Talk:Mark Z. Jacobson

3O opinion removed by involved edit User:Johnfos in 2011

I seem to remember a discussion on this page from 2010. On checking the edit history it was blanked in 2011. I am re-instating this talk page edit as (1) it was improperly removed and (2)this editorial issue has come up here before. There is more information relating to this discussion in the edit history that is worthy of reading, though the below is a succinct summary.

Boundarylayer (talk) 17:22, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

From WP:3o. First of all - stop reverting the article. A revert war is harmful and does not lead to resolution of the dispute. I agree with FellGleamingthat to state as fact that "wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 per cent of the world's energy, eliminating all fossil fuels," is problematic. This can be solved in two ways - the first is the proposed "believes that." A second way is to remove the endcap - IE - "Jacobson has studied how wind, water and solar technologies can effect the use of fossil fuels."

Secondly. I agree with FellGleaming that stating what Jacobson's analyses show without also showing that other disagree is not appropriate. If Jacobson's alanyses are, in fact, notable, they will have been discussed in reliable sources not authored by him - and I suspect those reliable sources will put his thoughts in context. Can we find a reliable source that adresses his work on nuclear power vs wind energy, as opposed to an article written by him about it? I have made edits to the article to reflect what I consider a possible compromise. I will self revert if requested on this talk page with justification. You are both requested not to revert me. Hipocrite (talk) 20:14, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Controversy

Amongst fellow researchers presenting a low-carbon energy future, Jacobson is known for his advocacy against nuclear energy and at times, blocks those who present the positive comparative cost and greenhouse gas benefits of nuclear energy when compared to renewable energy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boundarylayer (talk • contribs)

I had a look at the blog and some of the tweets. This is a low level controversy of limited encyclopedic value. Indeed it has no relevance to a disinterested account of the subject. WP:BLPGOSSIP applies here. Best forgotten. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 20:55, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

References

Renewable Nuclear

Jacobson's analyses state that "nuclear power results in up to 25 times more carbon emissions per unit energy than wind energy, when delays between planning and operation and emissions from reactor construction, uranium refining and transport are considered" This probably does not belong in a biographical note at all. There are some glaring flaws. There is a huge movement, of which MZJ himself is a member, to create delays between planning and operation of nuclear. Such delays benefit the very industries that WWS energy is supposed to supplant. Besides, molten salt reactors can actually produce fissile uranium to replace that which they consume. So whatever the uranium or thorium refining now costs, the cost per MWh is greatly reduced, by up to 100 times. It is rather weird to write about emissions from reactor construction. An 1100 MW reactor needs far less concrete than the number of giant 5 MW wind "turbines" necessary to produce 1000 MW.years of energy even at 33.3% production factor in a year. 200x3 = 600 large concrete bases, to resist toppling of a structure sweeping the sky at nearly 200 metres, with vanes 60 metres or more long. This is without counting the concrete for the hydro dams to store the peak wind energy for when the wind isn't blowing hard enough. I doubt if Prof. Jacobson actually has data on the carbon cost of the rare earths for his proposed solar panels, let alone the tons of neodymium needed for the generators and motors that steer the nacelle and adjust the setting of the blades when the wind is faster than 12 metres/sec. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DaveyHume (talk • contribs) 21:33, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

The text claims following: "The lifecycle emission figures from Jacobson are in the range of the consensus determined by the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 4-110 g/kWh." The IPCC raport states: "The ranges of harmonized lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions reported in the literature are ... and 4 – 110 gCO2eq/kWh for nuclear power" thus it is not consensus, but range of reported. The actual figures in the report shows that high end of the values are outliers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.157.162.224 (talk) 12:51, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

I had written the article to reflect this very matter that you bring up, last year, but the editor "Mark Z Jacobson" has re-written that section to say what it now does.

This was the previous version on the IPCC While Jacobson's results are at the higher end of the two extreme poles of peer-reviewed calculations that the IPCC deemed worthy of consideration (1-220 g/CO2eq/kWh), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) regard Warner and Heath's methodology as the most credible and thus also report that the nuclear power emission is 12 g/kWh, which is comparable to wind energy.[1] & In 2015 an assessment of the various strategies that have been proposed to get to a global zero or low carbon economy by circa 2040, determined that the 100 percent renewable world that Jacobson discusses, would be the most costly and difficult to achieve, and that like many of the other scenarios proposed, it requires "more detailed analyses realistically addressing the key constraints", specifically relating to "the costs associated with integration of large amounts of variable generation".

109.125.17.18 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Publications related to the WWS project

Here are some publication related to the WWS (wind, water, sun) project. They may be useful for this article or a new article on that project. Best wishes. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 23:06, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

• 2009 presentation
• Jacobson and Delucchi (2009) Scientific American article
• Jacobson and Delucchi (2011a)
• Jacobson and Delucchi (2011b)
• Trainer (2012) critique
• Trainer (2013) critique
• Delucchi and Jacobson (2012) rebuttal
• Fischetti (2015) Scientific American article
• Jacobson et al (2015) 50 US states study
• Jacobson et al (2015)
• Delucchi et al (2016) spreadsheets
• Jacobson et al (2016) report

References

I have tagged this article as needing outside help/bias issue

As can be seen in the edit summary of the article, the subject of the article is now writing and re-writing the contents of the page. This has coincided with the recent publications in the PNAS/national academy and the "$10 million lawsuit".

I think it wise to get outside editors to review the edits and changes that have been made by the subject of the article in recent months. Boundarylayer (talk) 17:36, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

If anything the introduction is much too long-winded and much of the content should be moved to their appropriate sections with a "Controversies/lawsuit" section added. He does not even directly reference the paper he is suing over, which needs to be there too. -- Sjschen (talk) 16:23, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Agreed "whomever" wrote the vast majority of the introduction here, made it far too long-winded for an article on a person with 1-2 primary areas of publishing. Going by other examples, it is usually much-much shorter.

I also find it concerning that the editor User:Mark Z. Jacobson did not make reference to the paper that he is apparently suing over. Instead in our article, it is only mentioned in the following manner - "The premise and all error claims by Clack et al. about Jacobson et al. are demonstrably false. We reaffirm Jacobson et al.'s conclusions." Jacobson also authored a line-by-line response[72] and several editorial posts that pointed to additional problems with the critique"

There was also a scientific dispute on energy related matters between James Hansen and Jacobson and both of their colleagues a few years back(2013), with this dispute curiously being absent from this article on Jacobson too. The discussion and response is well referenced in James Hansens page and it's worthy of inclusion here.

To end, there seems to be a somewhat NPOV assessment of this newer 2017 dispute in IEEE that we could likely use to eliminate a large chunk of the material found in this article. This was written in June and makes no mention to the lawsuit, just detailing the general outline of Jacobson, both 2017 papers/Jacobson's response. | Can the U.S. Grid Work With 100% Renewables? There's a Scientific Fight Brewing. June 2017

Boundarylayer (talk) 20:40, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, I organized it a bit by moving content from the intro to the sections. A lot of what Jacobson editing into this article is not really relevant about himself as a subject and more about his views and the support he has on energy transition. Much of it should probably go into the 100% renewable energy page or climate modelling. At the end, what this page really needs is a section on this lawsuit and controversy since there needs to be a bit more details on what exactly this mess is all about. -- Sjschen (talk) 19:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

There is clearly COI editing going on here. As well from his reverts, citations deletions, and general unwillingness to comment here on the talk page before deleting I feel that there is definitely a biased if not bad-faith editing going on. Whether the citation he deleted are "Printing unbalanced, misleading, and factually inaccurate information" I can't say but those are from the 2 top pages of Google results. If no one objects I'm going to call an administrator to deal with this. -- Sjschen (talk) 15:29, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree, the COI reverts and citation deletions are particularly concerning. I've since done some editing to put this lawsuit in context, to list the events, controversies and general expert opinion, that preceded it.

