but not whether it's peer-reviewed, or whether the claims from it are accurate); about my agenda; about what I'm trying to accomplish; about my field of expertise; about your intelligence and which things are insulting to your intelligence; about whether you will leave wikipedia if you don't prevail; and so on. Your responses simply do not address my concerns, in any way. You have not responded to any of my concerns.

The material in question is not acceptable, for several reasons. That material includes grave factual errors about basic matters, such as the quantity of rad waste produced; it includes highly disputed opinions of one man, and presents them as fact; it presents opinions without any counterbalancing opinions, in violation of NPOV; it is taken from a source which is not sufficiently scholarly; and it dominates the introduction of this article at present, and is given a weight totally out of proportion to its acceptance within the field.

As an example, the quotation in question claims that "tremendous quantities of poison" are present in rad waste. However, that claim is false, as a simple factual matter. That claim is contradicted by simple calculations which almost anyone with basic knowledge of this matter can perform using widely-published figures. The claim is also contradicted outright by every single scholarly source I've read on this issue. In fact, that claim is contradicted outright by the very first source I checked on this issue, which I happen to have on-hand:

The volume of waste produced by the nuclear industry is very small compared to other wastes.
(Deep geological disposal of radioactive waste; W.R. Alexander, Linda McKinley; pp 30)

The disputed claim is also contradicted outright, by other sources I've provided on this forum, which show that nuclear sources produce wastes which are a billion times smaller, by volume, than other sources of electricity generation.

I am not claiming that nuclear waste is benign or a minor issue. We should point out the difficulty of the problem. We should point out the long-lived nature of that waste, and the threat it poses to future generations. I'm only disputing text which contains an incorrect characterization, from an opinion piece, and treats it as fact, and uses it as the basis for the introduction to this topic.

The disputed text also includes a second questionable claim. That second claim is: that human institutions must be stable for hundreds of thousands of years as a "pre-requisite" for effecitve rad waste disposal. That claim is heavily disputed by other sources. That claim is not at all consistent with scholarly sources which clearly state that stable human institutions are not assumed.

This issue is not affected by Yucca mountain or the wisdom of it. Even if Yucca mountain were a horrible idea, that still doesn't make the disputed claim any more accurate. Even if Yucca mountain were bad, that still doesn't justify placing incorrect and unbalanced material in the article. We cannot include incorrect claims, or treat opinion as fact, just because they have the same general thrust as your other arguments about yucca mountain, or because they supports a more general negative view of rad waste production, right or wrong.

You have also commented about me as an editor, quite often. You've made claims about my intent, about my agenda, about my expertise, and so on. You've produced entire paragraphs about what I'm trying to accomplish in the longer term, and what the eventual consequences would be. You've even claimed that I admit that I wish to contribute nothing to this article. I'm not sure where you get those notions from, or how you generate them. Regardless, they don't belong here. You must stop making petulant and inappropriate remarks. You spend far too much time commenting about the other editors, and far too little time commenting about the issue at hand.

Also, I suggest you drop any threats that you'll leave wikipedia if you don't prevail. I won't be affected by such threats, and I strongly suspect the other editors won't be affected either.

Since this discussion appears to be going absolutely nowhere, I will solicit outside opinion. Twerges ( talk) 20:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC) reply

My thanks to Twerges for providing so much supporting evidence for everything I said above. I guess he has proved my points for me.
However, if one would actually take the time to read the article, one would discover (1) the quote at issue is NOT in the lead paragraph but in the paragraph that follows the lead, and (2) the paragraphs one deleted previously contain factual statements supported by reliable sources, saying only that Alfven did state something in writing. Nowhere is there any assertion that what Alfven said is true. Nowhere. Anyone is free to disagree, provided they do so in a rational, constructive manner that actually improves the dialogue and therefore the article.
If any editor wishes to assert a different view, with reliable sources, about what somebody else said on the same subject, nobody is prevented from doing so. So why all this fuss and blather? The statements are factually accurate as written. Isn't that what Wikipedia is about? If one can make it better, by all means do so. But destroying something is not usually considered making it better.
Marshalling ones friends to attack an article or another editor seems unlikely to accomplish much. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 01:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC) reply

