Talk:Nuclear power

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Nuclear power article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives (index): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18Auto-archiving period: 2 months

	Nuclear power has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology 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 Date Process Result June 27, 2008 Good article nominee Not listed September 8, 2018 Peer review Reviewed April 21, 2021 Good article nominee Listed
Current status: Good article

This  level-3 vital article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Energy Top‑importance Energy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Energy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Environment High‑importance Environment portal This environment-related article is part of the WikiProject Environment to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on environment-related topics, as well as to ensure that environment articles are properly categorized. Read Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ and leave any messages at the project talk page. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Physics High‑importance Physics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Science Policy High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Science Policy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Science policy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Technology Technology portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Technology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.

This article has been mentioned by a media organization: Williams, Eesha (1 May 2008). "Wikipedia Distorts Nuclear History". Rutland Herald. Archived from the original on 24 September 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2011.

Text and/or other creative content from this version of Nuclear power was copied or moved into History of nuclear power with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

Section sizes Section size for Nuclear power (41 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 5,317 5,317 411 411 History 73 36,117 0 1,865 Origins 5,448 5,448 378 378 First power generation 2,624 2,624 189 189 Expansion and first opposition 10,031 10,031 378 378 Chernobyl and renaissance 6,124 6,124 358 358 Fukushima accident 4,710 4,710 223 223 Current prospects 7,107 7,107 339 339 Power plants 3,576 3,576 207 207 Fuel cycle 2,993 47,649 282 2,557 Uranium resources 8,917 8,917 452 452 Waste 1,565 21,532 100 1,070 High-level waste 9,169 9,169 426 426 Low-level waste 796 796 69 69 Waste relative to other types 4,537 4,537 247 247 Waste disposal 5,465 5,465 228 228 Reprocessing 6,872 6,872 416 416 Breeding 7,335 7,335 337 337 Decommissioning 2,793 2,793 72 72 Production 8,460 8,460 332 332 Economics 12,696 12,696 777 777 Use in space 2,000 2,000 123 123 Safety 10,433 25,667 542 1,361 Accidents 11,540 11,540 632 632 Attacks and sabotage 3,694 3,694 187 187 Proliferation 7,777 7,777 568 568 Environmental impact 3,680 9,580 155 464 Carbon emissions 3,880 3,880 138 138 Radiation 2,020 2,020 171 171 Debate 17,250 31,668 638 1,122 Comparison with renewable energy 9,051 14,418 218 484 Speed of transition and investment needed 3,447 3,447 197 197 Land use 1,920 1,920 69 69 Research 13 10,726 0 551 Advanced fission reactor designs 1,095 1,095 92 92 Hybrid fusion-fission 1,300 1,300 112 112 Fusion 8,318 8,318 347 347 See also 319 319 0 0 References 30 30 0 0 Further reading 4,879 4,879 0 0 External links 810 810 0 0 Total 210,064 210,064 10,410 10,410

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

Archive Solar (January 2006) Archive Oldberg (January 2006)

This page has archives. Topics inactive for 60 days are automatically archived 2 or more at a time by Lowercase sigmabot III if there are more than 5.

Why are graphs broken - why not show last working version

By "fukushima incident" section the graph frame on right says "Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org." No indication when graphs will show again, or when they were broken. Why not leave the old graphs until new ones work ? If shared code broke, why was it not backed out ? When did graphs break, when did the "technical issues" start ? - Rod57 (talk) 00:25, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those are very good questions, that however have no answer since more than a year due to disinterest from the Wikimedia foundation. Ita140188 (talk) 09:47, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Rod57: I've fixed a few on this page FYI, you can help porting extensions by following instructions at Template:PortGraph :) —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 17:56, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Article review

It has been a while since this article has been reviewed, so I took a look and noticed the following:

• There's uncited statements in the article including entire paragraphs.
• At over 10,000 words long, this article is too detailed and WP:TOOBIG. I suggest that information be spun out, summarised more effectively, or trimmed.

Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 02:41, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment: according to WP:TOOBIG, 10,000 words does not mean it's too big necessarily: "Probably should be divided or trimmed, though the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material.". This article's large scope may justify the length, although I agree some details may be trimmed (especially in the debate section, by far the largest one). As for the uncited statements, could you add tags to them when you see them so they can be fixed? Thanks Ita140188 (talk) 07:31, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ita140188 the article needs reorganising into more of a summary format linking to main articles on the different sub topics.

For example, the third paragraph of the lede, a WP:NPOV stretching polemic about nuclear safety, could be cut and handled later in the article with a shorter summary section containing a main article link to Nuclear safety and security.

In its current form, the article tends to go into too much detail in sections where there are already main articles that cover the detail. Duncnbiscuit (talk) 08:49, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In principle I agree. A lot of this extra content was added (or kept) in response to comments from the GA review and as a result of compromises among different points of view among editors. I can try to trim these parts and add missing references to avoid going through a full GAR if you think there is a chance. Ita140188 (talk) 09:27, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't disagree with: "the article tends to go into too much detail in sections where there are already main articles that cover the detail." but overall, this subject is a HUGE subject, and so the overall article will be big.