It may be reverted, but we'll see if they stop edit warring first and begin engaging here. If further blanket reversions occur, I don't think we'll have any other option but to follow your plan, to ask for further assistance.

Boundarylayer (talk) 18:43, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I am agreeable to Boundarylayer most recent edits. They are balanced and more accurate than the previous edits, which claimed without proof that the environmental and academic communities condemned the lawsuit. This unsupported claim was based on quotes from a few people, a small portion of these communities, who according to another source did not even seem to know what the allegations in the suit were. The previous edits also incorrectly claimed that the Jacobson studies relied on significant increases in hydropower when in fact, the 139 country paper and the 48-contiguous state paper both assumed 0 increase in the number of conventional hydropower reservoir size or dams. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 18:47, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

The most recent edits are small correction based on a series of major edits by User:Mark_Z._Jacobson (COI editor). I suggest we go further back to the article reorganization at 17:49, 10 November 2017 before the addition of the cited articles and summaries that the COI editor considered "opinion, unbalanced, misleading, and inaccurate". In addition I have also duplicated the comments the COI editor responded on his talk page below as part of this discussion. -- Sjschen (talk) 20:35, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. My intention is not to criticize you personally but to point out the issues with what was stated and how it appears to someone like myself who is familiar with the facts of the situation. The November 10 version you pointed to is generally ok aside from the fact that it says incorrectly in the 2nd paragraph, "solely heavily up-scaled hydroelectricity, wind, and solar" since none of the plans rely "solely" on these three (they all also involve geothermal, tidal, wave plus electricity, heat, and cold storage and all-distance transmission) and because there is zero upscaled hydroelectricity in the most recent study, the 139-country paper published in Joule, 2017. In addition, in the 2015 PNAS paper, no added hydropower dams or increases in reservoir size were assumed at all, only increases in the numbers of hydropower turbines to speed up the instantaneous discharge of water at some times while decreasing it at other times. Having said that, I am also fine with the current version as it stands, because it now contains (in the last section (opinion section)) precise and accurate information about the 2009 E&ES study with regard to nuclear power so there can be no ambiguity or misunderstanding. If something you think is glaringly missing from the current version, maybe you can point it out on this page, and we can discuss. Thank you. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 21:23, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

---

Boundarylayer Thank you for your edits to the nuclear opinion discussion. Here are my comments and suggested clarifications/corrections:

1. Jacobson's primary coauthor is not Diesendorf but Delucchi. Additional primary authors who have found a "100% renewable world" in the list of 24 citations provided include Mathieson, Greiner, Kempton, and Mason, not only Breyer, Connolly, and Diesendorf.

2. Of the citations 88-93 that claim "Jacobson's "100 percent renewable world" is instead deemed to cost orders of magnitude more", references 88, 89, 90, and 91 do not even mention Jacobson's name or reference his studies and Refs. 92-94 are all by the exact same authors and seem to be the same article. Nowhere in that article is it stated that Jacobson's "100 percent renewable world" is "orders of magnitude more."

3. With regard to nuclear "mean" lifecycle emissions, IPCC specifically concludes in the "EXECUTIVE SUMMARY" on page 517:

"Nuclear energy...Its specific emissions are below 100 gCO2eq per kWh on a lifecycle basis..." It does not state 12 g-CO2/kWh.

Even if it did, the proper nuclear numbers for comparison with Jacobson (2009) are means, not medians.

Jacobson (2009) derive their lifecycle numbers from Sovacool, which is consistent with Lenten (2008), and both provide numbers as means.

The 12 g-CO2/kWh you cite is a median number from Warner and Heath (2012) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00472.x/full

Warner and Heath (2012), however, provide, in their Table 2, the mean for PWR nuclear reactors as 27 g-CO2/kWh and for LWR as 22 g-CO2/kWh, thus an average of around 25 g-CO2/kWh.

Further, the Jacobson roadmap studies are only relevant for the 2030-2050 time frame. The abstract of Warner and Heath (2012) specifically states,

"Depending on conditions, median life cycle GHG emissions could be 9 to 110 g CO2-eq/kWh by 2050"

This is because in part by 2050, much more energy will be required to extract uranium due to its scarcity.

Thus, according to Warner and Heath (2012) the median number for 2050 will be much higher than the median number of 25 g/kWh today.

I request that the text be clarified to include the information above.

4. Why did you remove the upper end of 4.1 g-CO2/kWh as the estimated emissions from the burning of cities? Instead, it now sounds as if it is 180.1 g-CO2/kWh. The text currently states, "Jacobson assumes, at the high end(180.1 g/kWh), that some form of nuclear induced burning will occur once every 30 years" This would be clearer if it says, "Jacobson assumes, at the end end (180.1 g/kWh) that 4.1 g/kWh is due to burning of cities resulting from a nuclear exchange resulting from nuclear energy expansion, but at the low end (68 g/kWh), 0 emissions due to a nuclear exchange."

5. The "15 year period" referred to by Hansen is only the construction period, NOT the time between planning and operation. The time between planning and operation includes time to locate a site, obtain a site permit, obtain financing, obtain a construction permit, construct the plant, and obtain an operating permit. The 10 to 19 year time requirement from planning to operation of a nuclear plant is a fact in the United States. Please see the references in Jacobson (2009), and specifically Koomey and Hultman (2007) for the construction times, which they have tracked for U.S. reactors. The long time is not due to NIMBYISM (although that can play a part) but to permitting requirements and financing. Please clarify/correct. Thank you. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 04:33, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Also, the use of the term "fantastical" from Hansen is unreferenced. It also seems this is an unbalanced, non-factual denigration that does not belong in a biography. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 04:58, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

No problem.

On (1) Within these 24 publications. Breyer is author of some 7 of these papers, Connolly 4, Jacobson 4 and Diesendorf 3. So to summarize, simply listing these 4 authors who are largely responsible for the 24 papers that determine a transition to a 100% renewable world, will be cheap and will be an easy engineering task, is an accurate summary necessary to inform readers. It is not necessary to list everyone with more than 1 publication, as you suggest, in order to simply communicate to readers that the 24 papers are largely the work of, primarily, 4 individuals. I will however remove the phrase "principle co-author" however as that seems to have caused some understandable confusion. I was simpy reading Demystifying Sustainability: Towards Real Solutions By Haydn Washington, specifically pg 184-5 were it lists Jacobson and Diesendorf having a similar publication history when it comes to nuclear energy. Even going so far as both using the very same units of measure. Jacobson concludes nuclear energy emits 9-25 times more CO2 than wind energy (2011) Diesendorf, using the very same unusual unit of measure, "6-22 times wind energy" (2014) etc. Diesendorf re-states your sentiments on the following issues: (A) the aforementioned CO2 emissions of nuclear energy in terms of X times wind energy, (B) the suggestion of a higher price, (C) the suggestion of a "peak uranium", along with (D) the opinion that pursing civil nuclear energy results in an increased risk of nuclear war.

For all these reasons, I used the phrase "principle co-author". As short of Benjamin Sovacool, author of Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power and an individual who likewise published a highly criticized appraisal of CO2 emissions from nuclear energy akin to Jacobson, and a publisher who Jacobson has also contributed with elsewhere, though not within these specific 24 publications under discussion. I know of few other researchers who have so consistently used this method of presentation, of putting things in terms of "X times wind energy" and who has likewise consistently come down on the negative, over every aspect of nuclear energy. For this reason, I hope you can see why I used the phrase "principle co-author" with respect to Diesendorf? A phrase that however may cause confusion. So could you, or other editors, instead suggest some other, less ambiguous phrase or description for Diesendorf? Instead of "principle co-author"? Something more descriptive, that takes the presentation of Jacobson & Diesendorf's publications, as found in Demystifying Sustainability: Towards Real Solutions, that takes these joint presentations on a wide range of nuclear matters, into account?