First of all, I want to openly state my position on nuclear power generation: I completely oppose it. But I completely support seeing -facts- from both sides brought into the question. Now, that aside, Alfven's position fairly represents several of the problems with high-level nuclear wastes. But there's no need to argue that: have a look at this page [1] of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It states "High-level wastes are hazardous to humans and other life forms because of their high radiation levels that are capable of producing fatal doses during short periods of direct exposure." Clearly supporting what Alfven meant by "tremendous poison". A very small dose of PU-239 inhaled into the lungs can produce a fatal cancer. Furthermore, a half-life of 24,000 years means that in that time, 20 tons of PU-239 becomes 10 tons of PU-239 that is still just as dangerous. As the NRC states, "Since the only way radioactive wastes finally become harmless is through decay, which for some isotopes contained in high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years." I don't think the NRC can be considered biased on the question.

The question isn't whether BOTAS is political (it is) but whether the Alfven quote is out of line with the problem as it's understood today. I believe that it is still accurate, but that can be verified or disputed by consulting any of a -very- long list of reputable sources on this topic ... on which thousands of books have been published since the 1950s. It's a big job, but it's well worth tackling ... rather than haggling over one quote. Twang ( talk) 19:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Addendum: Anyone who doesn't think that disposal of high-level wastes is a serious problem needs to read the history of the Hanford Site. Tens of billions of dollars have been poured into that project ... and the cloud of tritium in the groundwater is still headed for the Columbia River. New Scientist, 2008: Contaminated US site faces 'catastrophic' nuclear leak. Yes that site is unique and 60 years old ... but it went bad in a few decades ... not "hundreds of thousands of years". * Hanford.gov paper * French paper from 1989 Twang ( talk) 20:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Twang,
Now, that aside, Alfven's position fairly represents several of the problems with high-level nuclear wastes. But there's no need to argue that: have a look at this page [2] of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It states "High-level wastes are hazardous to humans and other life forms because of their high radiation levels that are capable of producing fatal doses during short periods of direct exposure."
The link you provided doesn't support any of Alfven's claims in any way. That link does not mention any of the topics raised in Alfven's claims.
Alfven's claims involve the following: the amount of rad waste, the necessity of stable human institutions for hundreds of thousands of years, and the total lack of geologically stable deposits for long time periods. None of those claims are addressed in the NRC document.
If you wish to defend Alfven's position, then it's not enough to find some source which supports the same "general thrust," or which generally states that rad waste can be dangerous. You must find a scholarly consensus that supports Alfven's specific claims.
Alfven's claims do not "fairly represent" problems with HLW. One of those claims was inaccurate. In fact, Alfven wasn't even trying to fairly represent the problems; he was representing one side of a debate in a magazine.
Clearly supporting what Alfven meant by "tremendous poison".
You've changed the quotation from Alfven. Alfven said "tremendous quantities of poison (my emphasis)" which is a statement about the amount.
The source you provided does not support that claim.
The amount of HLW produced by nuclear processes is not a disputed topic. It can be calculated with a fairly high degree of precision. It is agreed upon by all or almost all scholarly sources on this topic. I have provided scholarly sources and quotations from them. Those scholarly sources contradict what Alfven said.
A very small dose of PU-239 inhaled into the lungs can produce a fatal cancer. Furthermore, a half-life of 24,000 years means that in that time, 20 tons of PU-239 becomes 10 tons of PU-239 that is still just as dangerous.
Indeed, much research has focused on the inhalation hazards of plutonium. Here you'll find something from the Argonne Nat'l Lab which claims that inhalation of 5,000 particles of plutonium (3 microns each) will raise cancer risk by 1%. Since that volume of plutonium is very small, it's clear that plutonium is a severe inhalation hazard.
Much of the research surrounding inhaled plutonium was conducted during the 1950s and 60s, because of the threat of nuclear war. During a nuclear war, much plutonium would be incinerated and aerosolized, then would drop to the ground where it could be easily re-suspended. Since plutonium has a long half-life, it would remain on the ground to be re-suspended for awhile, which would negate the value of fallout shelters etc.
Also, about 10,000kg of plutonium was released into the atmosphere as tiny particles after above-ground nuclear weapons testing in Nevada. At that time, people were unclear on the precise health ramifications of plutonium inhalation.
The question isn't whether BOTAS is political (it is) but whether the Alfven quote is out of line with the problem as it's understood today. I believe that it is still accurate
Alfven's quote is wrong and is solidly contradicted by a consensus of experts.
As a result, we cannot represent that quotation as true, nor give it a dominating position within the article. Nor can we reproduce that quotation while completely ignoring the other side of the debate in the magazine from which it was taken. Twerges ( talk) 11:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC) reply
One keeps referring to some supposed "consensus of experts" but one fails to produce references to reliable sources to back up such claims. Moreover, repeatedly picking apart statements by other editors begins to look much like mere quarrelsome Wikilawyering at times. It does not contribute anything to improving an article.
Concerning the poisonous nature of plutonium, as mentioned by Alfven, one might note the statement by a nuclear engineer to the effect that “Plutonium is especially poisonous...” U.S. President. 1977. Nuclear power policy. 13 Presidential Documents 503. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Federal Register. national Archives and Records Service, 1977-. Jimmy Carter. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 02:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC) reply
One would do well to remember that we are not discussing "science" per se in this article, but we are discussing management policy concerning high level radioactive waste. That is, the controversy is not about scientific facts on their own, but about how they may affect management choices. Management is not the province of only scientists, but of managers and administrators--and ordinary human beings--who must take other values into consideration in addition to scientific facts. Look at the title of the article. Let's not pretend this is purely a scientific discussion about nuclear physics.
POV pushing is POV pushing, whether is it occurs on a talk page or in an article. The only difference is that Wikipedia allows POV pushing on talk pages, within limits, but not in articles.
That high level radioactive waste disposal is an "unsolved dilemma" is a FACT, not an opinion. Were is it solved, there would be one set of standards for radioactive releases from disposal facilities and one agreed technology used to accomplish disposal. But as the article makes clear, there are several technologies being tried in different countries, all of which are no more than grand experiments to see if something that has never been done before can be done successfully. And, as the article says, there are differing standards among countries for radioactive releases and therefore for repository designs. Were the matter resolved, this would not be the case.
And it IS a dilemma precisely because the stakes are so high, in terms of human health and safety in the short term, and especially in the long term. One should ask oneself: WHY was funding for Yucca Mountain terminated in the next federal budget? Probably it has more to do with management policy than science, methinks. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 17:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Suggestion

