Category talk:Nuclear power by country

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Discussion (2007)

Okay, the "Nuclear energy in..." is a blatant overlap with "Nuclear Technology in..." We need to delete that. Sure, we have a category for the power plants, but then there's the companies, the technology, the fuel cycle facilities, maybe even the anti-nuclear groups, oh, PLUS the research organizations and the regulatory bodies. But these have been going in the Nuclear Technology categories, not the Nuclear energy ones. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, well if we're changing it that's fine, but we need clear tasks of what needs to be done. Also, since "Nuclear power in (country)" is the main article of "Category:Nuclear energy in (country)", how do we denote that? Should it be sorted with "Category:Nuclear energy in (country)|*"? -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nuclear power in X and Nuclear energy in X articles

There is a number of articles named 'Nuclear power in ...' such as Nuclear power in Germany, Nuclear power in Russia or Nuclear power in the United States. However, in March this year a sock puppet of a banned user created a number of articles named 'Nuclear energy in ...' by moving information from Nuclear energy policy by country.

Articles named 'Nuclear power in ...'

Articles named 'Nuclear energy in ...'

The problem is that there is no clear division which articles should be named using term 'nuclear power' and which ones by using term 'nuclear energy'. By my understanding, information about nuclear power generation should be go to 'Nuclear power in ...' while all other information about nuclear energy should be go to 'Nuclear energy in ...' articles. At the same time, in most of cases there is not enough information to justify creation of two separate articles. In some cases, there is also articles named 'Nuclear technology in ...' such as Nuclear technology in Canada and Nuclear technology in the United States. My questions are:

Should there be a unified name for 'Nuclear power in ...' and 'Nuclear energy in ...' articles, and if yes, which one (energy v power)?
Do we need a separated categories for nuclear power and nuclear energy or should they be merged. If merged, should the categories named by nuclear power or nuclear energy?
If the consensus will be to use the term 'nuclear power', should we also rename other relevant articles (e.g. Nuclear energy policy, Nuclear energy policy by country)?
If the consensus will be to have both, power and energy, articles/categories, what should be the criteria for inclusion?

Beagel (talk) 15:08, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my view the terms 'nuclear power' and 'nuclear energy' have exactly the same meaning and can be used interchangeably. I would support standardisation of the names of all of the above articles on one or the other formulation, personally I have no preference which one but the current split is messy. Rangoon11 (talk) 16:04, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree.

There's a subtle difference in meaning, but probably insignificant for our purposes. Atomic energy, a term disparaged by recent reliable sources, generally meant nuclear technology rather than just nuclear power; The various Atomic Energy Commissions are/were also concerned with bombs and with medical and industrial radioisotopes, not just power generation. So it could be argued that nuclear energy is slightly ambiguous because of its association with, and use to replace, the term atomic energy, and that nuclear power and nuclear technology are therefore the preferred terms for their respective topics. Not a strong argument.

Another weak argument but in the same direction is the parallel to, say, solar power as opposed to solar energy. Again, I think we'd prefer nuclear power on these grounds too.

Those two rather soapy arguments are the best I can do right now, but on those grounds I'd favour nuclear power.

A better argument would be one based on actual English usage, but I'm at a loss to know how to best measure it. We do say power station, and NPP stands for nuclear power plant, see list of nuclear power stations: There are a few called Generating Stations, but the vast majority are Power Plants. I fear this can be argued both ways, but again on the evidence so far it's nuclear power.

The physicists will I suppose counter that the output of a power station is energy not power, but that argument is at least equally soapy to the two above. And the premise may not even be strictly correct; Most users are billed simply for the energy they consume, rather than the power, but some large users and wholesalers are also billed on (peak) power, including my former employer the AAEC which is why at one stage we used a couple of sets of second-hand submarine batteries to heat some sodium loops. So there is a sense in which a power station does produce power as well as energy as its product. Andrewa (talk) 01:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nuclear energy and nuclear power are not synonymous. Nuclear power means the use of nuclear energy to produce electricity. Nuclear energy includes other uses of nuclear reactors - primarily research reactors. As noted above, nuclear is also used even more broadly, to cover nuclear technology, such as the use of radioisotopes produced in research reactors.