On 2 we can use Ted Trainer's publication that does specifically mention Jacobson, instead of simply using the references you take issue with that instead, only discuss the "100% renewable plan". Is that agreeable? http://www.greens.org/s-r/60/60-09.html alongside http://www.theenergycollective.com/ed-dodge/301031/critique-100-renewable-energy-new-york-plan. They specifically mention Jacobson. Likewise, both the phrase "orders of magnitude greater"/more expensive and a figure over the number "10" is presented when discussing Jacobson & Delucci in | Loftus et. al 2015 pg 101-2. A reference that is, contained in the article already. pg 107 also presents the Jacobson Delucci approach of costing approximately 100 trillion dollars in comparison to the lower costs of the more "agonist" decarbonizing approaches. pg 107 also states With the exception of the $100 trillion case cited by Jacobson & Delucchi, the range of energy system incremental investment is approximately 20–50% over the baseline investment, or in the range of 1% of global GDP. This particular statement, likewise puts the Jacobson plan in the "exceptionally costly"/"outlier" arena.

3. With regard to nuclear "mean" lifecycle emissions, IPCC specifically concludes in the "EXECUTIVE SUMMARY" on page 517:

"Nuclear energy...Its specific emissions are below 100 gCO2eq per kWh on a lifecycle basis..." It does not state 12 g-CO2/kWh.

The median and not the "mean" is the statistically important number, as both | Beerten et. al 2009 & | Dolan, et al 2012 have exasperatingly communicated on the matter before. One cannot do a "proper" comparison between numbers that represent two entirely different things. With means on 1 hand and medians on the other. That very issue is the principle reason why Jacobson's colleague [[Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources#2008_Benjamin_K._Sovacool_survey_of_nuclear_power | Sovacool was so strongly criticized by his peers in the past]. With Beerten & Dolan pointing out. "Averages and means" of CO2 emission figures, which by definition are determined "from multiple sources, can be skewed by inharmonious data, clustering bias, by outliers and so on." "averaging GHG emissions of those studies is no sound method to calculate an overall emission coefficient". The reason for this is obvious, if my real age is 25 and most people do analysis and determine accurately, but just one researcher is motivated to say a billion years old. Then while the median value would closely reflect reality, of ~25, in absolute contrast to the mean or average value, that owing to that 1 outlier, would still put my age in the thousand year range. Neither the IPCC nor any professional LCA researcher that I know of, uses or champions "mean" values, as all they do is mislead. The mean value of wind energy is similarly not supported or championed by anyone, for the same exact reason. As it's a number that communicates literally nothing of value. In direct contrast to the median figure. This is only made doubly so when the mean values for nuclear are compared with the medians value for wind. Creating a complete Apples and oranges comparison. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, states "| The median life cycle GHG emission estimates for PWR and BWR technology (are) 12 and 13 g CO2eq/kWh, respectively after harmonization."

Likewise, the IPCC state in Annex II pg 1308 "| The data on nuclear power was taken from Lenzen (2008) and Warner and Heath (2012). There is no basis in the literature as far as we know to distinguish between 2nd and 3rd generation power plants.".

You seem to acknowledge that this meta-analysis that the IPCC derive their data from, specifically Warner and heath, that this states a median value of 12 g CO2eq/kWh. Though concerningly, you did just write that it supports "an average of around 25 g-CO2/kWh" and then quite disturbingly, only a few sentences later mis-characterize this somehow as supporting "the median number of 25 g/kWh today". Something that I will allow you to clarify before we proceed further. As instead, the median is very cleary stated as 12 g CO2eq/kWh within the paper, not "25". Moreover they Warner and Heath don't get into "averages" or put any weight on that, prone to mislead, methodology. Incidentally, if 2050 values are of interest. Warner and Heath incorporate data derived from the era of inefficient gaseous diffusion, a process that was relegated to the pages of history in 2013, a year after they published in 2012. So due to this, "today" the value is actually lower than the broad median of 12 g.

In any event, I don't think crystal balling for 2050 makes much sense in an article on an individual, as likewise. There is | an MIT study that concluded that with drawing 10% of world energy from wind turbines, it could begin to influence surface heating in a deleterious manner. So I think we all recognize that further research will be needed on every energy source as time, data collection & all the energy technologies progress.

Boundarylayer (talk) 05:19, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Thanks for removing the claim that Diesendorf is a coauthor. His research is completely independent of my own regardless of what similarities may appear with regard to the nuclear issue. With regard to the authors listed, Mathieson is the primary advisor on several of the papers. He should definitely be listed if you want to list names. While I agree that it is not necessary to list every independent author, it would be more accurate to use the term "several independent authors" than list just three, since there are a few completely independent papers (by Kempton and Mason, for example). Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 09:19, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

2. If you need a description, you could state something like, "Diesendorf and Jacobson have arrived at similar conclusions regarding nuclear power relative to renewables. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 09:24, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

3. If you want to use commentaries, such as Trainers', I think it is only fair and accurate to also report on the replies to the commentaries, specifically

https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/12-1stRespEnergyPolicy.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/13-2ndRespEnergyPolicy.pdf

Loftus is saying our WWS studies are calling for an "order of magnitude greater buildout" than other studies, which means we would obtain a greater carbon reduction in a shorter period of time. Our studies decarbonize all energy sectors (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry, agriculture/forestry/fishing), and we electrify all energy sectors. Many other studies consider only electricity, so our electricity buildout is naturally much greater than other studies that don't electrify other sectors. Electricity is only 1/5th of all energy. Thus, if we convert all energy to electricity, we will require more electricity than other plans, which don't do this. I should note that electrifying everything reduces energy demand by ~36% due to the efficiency of electricity over combustion (23%) and the elimination of energy used to mine, transport, and refine fossil fuels (13%). This is from Joule (2017). Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 09:39, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

4. In the sentence, "Thus, according to Warner and Heath (2012) the median number for 2050 will be much higher than the median number of 25 g/kWh today," I meant to say, "Thus, according to Warner and Heath (2012) the mean number for 2050 will be much higher than the mean number of 25 g/kWh today." Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 09:43, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

5. Lenzen (2008) Energy Conversion and Management 49 , 2178-2199 provides CO2 emissions from nuclear "of between 10 and 130 g-CO2e/kWh, with an average of 65 g-CO2e/kWh." They are using a mean and never use the term "median" in their paper. You, yourself acknowledge that IPCC uses Lenzen (2008) as one of the two main sources. The other main source, Warner and Heath (2012) also use means (as well as medians). Medians are misrepresentative on their face, as one can have 10 values of 9, 1 value of 10, and 10 values of a billion, and the median is 10. A median tells nothing about the accumulated emissions from all plants, which is the relevant information, wheres means do, since a mean multiplied by the total number of plants gives the total emissions. A median multiplied by the total number of plants significantly underestimates the emissions if the mean exceeds the median.

Regardless, there is no reason for you to mention either the mean or the median, since the entire purpose of the discussion in my bio is to compare my range (I do not provide a mean or a median) with the range of IPCC, which is clearly given, not to debate what the best-guess nuclear emissions are for a typical plant. By putting in "12 g-CO2/kWh" you are adding irrelevant information regarding my 2009 paper and not accounting for Lenzen's value of 65 g-CO2/kWh, which IPCC recognizes as well. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 13:26, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

6. You cited Dodge as another critique. However, that was not published. If you want another published critique of the NY plan that was answered, use Galbraith et al. (2013) Energy Policy. It was answered here (and referenced if you need the full reference).