Mervyn claimed the following:

(the disputed section says) only that Alfven did state something in writing. Nowhere is there any assertion that what Alfven said is true. Nowhere.

It seems that we have at least narrowed down the debate to this: the disputed material is repeating an opinion, which was said during a debate, and which is not necessarily supported by scholarly consensus.

In which case, I propose we do the following. We can move the disputed material to a new section called "Controversy" and counterbalance it with some claims from the other side, from (say) Bernard Cohen's book.

In the "challenges" section, we can add some material which explains some additional basic facts about this topic. For example, we can add material which explains how much waste is produced, how much of it is taken up by various radioisotopes, how long the various radioisotopes will remain radioactive, and why that is troublesome. We will add only things to that section which are undisputed facts supported by scholarly consensus.

Does that sound OK? Twerges ( talk) 11:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC) reply

This proposal would remove the basis for the discussion that follows it, leaving it hanging. The fact is, whether you say it in different words or not, the great difficulty with "disposal" of high level radioactive waste is that it remains lethal for such long periods of time, and that there is as yet no technically adequate way to isolate it from the human environment for such long periods--longer than any human civilization we know of has ever existed. One may not care for the way Alfven said it, but what he said is true, else why would so many countries spend so much time and money trying to find an acceptable way to deal with high level radioactive waste?
Twerges proposes to bury the quote (what IS this obsessive animosity towards Alfven?) rather than the more simple expedient of simply finding somebody else who disagrees with Alfven and placing their quote side by side. I have no objection to including in the article views that differ from Alfven's, provided they come from reliable sources. It requires editing, rather than arguing or deleting, and might improve the article by highlighting the discussion. In fact, doing so would fit with the paragraph that follows the Alfven quote. So why not do that instead? Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 16:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Please assume good faith and refrain from personal attacks. Andrewa ( talk) 09:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Really? Does this apply to Twerges too? Why has it taken one so long to say it, if it really does? Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 01:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC) reply
It applies to everyone, and it's a key policy. Agree that you've both been guilty of beaking it. Two wrongs do not make a right. Andrewa ( talk) 03:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC) reply

I've printed off the 12 pages of the article and 19 pages of talk and annotated them. Where to start...

Most of the talk page seems to be a debate of the issues. This is always a temptation, but it's not what talk pages are for. We know, and should accept, that there are several viewpoints. We're not going to change each others' here, and even if we could, this is not the place for it.

There are many issues with the article... for a start...

  • The structure gives undue weight to the problems and challenges, and to geological disposal. IMO the main body sections of this article should be (in order, and not including the lead section):
    • Sources of high-level waste
    • Methods of disposal
    • National management plans (including lists of proposed and existing facilities, with links to detailed articles)
    • Controversies

Interested in other sructural proposals. Andrewa ( talk) 09:36, 19 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Andrewa,
Your proposed organization seems reasonable to me.
I see your point that the talk page has become a debate of the issues. Of course, it's not necessary to resolve on the talk page who is right about rad waste. Twerges ( talk) 14:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Wikipedia already has an article very similar to the one you describe above, called "Radioactive Waste." Most of what appears in this article on "High Level Radioactive Waste Managment" was originally part of THAT article and was moved to create THIS article because the other one got too long. Please see the first entry on this talk page above.