I'm sure we could make much of it more concise, but I almost see this as a list article: "List of topics related to nuclear power" because of the number of associated articles. ---Avatar317^(talk) 01:12, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ita140188 and Avatar317: It has been a while since the last major edit to the article. Are either of you, or anyone reading this, still interested in working on this article? For the comments about the page size above: I think its OK to have lots of sections with a brief introduction and a hatnote above the text where the reader can get more information. This will help with navigation and prevent this article from getting too big. Z1720 (talk) 18:01, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm interested in working on it. If you point out places where you think there are problems, I can work on improvements. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:37, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Avatar317: I have added citation needed tags to uncited statements in the article. I also suggest that interested editors read through the article and move information to other articles that are too detailed for a general article like this. Generally, I suggest that each heading (no matter the level) have 2-4 paragraphs underneath it. Z1720 (talk) 01:20, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that suggestion: "2-4 paragraphs"; I'll work on it in the next couple days. ---Avatar317^(talk) 01:26, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I'm also interested in continuing working on it. Will keep an eye on the changes and try to add references and trim the article where needed in the next few days Ita140188 (talk) 07:50, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Avatar317 and Ita140188: There are still citation needed and failed verification tags in the article. Are you still interested in working on this? Of course, there is no obligation to do so. Z1720 (talk) 00:16, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I had to pause the work as I was quite busy off-wiki recently. I will resume the revision this week. Ita140188 (talk) 06:58, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• @Avatar317 and Ita140188: Just following up with this: there are still some uncited statements. Are you interested in continuing to work on this? Let me know if you want me to place citation needed templates in the article. Z1720 (talk) 19:19, 20 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, I'm still interested. Feel free to tag any other statements you feel are not supported and I'll try to look through sources we already have and see if they support the statements. ---Avatar317^(talk) 06:38, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Disruptive changes? (when porting the charts from the Graph extension)

@Ita140188: what made you think my changes were disruptive? I was porting the charts from the Graph extension, and I thought these charts were useful. The graph extension doesn't have a max-height property, and we need to have the graphs that big for accessibility reasons anyway. I see no problem with my changes. It's at the start of a section anyway, not the middle. —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 17:54, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to remove the graphs entirely btw if they are redundant. —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 17:57, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

phab:T376845 is of interest —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 18:02, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware of the limitations of the new chart extension. As it is now, in my opinion it is not ready to be deployed to articles (see my comment on the extension). The charts are way too large compared to any other element in the page. I don't see how "we need to have the graphs that big for accessibility reasons". Can you point me to any guideline that says we need charts to be full screen for accessibility? This is not how we have done things until now. For comparison, default standard image width is 250px. I would think an average chart with a few data points like the ones here should be approximately the same size. If a user needs larger images and charts, the page looks as a whole can be changed from the browser. For example, Wikipedia on my browser is zoomed in 150% at all times. This zooms in every element equally, which is the best way to make a page accessible. Ita140188 (talk) 19:13, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ita140188: well I think that the whole point of using the Chart extension, rather than an SVG is so that you can have an interactive graph. When you have something interactive it needs to be somewhat big to allow people with limited vision or smartphones to use it. That's my take at least. But that being said, I understand your concerns with the Chart extension so I guess we can postpone the update to a later date. —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 21:02, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, another idea: we could try to make it collapsible. Thoughts? —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 21:06, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think making it collapsible does not solve the problems that I highlighted. Uncollapsing it would still completely disrupt the page and make it impossible to read the text while seeing the chart for example. In my opinion the only good solution right now is to migrate the chart to an SVG. Hopefully we will one day have a functional, beautiful, and usable charting library on Wikipedia (on the style of OWID for example). Ita140188 (talk) 07:12, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, agreed —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 09:29, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

EBR-1 was located in Idaho not Argonne National Lab the image caption is incorrect

Just letting you know, thank you. 204.102.229.130 (talk) 15:47, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The caption says Argonne-West. That's technically correct since Idaho National Laboratory used to be known as Argonne West. NPguy (talk) 17:19, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Compared to what?

There's a lot of new text on the hazards of nuclear power and nuclear waste. I don't have the time or expertise to review but want to point out a few shortcomings:

• There is an inordinate focus on the impacts of uranium mining in the United States. Very little uranium mining takes place in the United States
• The drawbacks of nuclear power are not presented in comparative terms. How do radiation dangers from nuclear energy compare to dangers from other power sources? There is a comparison with the waste volume from solar and wind power, but waste volume is not the most important thing and waste toxicity from coal is much worse.
• The section on environmental justice in particular fails to make any such comparisons.

Since energy choices are always comparisons of alternatives, presentation of these issues without such comparisons is misleading. NPguy (talk) 22:36, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On a quick scan of those new additions, I agree with you; especially the focus on US uranium mining, which was predominantly (during the time of the social injustice issues) done for weapons, not nuclear power.

I'll try to review and probably trim for UNDUEness. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:45, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]