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/NYSWWSRespComm.pdf

Again, though, I request responses be noted along with the critiques. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 13:48, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I believe the reason why we need to note the discrepancy is that Jacobson arrived at this controversial 6-25 times figure that is based on this 180.1 value, is that both this figure and value is what Hansen and others have received with great controversy. As others have pointed out that this figure, firstly comes about by selecting a low median value of wind energy and comparing it with the naturally higer mean of nuclear. As the | "mean" value of wind energy is some 32 g-CO2/kWh, it would be impossible to arrive at this statement of "25 times wind energy" by any other means, as 180 is no more than about five times 32. So the suggestion of 6-25 times wind energy was found to be without merit by other researchers. Secondly the low end, Jacobson's figure of 68 g-CO2/kWh for nuclear is not one arrived at himself. Instead as you have mentioned it essentially comes verbatim from Sovacool 2008. Jacobson used Sovacool's numbers as an input in determining the "oppurtunity cost" of nuclear and was to add Sovacool's 68+Jacobson's 108 + 4.1(nuclear war induced burning) to arrive at this particular value of 180.1. Is this not accurate?

This synthesis by Sovacool was received with considerable controversy and rebuttals.] Jacobon expanded on this controversial methodology performed by Sovacool that has similarly resulted in Hansen and others treating it with further controversy and likewise it receiving yet further criticism.

However as Socavool's paper was widely criticized and resulted in, for example Sovacool acknowledging that the comparison of means of nuclear with medians of wind, is not suitable and frankly does nothing but mislead. Along with other researchers also pointing out, that independent of this issue, this exact high figure of 68 grams arrived at by Sovacool and used by Jacobson as his foundation on which to add "opportunity costs", this figure is merely an artifact of the biasing caused by, as Beerten et. al writes: | "studies...traced back to the same input data and performed by the same author, namely Storm van Leeuwen. After careful analysis, it must be concluded that the mix of selected LCAs results in a skewed and distorted collection of different results available in the literature". It results in a particularly skewed contamination of the literature as Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen's papers, on which Sovacool and Jacobson ultimately draw from, that these analyses, were shown to contain major errors. Not limited by mathematical errors and mistreatments. Therefore, since this has been revealed in 2009, the consensus in the field, that is for example Beerten, Dolan, Warner and Heath, essentially everyone else post 2009 everyone else in the LCA field, all essentially throw out the "means" approach precisely because Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen's papers and those they have influenced are not representative of reality. If I'm not mistaken, Storm Van Leeuwen's analysis has itself received, line by line rebuttals and shown to assume, for example that, a certain mine uses more energy than the entire country it is based in. A major error that everyone else in the field now acknowledges. As I linked to above, the NREL likewise present median values for every energy source. As the use of means has misled researchers and citizens alike. Though if you wish, to defend the means approach, can you provide some references that someone else within the field of analysis still uses means post 2009? As Jacobson, controversially appears to be alone on this matter. I hope that answers your question why this is WP:NOTABLE.

Boundarylayer (talk) 15:00, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

To be clear, the nuclear emission estimates I used in the 2009 paper were conservative, likely underestimating actual emissions. Here is why

1) I used as my lower limit of lifecycle emissions 9 g-CO2/kWh, a number from the nuclear energy industry, a number with no surface credibility because it was generated by people with a financial interest in their product.

2) I used as the UPPER limit 70 g-CO2/kWh, a number just slightly above the MEAN of Sovacool (2008) (66 g-CO2/kWh), which is virtually identical to the MEAN of Lenzen (2008) (65 g-CO2/kWh). Be clear that I used their MEANS to define my upper limits. I did not use their maxima. In fact, my upper limit of 70 g-CO2/kWh is LESS than IPCC's upper limit of 110 g-CO2/kWh.

3) If I used IPCC's upper limit of 110 g-CO2/kWh, then my overall upper limit would be 110 (LCOE) + 106 (opportunity cost) + 4.1 (nuclear exchange risk) = 220.1 g-CO2/kWh, which is greater than the value of 180 g-CO2/kWh that I used.

4) Since the calculation of a factor of 9-25 is based solely on calculations with my minimum and maximum nuclear total emissions, your use of a mean or median value has zero impact on that number and is in fact a manipulation of the numbers and my methodology. You are trying to rederive my numbers in an inappropriate way, using your own technique, not the technique I used.

5) For all your smearing of Sovacool, the fact is his mean is similar to Lenzen's and you yourself admitted that IPCC respects and uses Lenzen's values. Further even Beerten says, "A more thorough review was perfermed by Lenzen (2008)." Further, the Beerten paper you cite has at least 1 author with a financial conflict of interest. The 2nd author works at the Belgian nuclear research center.

6) In sum, if you really want to re-visit the ratio of nuclear to wind, we will need to use the upper limit of 110 g-CO2/kWh from IPCC for the lifecycle portion, not the upper limit of 70 from Jacobson (2009). I made extra effort to try to be fair in that comparison. The nuclear supporters have gone to extra lengths to mislead about what I have done. Hopefully, that will stop. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 17:27, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

7. PS, here is an updated (in 2015) calculation of the ratio of nuclear to wind equivalent emissions of 6.3-24.1:1. Note that it updates (increases) the wind lifecycle emissions and also adds emissions from the reduction of carbon sequestration in soil due to covering the ground with a facility.

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CO2eTotalEmisEnergy.pdf

8. With respect to opportunity cost emissions, A) Hinkley Point planning began in 2008, and the plant has not even broken ground for construction. In 2017, its expected completion was given as 2025-2027, so its overall time from planning to operation will be NO LESS than 17-19 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station

B) Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power reactor in Finland was proposed in December 2000. It latest proposed completion time is May 2019. Thus, its overall time from planning to operation will be NO LESS than 18.5 years, and this was on an existing nuclear reactor site, not even a new site. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant

C) Vogtle 3 and 4. These reactors were proposed in August 2006 to be added to an existing reactor site, not even a new site. Construction has started, but a decision will be made in early 2018 as to whether to cancel the project. If it is completed, it will be completed no sooner than 2019-20, giving it a planning to operation time of NO LESS than 13-14 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant

The planning to operation time of nuclear of 10-19 years I assumed in the 2009 paper is thus consistent with all three of these European and U.S. plants being built or planned. The actual data for these plants is inconsistent with Hansen's uninformed comment that opportunity cost emissions are "dubious". The numbers above speak for themselves and are all public and available on Wikipedia web pages Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 22:31, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

(1) The following statement made here, is factually incorrect, as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources#Other_studies%7C

No, your statement is incorrect. Our study relied on a 2008 paper by the World Nuclear Association that provided 9 g-CO2/kWh as the mean. The current file that has replaced that file was published later, and in fact has increased the mean to 28 g-CO2/kWh. In fact, this new document even admits in Figure 3 that industry/associations give lower values (13 g/kWh) than universities (25 g/kWh), who both give less than government agencies (39 g/kWh).

http://www.world-nuclear.org/uploadedFiles/org/WNA/Publications/Working_Group_Reports/comparison_of_lifecycle.pdf

Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 18:48, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

the actual "nuclear industry" figure, that is the figure arrived at, by the Swedish electrical utility Vattenfall, is some 3.3 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour for nuclear energy]. Not the "9" grams you mention here? Furthermore, the presentation that "9" grams is based on moonshine is likewise disingenuous, as 9 grams is instead the most strongly supported value arrived at by Warner and Heath's assessment of nuclear, when the now obsolete technology of gaseous diffusion] is excluded. See figure 4 of their paper. Moreover, with Warner and Heath's methodology being the principle paper that the IPCC regard as the most scholarly.

You just contradicted yourself because you previously quoted from IPCC, stating yourself that "The data on nuclear power was taken from Lenzen (2008) and Warner and Heath (2012)."

Further, despite the fact that I don't believe the 9 g-CO2/kWh for nuclear is realistic, I still used it as a lower bound, proving that I was being fair. You, on the other hand, are pretending that only lower bounds or median values close to lower bounds are relevant and are ignoring mean values and upper bounds that are even much lower than IPCC's. That is a biased viewpoint. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

To suggest that the "9 grams" value lacks "surface credibility because it was generated by people with a financial interest in their product". Is instead a viewpoint in direct contrast to the actual facts of the matter and also lays in direct contrast to the legion of researchers who write the consensus building IPCC reports. Are you arguing that Warner and Heath/the IPCC are presenting consensus figures that lack credibility? It is largely this outlier position of Jacobson that is [WP:NOTABLE]].