I guess I'm done here. If you want to destroy a good article because of POV pushed by one editor, its on you. Case in point: the book by Bernard Cohen repeatedly advocated by an editor here as "unbiased" is an unabashedly pro-nuclear promotional tract, the full title of which is: The Nuclear Energy Option: An Alternative for the 90s. It includes several chapters from an earlier book by the same author entitled: Before It's Too Late: A Scientists Case for Nuclear Energy. Hardly unbiased. And I hope one will take a good look at what was said by other editors during the good article review before one imposes one's own preferences on this article.
Rest assured, I will not waste my time refining a rough article and seeing it through good article review again if this is the way the "community" of Wikepedia rewards such efforts.
Yeah, I know anybody can edit anything. Yet the assumption underlying that principle is that the end product will be better, not just conforming to the preferences of one. Go ahead. Knock yourself out. And know that there will be one less "expert" editor working on Wikepedia in the future. Good editing to you. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 01:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC) Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 01:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Mervyn,
Don't get so upset about this. It's just a debate about content.
Case in point: the book by Bernard Cohen repeatedly advocated by an editor here as "unbiased" is an unabashedly pro-nuclear promotional tract, the full title of which is: "The Nuclear Energy Option: An Alternative for the 90s."
I haven't claimed that Cohen's book is "unbiased". Quite the opposite, I claimed that it represents one side of a debate, just as Alfven's piece represents the other side. I claimed that we should represent both sides of the debate here, rather than just one side.
Alfven's article was also a one-sided opinion piece. Alfven's article was taken from a debate in a magazine in which he represented one side.
I guess I'm done here. If you want to destroy a good article because of POV pushed by one editor, its on you... Rest assured, I will not waste my time refining a rough article and seeing it through good article review again if this is the way the "community" of Wikepedia rewards such efforts....Yeah, I know anybody can edit anything. Yet the assumption underlying that principle is that the end produce will be better, not just conforming to the preferences on one. Go ahead. Knock yourself out. And know that there will be one less "expert" editor working on Wikepedia in the future. Good editing to you.'
Mervyn, I have objected to 2 paragraphs out of a 10-page article. Even then, I relented on that issue, and consented to moving the 2 paragraphs and counterbalancing them. Altogether, I have proposed a modest change to the article.
I didn't do it suddenly. I proposed this minor change in discussion weeks beforehand without any comment.
In response, you have threatened to leave, made intemperate remarks, etc.
You might be overreacting.
not just conforming to the preferences on one.
Before I made any change to the article, I solicited comments and consensus. In fact, I solicited comments weeks before I made any change. When nobody responded, I went ahead and made my change, because there was no objection.
not just conforming to the preferences on one.
There are 3 people here. We are generating a consensus. We won't just conform to the preferences of one. If anything, we should have more than 3. Twerges ( talk) 14:15, 21 December 2009 (UTC) reply
PS: According to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists IS a reliable source. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 01:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC) reply
WP:GA is not the end of the road. There are issues with this article, as with every other successful GA nomination, that's why we have the GA process rather than just WP:FA. I would welcome your participation in fixing them.
Bernard Cohen (physicist) is certainly no less opiniated in the matter of high-level waste disposal than Alfven, but on the other hand he's in his field of expertise. Both are widely quoted and respected. I would have thought that we should report both sets of views, surely? Andrewa ( talk) 03:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Actually, there are at least five people here, unless you wish to disenfranchise Twang and Mion. I haven't seen anything remotely resembling a consensus yet. Clearly I have supported including both views here, but have not as yet seen a reasonable proposal to actually accomplish that. That is, we haven't seen any actual proposed edits, just general proposals to reorganize the article to change its content. As to the comment above, are you saying that Alfven is not a physicist? Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 02:12, 23 December 2009 (UTC) reply
No, any more than I'm saying he's not a scientist. Andrewa ( talk) 15:40, 25 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Related articles