For the purposes of this discussion, this is an important distinction. There are about 30 countries with nuclear power plants, but about twice as many with research reactors. Most countries with power reactors have research reactors, but only about half of those with research reactors have power reactors, and many of the rest are considering nuclear power programs. To cover all these categories of countries (and avoid changing the titles of the articles as they move from one category to another), I have a slight preference for the standardizing on the term "nuclear energy." NPguy (talk) 01:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above addresses the "power" versus "energy" discussion as if there was something particular about it when prefixed with "nuclear" or "atomic", but of course all the same arguments pertain just as well to "solar", "wind", "wave", "hydro", "coal", "gas or others. In the context of electric utility markets there is of course a difference between "base load" and "demand following" supplies, but if anything that would argue for using the term "energy" for stable baseload supplies (nuclear esp) and "power" for the premium-priced demand followers (gas and hydro esp). In normal usage however the terms are almost interchangable. You can't produce power without converting energy from one form to another. There is one clear reason for giving "nuclear" special treatment: "nuclear power" has a dual meaning, the other being "nuclear weapons armed state". Avoiding confusion on something so important is worth considering. LeadSongDog come howl! 04:27, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is nuclear power really used as a synonym for nuclear weapons state? I doubt it, but happy to be proven wrong. I've seen it used in that sense in the plural nuclear powers only (eg List of states with nuclear weapons#Statistics), and then only in headlines and the like. Any evidence of wider usage and/or usage in the singular? Andrewa (talk) 09:27, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to the anti-nuclear movement it is nuclear power. -- eiland (talk) 08:50, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily... I don't know which is the original, but the German version of that logo reads ATOMKRAFT? NEIN DANKE [1] which refers to all branches of nuclear technology. Andrewa (talk) 01:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I think that the content of the article should determine its title. For me nuclear energy articles should cover the entire field of nuclear energy - research reactors, marine nuclear propulsion, spacecraft nuclear propulsion, etc, as well as commercial power generation (as mentioned above, the term 'nuclear energy' has displaced 'atomic energy' in this context'). Nuclear power articles should focus only on commercial nuclear 'power generation', following the common 'power station' usage of English. Consequently I have no problem if some countries might have both 'nuclear energy' and 'nuclear power' articles, but would favour the use of this distinction. Ivolocy (talk) 14:22, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK... to sum up what I think is being said above:

Standardisation would be preferable to the current situation, in which nuclear power and nuclear energy are used interchangeably with no obvious pattern
Nuclear power is the preferred term for nuclear power generation, and should be used in the titles of articles and categories that deal only with power generation rather than with the broader use of nuclear technology
Nuclear energy is a broader term than nuclear power, and includes other applications of nuclear technology

Whether articles etc covering all aspects of nuclear technology are best titled nuclear energy or nuclear technology has not yet been addressed.

There's one objection to this, citing the possibility of confusion because nuclear power can also mean nuclear weapon state and therefore preferring nuclear energy as the term for nuclear power generation.

Despite this objection, do we have a working consensus? Andrewa (talk) 01:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This would not be my recommendation.

I would vote to standardize on "nuclear energy" rather than pick and choose. That would allow articles that are now primarily about nuclear power to be broadened to address non-power applications of nuclear energy without changing the title.

As for using the term "nuclear power" as a shorthand for a state with nuclear weapons, I don't think we need to worry about that. That is, I don't think there is much risk that someone would read an article on nuclear power in Japan and think it means that Japan has nuclear weapons. While it's a fairly common usage of "nuclear power," it's not a term of art and certainly not the most common term. Also, in this sense, "nuclear power" needs to accompanied by the article "a," as in "China is a nuclear power." Without the "a," there is no ambiguity in interpretation.

I would vote against using "nuclear power" in the article titles, but not because of any ambiguity. NPguy (talk) 02:23, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, as a start, Nuclear power in Switzerland currently [2] includes information on power plants, research reactors, and nuclear weapons policy. Do we have consensus here that it should be moved to Nuclear energy in Switzerland (currently a redirect to Nuclear power in Switzerland)? The other possibility of course is Nuclear technology in Switzerland, currently a redlink but when the dust clears we might make it a redirect.

If we do have such a consensus, then despite the fact that no admin powers are needed for the move I'm going to suggest taking the proposal to RM as the first step towards formalising a convention that titles of articles etc that deal with more than just power generation should use the term nuclear energy. Andrewa (talk) 03:11, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This vote is essentially that we don't have articles etc on nuclear power at all, but rather broaden them all to include all nuclear technology. That would be an unprecedented step AFAIK, and I doubt it would have any chance of support. It's just too sweeping. Andrewa (talk) 04:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Above, Ivolocy mentioned that Nuclear energy would contain all sorts of nuclear energy, also for example, nuclear submarines, and Nuclear power would be just power generation. I disagree. A nuclear powered submarine works well doesnt it? But anyway, this is a total non discussion as nuclear energy in would just redirect to nuclear power in... and well, the nuclear technology pages, that is indeed something totally different, much broader that nuclear power or energy, also hospitals, military should be included, so i think we should not go there, as we all kind of agree that we are talking here about the nuclear energy sector in the countries. To get rid of all confusion, why not name the page: Nuclear energy sector in Poland? -- eiland (talk) 07:32, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IMO nuclear power does include naval reactors, and that is consistent with the current lead of the nuclear power article which reads Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and do useful work. Power station reactors and naval reactors are essentially the same technology, just as diesel engines are used both to generate electricity and to power ships. On the other hand nuclear propulsion reactors are not normally called power reactors, but they are called PWRs and LMFRs. Andrewa (talk) 09:57, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By my subjective understanding 'nuclear power' and 'nuclear energy' are not interchangeable terms and have slightly different meaning. I think it could be drawn like this:

nuclear power → nuclear energy → nuclear technology

where nuclear power means only generation of electrical power by using nuclear fission / nuclear fusion; nuclear energy means the whole energy cycle including uranium mining, nuclear fuel production, power generation, and waste management; and nuclear technology means nuclear energy plus all other fields like production of radioisotopes (nuclear medicine) and nuclear weapons. Also nuclear spacecrafts and nuclear submarines belongs by my undrstanding into the 'nuclear technology' articles. In the perfect world we should have all the three articles for each country, but of course, in the real world this is not justified as there is no enough unique information for the three comprehensive articles. Probably there should be one technology/industry article (I am not going to discuss these articles right now) and one nuclear power / nuclear energy article. I think that both options are possible but certainly some standardization is needed. It seems that all the above-mentioned articles deal with 'nuclear power', but as I said, if there will be consensus supporting 'nuclear energy' in the titles, it is fine with me.

There is also one more problem. Actually most of 'Nuclear energy in X' articles were spin-off from Nuclear energy policy by country articles (without proper tags about copying/spin-off information, by the way, which also needs to be fixed). That means that in some cases like Nuclear energy in Denmark these articles not about the nuclear energy (there is no any in e.g. Denmark), but about the nuclear policy of these countries. So, it seems that for Denmark and some other countries the more correct title should probably be 'Nuclear energy policy in X', but this will even more complicate the mess with articles titles. Beagel (talk) 18:04, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree that nuclear power means only generation of electrical power by using nuclear fission / nuclear fusion; nuclear energy means the whole energy cycle including uranium mining, nuclear fuel production, power generation, and waste management. That would mean that nuclear energy did not include weapons and medical and industrial radioisotopes, and that nuclear power did not include the nuclear fuel cycle. IMO both these propositions are false; In fact as stated above nuclear energy includes these other applications, and nuclear power includes the fuel cycle. Have you any source for your usage? Andrewa (talk) 21:59, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that the article Nuclear energy in Denmark needs work. It currently [3] links to nuclear energy but pipes this link to nuclear power. It probably should be labelled a stub. Andrewa (talk) 22:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting also that nuclear energy is currently a DAB [4], while Nuclear Energy redirects straight to nuclear power [5]. It's a mess IMO. Andrewa (talk) 22:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Several observations about the recent discussions:

It is reasonable to consider naval propulsion a form of "nuclear power."
It is arguable whether the nuclear fuel cycle should be considered a subset of nuclear power. You could consider it a related but separate topic. The [International Atomic Energy Agency|IAEA] sometimes uses the term "nuclear energy system" to encompass power plants and their associated nuclear fuel cycle. But even if you consider all of that to be nuclear power, research reactors also have a fuel cycle. Since nuclear power uses far more fuel than non-power applications, and the bulk of the nuclear fuel cycle is devoted to nuclear power, but not all of it.
One reason the nuclear energy article is now a disambiguation page is that it used to be a useless stub on the physics concept of nuclear binding energy.
I think it is reasonable to standardize on "nuclear energy in X" with sections (where appropriate) on nuclear power, nuclear fuel cycle, research reactors. Other non-power applications of nuclear energy include generation of heat (at certain now-closed plutonium production reactors in Russia), generation of hydrogen (proposed), and desalination (also proposed), though these are usually conceived as ancillary functions to electricity generation. I agree that it becomes too broad and amorphous if you try to include all nuclear technology. NPguy (talk) 01:57, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Desalination is more than proposed, both BN-350 reactor and MH-1A were built to provide fresh water in addition to power generation, and both did so for an extended period of time. But both are now closed. Andrewa (talk) 04:34, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been inactive more than a week. I try to summarize which practical proposals could be implemented to go forward with this issue:

to standardize above-mentioned articles on "nuclear energy in X"
this should be done by taking "nuclear power in X" on case-by-case basis to WP:RM.

Is that correct? Is there anything else we can do based on the above discussion? Beagel (talk) 20:32, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That would be my view. Are others persuaded? NPguy (talk) 01:45, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As an editor who only checks back in from time to time, I found a request for participation on my talk page so I'll share my 2 cents. I've read the original post on this subject and bits and pieces of the conversation. I would lobby for nuclear power nomenclature. Overwhelming, the articles are about the civilian use of the technology, and the word "power" does have a slight leaning to electricity production. The "Nuclear power in ..." articles are not just a part of the set of articles on nuclear technology, they're a part of the set of articles on energy and electricity production in general. "Nuclear power" should be used just as "wind power" is used.

Of course, my primary concern is to express acknowledgement that those new "nuclear energy in ..." articles need to be cleaned up, and support of Beagel's efforts to do so. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any progress on the issue? As of 2016, this inconsistency still prevails.--Adûnâi (talk) 06:08, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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