"The purpose of the encyclopedia is to summarize notable controversies and discrepancies. With Jacobson ultimately drawing from statistics penned by Jan Willem Storm Van Leeuwen, who wrote influencial papers that erroneously assumed that a particular copper+uranium mine uses more energy than the entire energy consumption of the country of Namibia...is notable. A litany of other LCA researchers have characterized this controversy over the years, with part of it mentioned within the Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen article itself, along with | the discussion of Sovacool's paper, Beerten et. al, & Warner and Heath's papers and indeed alongside The National Renewable Energy Laboratory)NREL) and the IPCC. The consensus is that these high end studies, all derived from Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen, are entirely unrepresentative of reality. The NREL & IPCC have all dropped the presentation of mean values, derived from the hundreds of studies that were assessed because of these issues of contamination of the literature. An issue that to a less controversial degree, actually exists when assessing every energy source. For example, if I'm not mistaken the | maxima found for wind is some 300 g CO2/kWh. A figure that no one really dwells on, or uses as a foundation to build upon, as it is obviously dubious. So likewise, the mean value here for wind would not be very realistic, when there are such outliers, the median value however is far more realistic. Do you disagree?

Within the assessment of nuclear energy, the particular contamination of the literature is largely a result of Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen's work. This individual is a member of the club of rome, an organization which holds the ideology that the world population needs to be curtailed and promulgates doomsday prophecies about how the "limits to growth" are just around the corner. Likewise this individual publishes in anti-nuclear "Think tanks", the curiously named Oxford Research Group, which contrary to what you might expect, actually has no affiliations with the better known, Oxford University. This curious organization is dedicated to influencing political policy on nuclear matters. So while this is not the forum to get into conflicts of interest and the psychological phenomenon of motivated reasoning, with respect to your actual editorial suggestions here on this encyclopedia, I do not see much of any attempt to do a WP:BALANCE assessment of the sources in your proposed edits on this topic. WP:BIAS therefore would appear to apply. The IPCC and Warner and Heath do not put much of any weight on the true "industry"/Swedish Vattenfall figure of 3.3 grams of CO2 for nuclear, likewise they don't put any weight on any study influenced by the upper end Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen studies. Jacobson's studies are however reliant on these upper end values. Values that have received massive scrutiny and as detailed in the LCA literature, values that have been dismissed as entirely unrealistic. For obvious reasons.

As proven below, the claim that Jacobson (2009) relies in any way on van Leeuwin's numbers (even their lower bounds), is false. Jacobson uses a lower bound estimate espoused by nuclear industry in 2008 and an upper bound that is below any of van Leeuwin's lower bounds and lower than the upper bounds of 4 independent lifecycle studies and near that of another study. In addition to being reasonable based on those 5 studies, Jacobson (2009)'s upper bound estimate is 40 g-CO2/kWh lower than IPCC's upper bound estimate. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 22:48, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Similarly, your selection of construction times for these particular 1st-of-there-kind-reactors, Generation III reactors, again, is not particularly balanced. If I'm not mistaken most reactors around the world are being built in Eastern and central Asia. To the tune of some ~60 reactors in 2017. Yet you choose to pick the extreme of these 2-3 reactors? Would that be accurate? Therefore a truly accurate appraisal of "opportunity costs, that is, delays in construction times would use data from the entire world. Or at the very least, incorporate data from other parts of the world. It would not focus solely upon 1st-of-their-kind-reactors from areas which haven't built a reactor in decades. Nor use the upper-end outlier case of Finnish construction delays, a construction site that I jave just read, have had apparent trouble with the reported Bulgarian mafia controlling workers on certain areas of the construction site. In sum, Jacobson's critics have pointed out a consistent manner of publication that is "dubious", precisely because worst-case scenarios for nuclear are instead presented as "normal", when they are not. Similarly no attempt at an apples-to-apples comparison with wind have been published. Where a selection of extreme-delayed wind farms, of first of their kind turbine designs have had "opportunity costs" stitched onto them. Nor any inclusion of the equally hypothetical [| global warming that may result from deriving 10% of world energy, from wind turbines. Instead nuclear energy is the only energy source that Jacobson has been motivated to determine emissions, in worst case scenarios.

A distillation/ WP:SUMMARY of Jacobson's critics is that they argue that much of his work on nuclear energy emissions is essentially worst-case scenario nuclear emissions, that include hypothetical wars and the upper limits on construction times, with Jacobson's "10-19 years" suggestion only being actually supported by 1 reactor, when there are some 400 or so that have been built to draw data from and some 60 or so that are being constructed as of 2017.

This statement is false. I provided 5 new international cases on this site of 10-19 year planning-to-operation time, plus every (all 100) U.S. reactors have taken 10-19 years. You are confusing construction time alone with planning-to-operation time, which includes construction time. To the contrary, you have not shown a single reactor worldwide that did not take this amount of time between planning and operation. Even Sweden's fast buildout was planned starting up to 10 years ahead of construction. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 19:28, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

It would appear that Hansen et. al have history on there side while Jacobson has 1 or 2 first-of-there-kind reactor outliers on his. These upper end/worst case scenario "construction delay" emissions that Jacobson tacks onto nuclear energy are then compared with low-end median emissions from wind energy and wind farms with no delays. This is how Jacobson's statements that "Nuclear emits 6-25 times more CO2 than wind energy" were generated. Is it not a factual presentation of how this statement came about? Is this not the chronology of events?

More inaccurate information. Wind planning-to-operation times of 2-5 years are definitely accounted for in Jacobson (2009). These times include 1-2 year construction times and 1-3 years permitting/financing/siting times on average. Further, the wind energy CO2 emissions are based on specific proposed wind speeds for installations 7-8.5 m/s in the annual average, and large turbines only. These conditions for wind development have been consistent part of our recommendations since 2001. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 19:35, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Jacobson's critics seem to consistently point out that this is not a balanced level-playing-field assessment: Instead it is an upper end, essentially worst-case-scenario nuclear emissions figure that is compared to lower end/best case scenario wind emissions. This, I think, appears to be the general distillation of the criticism of Jacobson, on the issue of nuclear emission figures.

This claim is fallacious. As proven on this site, Jacobson uses lower bounds of 9 g/kWh for nuclear, which was the nuclear energy industry estimate in 2008 and an upper bound that is 40 g-CO2/kWh below that of IPCC and below the upper bounds of even the lowest van Leuwan estimate and below the upper bounds of 4 other LCA studies and close to the upper bound of a fifth. Further, as shown later in this post, even using IPCC numbers high and low numbers for nuclear and wind, the nuclear to wind ratio is 1.8 to 27.5. Using median numbers, the ratio is 5.9 to 10.2. There is no way around the fact that nuclear emissions at the high end are more than an order of magnitude larger than wind and at the low end are still 2-6 times those of wind. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 23:19, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

It is essentially also the criticism that Jacobson's colleague Benjamin Sovacool also received from his peers, when he used the very same Van Leeuwan influenced means of nuclear to generate a comparison table that misleadingly compared | "means of nuclear" with "median" values for every other source of energy. Something that Sovaccol has acknowledged is an apples-to-oranges comparison & therefore has published an update on the suggestion of his peers who criticized his methodology.