There are at least three related articles:

They are three distinct topics, and there's plenty of material for all three, with reasonable and not excessive overlap. But probably all can be improved as they stand, and in particular the interlinking and scoping of each currently leaves a lot to be desired IMO. Andrewa ( talk) 03:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC) reply

Agreed, although High level waste is dubious as Dioxins and especially Botox are far more toxic than a lot of fission products. Boundarylayer ( talk) 15:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Citation 34

The Nature article, 'Ordered porous materials for emerging applications', cited in the line:

"..Also, nanostructured materials have lower temperature processing and can be later altered to make more durable waste forms." [34]

Makes only passing reference to the lower temperature requirements, and is not related to HLW disposal at all.

This section could perhaps be improved with more information on nanostructure materials for HLW disposal, or at least a citation for the statement 'can be later altered to make more durable waste forms'.

The rest of it is great though!

Please sign your edits. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:54, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Lede is incorrect and utterly backwards

Again more incorrect statements are being made in respect to nuclear issues on wikipedia.

(1) Where does it state in the reference in the lede that Iodine-129 is regarded as High level rad waste?

It doesn't.

Actually, it does. The publication is authored by nuclear physicists employed at the Idaho National Laboratory, one of the US governmental units responsible for creation of nuclear weapons, and a current repository of considerable amounts of high-level radioactive waste, as well as a couple of historically significant nuclear reactors. If you are going to question the content of references, at least you might read them first, to avoid embarrassment. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Many of the isotopes mentioned in the lede are not defined as 'high level radioactive waste'. For example Iodine-129 is not regarded as high level radioactive waste. Neither are any isotopes with half lives greater than ~10,000 years.

It is not only the element, but also the quantity (or more precisely, concentration) of the element that determines whether it is classified as "high-level radioactive" waste. Please do not misconstrue information from other sources. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply

It is the isotopes with short half lifes that are the most dangerous/ are regarded as 'High Level'/emit the most radiation. see Cesium-137 and High level waste.

http://www.cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit138/nit138articles/waste.html - Quote- isotopes with long half-lives such as Iodine 129) are classified as "low-level radioactive waste".