However, this is not the forum to discuss the minutia of Jacobson's statements. Simply it is about presenting a WP:NPOV section on them, summarizing how there is considerable controversy over them. James Hansen, etc regards them as dubious, a presentation of how the IPCC do not follow Jacobson's approach nor statistical treatments or methodology when comparing energy sources. Likewise, we have a detailed section on how Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen's papers are not representative of reality. With quotations from the rebuttals issued, within that individuals article. So perhaps some quotations from Jacobson's critics, in this article, might be warranted? A check of Jame Hansen's article devotes considerable ink to his disagreement with Jacobson over nuclear emissions. If Jacobson interprets this suggestion as unfair, then a gander at James Hansen's article should hopefully neutralize that.

Boundarylayer (talk) 15:07, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it is beyond the scope of a biography to discuss the details of this issue. However, you are misrepresenting my work by claiming I am using values that are not considered mainstream and by incorrectly characterizing the planning to operation time as only the construction time.

1) My upper limit (70 g-CO2/kWh) does not include any of van Leeuwin's values at all (his values are 84-122 g-CO2/kWh, 92-141 g-CO2/kWh, and 112 g-CO2/kWh, as provided in Sovacool, 2008), and all these values, even at the low end, are above the 70 g-CO2/kWh I use.

2) IPCC's upper limit (110 g-CO2/kWh) is even 40 g-CO2/kWh higher than mine.

3) There are 4 papers in Sovacool (2008) aside from van Leeuwin's, with upper limit emissions above 70 g-CO2/kWh (122, 80, 130, 200 g-CO2/kWh) and yet another at 64 g-CO2/kWh.

4) As such, my upper limit of 70 is entirely reasonably. It is well within IPCC's range, which also considers those other papers, and it is not affected at all by van Leeuwen's results.

5) There is no relevance of mean versus median in the above analysis. Your arbitrary selection of a single value for nuclear is also clearly selective. Not even IPCC does this. Your analogy of my upper limit of 70 with an upper limit for wind of 300 is nonsensical, particularly given that my upper limit is far below any of van Leeuwin's values and far below IPCC's upper limit.

6) You claim that 60 reactors are being constructed worldwide https://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/World-Statistics/Nuclear-Units-Under-Construction-Worldwide

Of the 59 alleged in the website above, -2 in the U.S. were recently canceled (Summer 2,3 in South Carolina), -the other 2 in the U.S. are the Vogtle plants I refereed to, which will take a MINIMUM of 13-14 years and they too may be cancelled next year, -the 1 in Finland is Olkiluoto 3, which will take at least 18.5 years if it is even completed. - Japan minister denies it is building the two new reactors

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear/japan-minister-denies-government-considering-new-nuclear-plants-idUSKBN18Z2ZY

-Sweden is phasing out all nuclear reactors, - France is chopping nuclear output from 75% to 50% of its electricity,

The remaining plants, if ever completed, will only replace those shut by Japan, Sweden, and France.

7) I randomly checked two of the Chinese reactors, Haiyang 1/2. In September, 2007, Westinghouse received authorization to construct these reactors.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Haiyang-1-pumps-operated-at-full-power-1410165.html

This means that site locating and planning must have started at least 2 years before, probably more. Assuming planning started in 2005, and the fact that they won't be operating until at least 2018

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Haiyang-1-pumps-operated-at-full-power-1410165.html

means a MINIMUM of 13 years between planning and operation, again well within the 10-19 year time frame I estimated.

8) You claim, "Similarly, your selection of construction times for these particular 1st-of-there-kind-reactors, Generation III reactors, again is not particularly balanced. Therefore an accurate appraisal of opportunity costs, that is, delays in construction would use data from there."

It is not only the construction time. It is the total time between planning and operation, which includes the time required to find a site, the time for the site permit, the time for the financing, the time for the construction permit and issue, and the time for the operation permit as well as the time for construction.

9) You presented a claim by Hansen even though it was clear Hansen was referring only to construction times, and even his construction time number alone of 15 years could be construed to fall within the 10-19 year planning to operation time of nuclear plants, yet you allowed that claim to go unchallenged.

I have provided evidence from 5 separate reactors that Hanson's claim is false. Neither you nor he has shown a single reactor that did not require at least 10 years between planning and operation. Unless you can find several, your quote by Hansen is unbalanced. It is not appropriate to print something in a biography that where there is no evidence that the claim is verifiable, as required by Wikipedia for a biography. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 17:47, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Hansen makes reference to France. So I took a look at the French nuclear reactor build rate. They constructed and commissioned two reactors within 6 years. 1974-1980 at Gravelines Nuclear Power Station. With the 1973 oil shocks being the motivation behind them, at the extreme end, of including Jacobson's "planning phase" and everything really beginning in earnest in 1973. If Hansen was so inclined he could've argued, it took just "3-4 years to build one reactor. Faster than many wind farms of similar capacity are constructed. If an objection for a wind farm occurs, out of NIMBYism, they can take 7+ years etc." Though he didn't bother as the "planning phase"/ the talking phase doesn't mean much scientifically, it's the construction phase that matters. As Hansen's point was that depending on political situations, nuclear reactors can be built very fast and operate safely. He cited the French build rate as supporting this and it does.

Boundarylayer (talk) 18:35, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Where is your source for the planning, siting, etc. starting in 1973? The web site says construction started in 1974. Are you saying they did all the preparation for an entire nuclear power plant in 1 year? It took 1 year just to prep my house for construction. I call BS unless you have sold proof. 73.170.240.208 (talk) 08:28, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

This example (Gravelines) is consistent with the 10-19 year planning to operation time. The website is clear that the construction time for each plant was 6 years. This is well within the 4-9 year time frame provided in Jacobson (2009) for construction times. The additional planning to operation time from that paper is 6-10 years. Even if this were only 4 years, which you have provided no proof one way or the other, it would still be in the 10-19 year time frame. You then mislead by claiming that 2 reactors built from 1974-1980 each took 3-4 years. That is false. Each took 6 years just for construction. There is no "talking phase." Financing is required to be set up early, and that diverts money from building wind or solar. This is why it is called an "opportunity cost." Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 19:19, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Here are four more examples, from Sweden, of reactors taking 10-19 years between planning and operation:

"Planning and land procurement of the site started 1965. 2 reactors were ordered 1968, one boiling water reactor from ABB-ATOM (R1) and one pressurized water reactor from Westinghouse (R2). Construction work started 1969, and commercial operation started for R2 1975, and for R1 1976.2 more pressurized water reactors, R3 and R4, were ordered from Westinghouse 1971 and construction work started 1972." The final 2 reactors finished in 1981 and 1983.

Thus, of these 4 Swedish reactors, 1 took 10 years, the 2nd took 11 years, the third took 16 years, and the fourth took 18 years. ALL WITHIN 10-19 Years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringhals_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 20:08, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Given that the time-lag between planning and operation for nuclear is 10-19 years, and no evidence to the contrary has been presented here, it can easily be shown that, using even the IPCC low and high or the IPCC median lifecycle emissions for both nuclear and wind, we find that the nuclear to wind emission ratios are 10.2-27.5 at the high end and 1.8 to 5.9 at the low end.

Using the IPCC numbers from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources

one gets a ratio nuclear to wind emissions of 1.8 to 27.5

where 27.5 = 220.1 / 8 and 1.8 = 62.7 / 35, and where

Nuclear high 110 (LCA) + 106 (opportunity cost) + 4.1 (nuc exchange) = 220.1 g/kWh

Nuclear low 3.7 (LCA) + 59 (opportunity cost) + 0 (nuc exchange) = 62.7

offshore wind high 35 (LCA)

offshore wind low 8.0 (LCA)

So, the high end ratio with the IPCC numbers is even higher than what Jacobson (2009) or his update at

http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CO2eTotalEmisEnergy.pdf proposes.

Suppose we use the IPCC median numbers instead. Then the ratios are 5.9-10.2,

where 10.2 = 122.1 / 12 and 5.9 = 71/12, and where

Nuclear high 12 (LCA) + 106 (pop cost) + 4.1 (nuc exchange) = 122.1 g/kWh

Nuclear low 12 (LCA) + 59 (pop cost) + 0 (nuc exchange) = 71

offshore wind high 12 (LCA)

offshore wind low 12 (LCA)

So, using your own numbers, there is no way around the fact that, at the upper end, nuclear emits 10.2-27.5 times more than wind, and at the low end, 1.8-5.9 times when all relevant factors are accounted for.

Thus, you are left arguing that opportunity cost emissions are not real. However, all 7 authors of this paper published the contention that they are real

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es401667h?src=recsys

and Hansen's rebuttal to this claim by 7 authors clearly is non-responsive because it refers only to construction times, not planning-to-operation times, and it does not even provide any construction times for individual plants. More importantly, it is obvious to the world that opportunity costs are real. All but nuclear advocates concede it takes much longer between planning and operation of a nuclear plant than it does for a wind or solar farm on average.

With respect to nuclear advocates, it appears that one of the Wikipedia Editors on this thread is Sean JS Chen, who admits on his twitter page (@seanjschen) that he is an Ecomodernist, whose goals include expanding nuclear power. This person has further frequently advocated for nuclear power on that twitter site. The obvious bias and failure to disclose by this editor is problematic but now it is clear why I have been attacked on my own biography site. If any other editor is a nuclear advocate, please disclose your name and affiliation. Thank you.

Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 23:54, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

There's actually a Wikipedia page on Ecomodernism whose 'defined their philosophy as such: "we affirm one long-standing environmental ideal, that humanity must shrink its impacts on the environment to make more room for nature, while we reject another, that human societies must harmonize with nature to avoid economic and ecological collapse."' -- Sjschen (talk) 17:21, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

It appears you are entering into WP:OR again, alongside this Seán WP:OUTING hypothesis.("Sean" is another Irish word, but it is actually totally unrelated to the forename of Seán...this is an Irish language pet-peeve right there.) Also, as a tip, I wouldn't rely on twitter in your outing campaign. As I just looked up "Boundarylayer twitter" and found some American chap who joined in 2017 and who is seemingly obsessed with the usual Democrat-republican-party tribalism. Suffice it to say. That isn't me. Though it did make me consider that I perhaps should have created an account and registered the name first? As I've been here some 5 years and I'm interested in ensuring articles and topics that are used for political purposes and are therefore edited by those with a WP:AXE to grind, that those articles should instead reflect the consensis scientific facts and that they do not push an outlier, point of view.

Now, the serious suggestion that you have been attacked by this editor, Sjschen, I think merits that we get outside assistance, as, suggesting someone attacked you is serious. In what way did they attack you? Also, there are some very serious WP:OUTING related protocols that you might have breached.

I was not aware of the protocols and did not intend to breach them if any were breached. Aside from the person's first name (the person's last name and first and middle initials already appear on the Wikipedia handle), there was no information about date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, other contact information, or photograph provided. If others fell the twitter handle provides too much additional information (e.g., only the full first name instead of initial), please go ahead and remove this information (I don't know how to do that). This person does state publicly on his or her twitter site bio, "Wikipedia," thus he/she has already admitted publicly that he/she does work related to Wikipedia. With regard to attacks, this same person has made the following personal attack to me on twitter:

"In science you challenge each other through evidence and analysis. The fact that Jacobson is using law to attack his peers is unprofessional" https://twitter.com/seanjschen/status/887664363468967936

This person, if also the editor, then stated in his/her November 20, 2017 Wikipedia edits, virtually the same false claim, without any balance or context, that the lawsuit was a challenge against "critics" of the science itself rather than a challenge against people who had first-hand evidence to the contrary, yet allegedly provided factually false data about the definition of values in a table, the definition of data in a graph, and the fact that they knew first hand from an earlier email exchange about a certain explanation for data yet pretended they were not aware and claimed in a lie, "we hope there is another explanation."

"Jacobson's lawsuit against his scientific critics has been met with widespread condemnation from the energy, climate, and environment science communities.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]"

Bottom line is I don't need to make any formal charges at this time, but I hope he ceases on his own to spread inaccurate and unbalanced information about me on Wikipedia.

Man, what is your deal? Have I not been fair with your actions as a COI editor? I will be completely straightforward in stating that I find this entire lawsuit to be distasteful and unprofessional. As for whether I'm pro nuclear power or not not is little of matter: in Wikipedia and as a longtime editor I am pro-accuracy and I demand trusted cited information. There is no original research in what I'm doing and I have previous stated my methods of how I put together my edits, it's very simple, stupid even-> I Google about the Jacobson lawsuit and I collate the links from credible sources.

You continually accuse me of attacks, which is offensive if not slanderous. No doubt the contents from the news links provided by Google do not paint a rosy picture of the lawsuit and you the plaintiff, but that's what they say and that's what's writen. Is my summary accurate? Reading the many linked articles and the general lack of those siding with the lawsuit one would have to be hard-pressed to conclude anything else other than "widespread condemnation". If you believe these cited articles asunfair, unbalance, or inaccurate pleas talk to those publishers, I'm sure they'll be happy to respond. And looking at the people in the cited articles, they are of the scientific community involve in energy and climate, it that wrong? Articles sympathetic with the position of the plaintiff were hard to come-by and those you provided were variable in quality, one of them was not up to the standard of the Wikipedia (a reply in a blog) and another was a general coverage in Nature. I was fair in my edits, but you,Mark Z. Jacobson were not. Not only did you continue with COI edits after multiple notices directly to you, but you kept bulk deleting citations and simply stated they are "inaccurate/misleading". If they are indeed so, we go through them one-by-one in here in discussion, as you are graciously doing now. An apology from you would be appreciated. -- Sjschen (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

My opinion is that you have a conflict of interest and that you have acted on that conflict of interest (particularly through your tweet that I "attack(ed) my peers". That is my opinion. I don't need to apologize for an opinion. It is interesting how you are so offended over my opinion, but then you have no problem criticizing me because I am offended over other scientists making misstatements of fact about the data in my paper. It is also interesting how you criticize me for my saying that you attacked me on this site but you have no problem saying that I am "attacking my peers."

Your statement that I am attacking my peers as opposed to attempting to correct the scientific record is false. It has no basis in fact For example, does Table 1 of our 2015 PNAS paper show average values or maximum values? This is a question of fact. It is snot a question of science or personal ideology. There is one correct answer. Which one is it? If you think this is a scientific question, you haven't bothered reading the paper. The answer is clearly traceable in multiple ways in the paper. When you have an answer to that question and you realize the authors were informed of the correct answer before publication yet they chose to claim a different answer and used that different answer to claim the paper contained model errors as the main conclusion, I hope you realize that everything you have said about me or thought about me was a mistake. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 01:54, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Clearly you don't know what COI means, the definition is HERE (read it). You have a COI, I have a bias. You publicly and baselessly accused me of attacking you with that edit, which you say is "inaccurate and unbalanced". This is a ironic because it's actually as accurate summary of what criticism and praise has been directed at your lawsuit. In fact that same sentence from the edit on 17:22, 20 November 2017 perfectly summarizes what a Google search would indicate, namely:

"Jacobson's lawsuit against his scientific critics has been met with some support [8] amid widespread condemnation from the energy, climate, and environment science communities.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]"

We're editing this Wiki article so we should stick to its rules and content. If you "attack" your peers via nasty comments in academic publications no one would blink an eye, but you're going outside. You attacked me here an Wikipedia, baselessly, and I deserve an apology. But then again given the pressures of your situation I understand you're not up for it.

Correcting errors in the scientific record is of great importance, I've read both yours and Clack et al.'s chain of papers and they are well written, but to properly critique or assess them would require me to redo my academic training. Alas, the distances between our specializations are large enough that I must cede to the expertise to those who are closer or of your field to better access your work and verify your statements. Hence I read their opinions and journalist that cover them and cite them HERE.