Similarly see here for a definition of 'High level radioactive waste' - www.sepa.org.uk/radioactive_substances/publications/idoc.ashx Fundamentals of the management of radioactive waste.

& the definition on http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/01/14151345/3

High Level Waste ( HLW) is radioactive waste where the temperature may rise significantly as a result of their radioactivity, so that this factor has to be taken into account in designing storage or disposal facilities. Therefore the whole lede is wrong.

No, the whole lead is correct, and was vetted by several nuclear physicists during the "Good article" process it went through a few years ago. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Furthermore this should be included - it takes from 600 to 5000 years – which is no time at all in geological terms - for the radioactivity of spent fuel/waste to be no more radioactive than the natural uranium ore from which the spent fuel was initially obtained. [1] The relative toxicity of nuclear waste after reprocessing is comparable to barium ore after 600-1000 years. [2] Similarly, the Nuclear Engineers; Benedict, Pigford and Levi have also indicated that enriched fuel from light water reactors, subjected to a typical burnup regime will be no more radioactive than the ore from which it was mined, after a period of six hundred years. [3]

Boundarylayer ( talk) 15:45, 6 September 2012 (UTC) reply

The material above is inappropriate for the lead of an article under WP:Lead. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply
Feel free to correct the article, but please includie references to to sources that support your statements. -- Teemu Leisti ( talk) 07:37, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes, and please quote correctly, not selectively, from the references you provide. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply
I'll refrain from doing so, as it will require a complete rewrite, I would prefer a collaboration on the issue. A better, although not perfect, article on the subject is Radioactive waste
Please note that this article is about the management of high-level radioactive waste, not so much about the nature of high-level radioactive waste, which is covered adequately in other WP articles. Comments here seem to equate all the WP articles, which are related, but NOT equivalent. In fact, this article was extracted from the other article on radioactive waste years ago precisely because the other article was getting too long, and this appeared to be a large subtopic of the other. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply
Similarly a quote from that wiki article, supported by the above reference( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/01/14151345/3 )
is -
High Level waste is highly radioactive and often thermally hot..
Please note the quote above says high level radioactive waste is "often thermally hot." It does not say always thermally hot, or how hot. Please do not misconstrue the quote, or overstate its meaning or significance. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply
Presently this High-level radioactive waste management article is a joke and completely backwards as it suggests that long lived isotopes are 'High-level' when they're in fact low level. A real example of High level waste would be Plutonium-238 which is hot to the touch and has a short half life of ~80 years.
A single particle of Plutonium-238 one micron in diameter does not emit perceptible heat, yet if inhaled, has a 100% chance of causing lung cancer in the recipient. Thus, it is toxic as well as radioactive. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply
Like I've pointed out, presently this article suggests Iodine-129 is 'high level' when it's actually classified as low level - http://www.cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit138/nit138articles/waste.html -
Quote- isotopes with long half-lives such as Iodine 129, are classified as "low-level radioactive waste".
Boundarylayer ( talk) 20:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Seen as no one here has acknowledged the lede is completely backwards, or volunteered to work with me to fix the most glaring issues, I will edit the article at a latter date.
A Definition for high-level waste- HLW contains about three percent of the used fuel in the form of fission products and minor actinides (Np, Am, Cm). It is highly radioactive and continues to generate a lot of heat.
Caesium (Cs-135) and strontium (Sr-90) (again, both low half life isotopes) removal significantly reduces the heat load of residual conditioned wastes.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Reprocessing_of_nuclear_fuel?topic=49497
Again, notice that there is no mention of the relatively benign Iodine-129 as HLW, contrary to what is said to be HLW in the lede of this article.
The link also includes further information pertinent to the title of this article, such as the plethora of reprocessing methods including DUPIC(Direct Use of Spent Pressurized Water Reactor Fuel in Candu reactors.) which is proliferation proof and reduces PWR waste by 70%.
Presently, DUPIC trials are underway in reactors in China - http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ENF-Chinese_reactor_trials_Candu_fuel_reuse-2403101.html
http://www.cleanbreak.ca/tag/dupic/
With further technical information on both the nature of HLW and of DUPIC in the this final link. - See fig 5 of activity rates, but in general this doc is a Korean analysis of the reduction of spent fuel by 20 to 50% with the use of DUPIC- http://www.nuce-aesj.org/publishing/journal/vol4/Jnuce-Vol4-1-p19-27.pdf
Boundarylayer ( talk) 18:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Please abide by WP policies when editing this article, so you do not repeat some of the editing difficulties you have encountered which are evident on your user Talk page yet again. Mervyn Emrys ( talk) 05:51, 1 November 2013 (UTC) reply

This is an example of yet another article written by someone with extreme anti-nuclear views and limited basic scientific knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graemem56 ( talk • contribs) 04:34, 4 February 2015 (UTC) reply

I have just begun to edit this, it's quite a long task. I have removed the paragraph "==Challenges with radioactive waste management== Hannes Alfvén, Nobel laureate in physics, described the as yet unsolved dilemma of high-level radioactive waste management: "The problem is how to keep radioactive waste in storage until it decays after hundreds of thousands of years. The geologic deposit must be absolutely reliable as the quantities of poison are tremendous. It is very difficult to satisfy these requirements for the simple reason that we have had no practical experience with such a long term project. Moreover permanently guarded storage requires a society with unprecedented stability." [4]". The journal of Atomic scientists is here [5] and Alfven didn't say anything in October 1979.

We haven't really got this article into a very good shape. I'm the only one who's done a big edit recently. I seem to have gone a bit overboard with the 129I 131I comparison. The interesting thing is just how little radioactivity the long-lived nuclides emit. This is copied from another website. A reality check on nuclear waste.

The worldwide nuclear waste is maybe 350000 tonnes. 95% is uranium, plutonium and other actinides which can and should be recycled for energy.

Thus there is 17500 tonnes of fission waste. Using figures from

http://ie.lbl.gov/fission/235ut.txt

I calculate that those isotopes requiring geological storage 79Se, 93Zr, 99Tc, 126Sn, 129I & 134Cs to be about 8%. 1400 tonnes. Based on 1 million year half-life, I calculate total radioactivity to be 14 billion Bq/mol ~ 130 billion Bq/kg = 180 quadrillion Bq total. This is all the world's nuclear waste generated at this time.

The natural radioactivity in the Earth's crust within SA is 600 trillion Bq/km3.

physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm

Based on an average 40km depth, SA's share of the Earth's crust contains 24 hexillion Bq.

If all of the 79Se, 93Zr, 99Tc, 126Sn, 129I & 134Cs were seperated out and buried in SA, it would increase the total radioactivity by 7.5 parts per million.

Assuming the quantity above represents 50 years of waste, it would take 83000 years to get to 1%.

Is there any conceivable reason why this would be unsafe? Graemem56 ( talk) 12:14, 23 February 2015 (UTC) reply

References

  1. ^ www.efn.org.au/NucWaste-Comby.pdf international Journal of Environmental Studies, The Solutions for Nuclear waste, December 2005
  2. ^ http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionE.htm
  3. ^ Manson Benedict, Thomas H. Pigford, Hans Levi "Nuclear Chemical Engineering" McGraw-Hill, Toronto, 1981. ISBN  0-07-004531-3 show data (Figure 11.2)
  4. ^ Abbotts, John (October 1979). "Radioactive waste: A technical solution?". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: 12–18.
  5. ^ http://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/toc/bullatsci.html

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Japan

Fukushima

But why are people concerned about the need to spend billions on the safe long-term storage, when - as widely reported in the media - Fukushima nuclear site management are happy to dump 'low-level' waste straight into the sea? Given this, is the Japan section going to be updated to reflect this relaxed attitude towards the concerns of fishermen and nearby nations?

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