And you're COI editing again. Have you not learned anything? Short of minor edits, as a COI editor if you want to change anything to the article you have to discuss them here in first. Break out a seperate section for it please. -- Sjschen (talk) 15:09, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

No, it seems you don't fully understand what a COI means. COI relationships can be any relationship, including "Any external relationship, "personal, religious, political, academic, financial, legal..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#What_is_conflict_of_interest.3F

You admit on your own twitter site that you are an "ecomodernist." You know very well that many of those who identify as ecomedernists have been attacking me endlessly because of my scientific results relating to nuclear power. Your tweets show a consistent affinity to nuclear power, and in my opinion, you DID attack me on twitter with that one tweet. in MY opinion, you do have a COI as defined by Wikipedia and based on my own understanding of COI, even if it were not Wikipedia's definition.

In any case, I am not saying you should be forbidden from editing my site because of this COI, just like I should not because of my COI. However, I just ask that you chill out. I will try to chill out too.

With regard to my editing, I know my work 100 times better than you or any other editor. I know the citations, the sequence of events, what is true, and what is not. I should not need to get your permission for every single item of fact, like whether to add this reference or that reference or what the definition of something I did is. I would suggest that I make the edit, and if you or someone disagrees, then we start a discussion, because I have a feeling only 1 out of 10 edits I make will have any controversy, so why should everyone waste time with every tiny edit. I don't have plans to make many edits - the site is already long enough. I'm mostly correcting mistakes or making things clearer right now.

With regard to your claim that most news articles are "against me," here are a couple of new ones that are not:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/denying-the-truth-doesnt-change-the-facts_us_5a20ef21e4b05072e8b567da?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2017/nov/30/climate-paper-center-scientist-versus-scientist-le/ Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 15:42, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

I'll respond to your other comments, but it may take some time.

One quick comment is that you haven't addressed the additional carbon emissions from nuclear plant construction due the strengthening of the plants to reduce risk of terrorist (particularly aircraft) attack. On April 24, 2007, NRC required all new US plants to meet this requirement. Westinghouse submitted proposed "changes in the design of its AP1000 reactor to NRC on May 29, 2007, proposing to line the inside and outside of the reactor’s concrete containment structure with steel plates to increase resistance to aircraft penetration."

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RS21131.pdf

Can you please point to any lifecycle studies that accounts for this? If not, do you not think this is an omission in Warner and Heath?

Similarly, do you not think Warner and Heath omitted lifecycle omissions for the reduced carbon sequestration underground due to sealing of soil with concrete in nuclear plants

Thanks.

171.66.208.145 (talk) 21:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Having been involved in the truly bizarre world of "outing" protocols before, in relation to an IP editor, I can tell you. It's really not worth the effort. You could be right but then again, if you are you're "outing" and that's taboo. While I personally think these rules are a little-too-snowflakey and I'm far more laid back about that sort of thing, I unfortunately, don't make the rules. Personally I don't see an issue unless it's curiously editing a missing persons article, which is what occured in my case, I considered it worth posing as a question, as someone editing an article on a missing person, with intimate knowledge of their last days, is as you can imagine, a little curious to say the least. It was actually related to you PhD adviser, Richard Turco would know the name Vladimir Alexandrov. I thought I did my due diligence over that, let other people take over, but then, these bizarre "outing" protocols and accusations arose. So you might be correct of Seán, but if you are. Well then that's a whirlwind of a mess you don't want to get into, believe me. Though don't be dissuaded if you truly feel it worth raising. The reading is on the WP:OUTING page.

Another issue that I haven't been involved with, yet, is paid editing, though ultimately editing without an effort to reflect the consensus scientific & balanced point of view, is primarily, the only thing worth challenging. I mean can you imagine the Andrew Wakefield article if we didn't include the raw data and consensus view on vaccines? We've had a lot of WP:POV pushing on that article(possibly involving paid editing too) but it really does not help by getting embattled and calling X "anti-vaxxers" and Y "vaccination advocates". Unless of course, you're faced with an the editor that isn't adding anything new, they aren't endeavoring to create a WP:BALANCE and they consistently cherry-pick dubious data. Only in those cases can you rationally start labelling people, though even still, it doesn't do much to advance the editorial discussion. As by your metric and I don't assume to know much about "ecomodernism", but by your metric, if the IPCC were to let us say, tweet about all low carbon power sources tomorrow, would that make them nuclear advocates? Or simply, low-carbon-power advocates?

However as I am interested in this editorial matter, I will get back to that, as I'm genuinely curious what you are arguing and you seem passionate about it, so it would be only courteous to respond, though this likely will be my last response on this narrow topic. To re-iterate, while you state that you did not use Van Leeuwan data, that does not mean you weren't influenced by it, that does not mean you didn't use their data from a secondary party. What I mean by this is, Beerten et. al writes that all the high-end emission figures ultimately come from | "studies...traced back to the same input data and performed by the same author, namely Storm van Leeuwen. After careful analysis, it must be concluded that the mix of selected LCAs results in a skewed and distorted collection of different results available in the literature". So I hope you can understand why I am treating the studies you used at your "high end", with suspicion. As Beerten et. al write that all the high-end studies can be pretty much traced back to Van Leeuwen/their injection of misleading data into the field of study.

I have no bias one way or the other about van Leeuwen. Even if his numbers are high, that simply means they should be updated or corrected rather than discarded. Even if his numbers are half of what they were published as, they are still in the range of at least 5 other independent studies. The solution of simply ignoring his studies has the impact of skewing statistics rather than using additional information available.

With regard to my lifecycle estimates of 9-70 g-CO2/kWh, as stated, my upper end is 40 g/kWh lower than the upper IPCC estimate as well as much lower than the upper limit of Warner and Heath and everyone else, and lower than the lowest value of van Leeuwen. It is also lower than at least 4 other independent studies and very close to a fifth. So, the answer to your question is no, I do not believe my upper end number is either directly or indirectly influenced by van Leeuwen's numbers, but I also believe that even if you don't believe in van Leeuwin's numbers, you cannot dismiss out of hand values that are half his numbers and he did account for factors many others did not (don't ask me to name them - this is what I've read somewhere) so it is also incorrect to dismiss his results entirely. 73.170.240.208 (talk) 06:28, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

On the nebulous plan+construction matter. To use a close at hand example. Oriel Wind Farm, near to my house in Ireland has been in the "planning" phase since 2003. If it is ever built then it'll at least, have taken 15+ years for this very small wind farm to be planned & constructed. Applying Jacobson's "opportunity cost" approach to wind energy such as this wind farm, would naturally generate equal absurdities. As not only would we have people going round saying "it takes 15+ years to plan and construct an offshore wind farm" but it also raises the question of where do you draw the line, what are the system boundaries, for what constitutes the "planning phase"? Does the clock start the very moment the engineer has the brainwave? As a lot of wind farms have been put on ice in Ireland, rather than stop the clock when a political issue arises, I take it, the clock is still running for these wind farms? If they do ever get built, a truly nebulous increase/spike in the "plan+construction phase" is going to be evident in the data on wind turbines. Are you going to be ok with that? Or would you call it nebulous? I know what I'd call it.

You raise some good questions, and I think the clearest definition is still in progress, but this is how I see it: If money is put down to purchase land or to obtain a loan or some other action is taken that represents a strong commitment that will prevent some other clean energy option from being implemented, that is when the clock starts ticking. I don't know much about Oriel Wind Farm, but it looks like it is offshore, so there is no land purchase involved. If a developer can put some type of notice in for that but it doesn't prevent him/her from developing another farm if that opportunity comes faster, then the clock hasn't started ticking.

One major difference between nuclear and onshore wind is that, for nuclear it is necessary to permit and purchase land upfront. For wind, it is possible to lease land rather than purchase it, so it not necessary to start a commitment so quickly. The second difference is that, for nuclear, it is all or nothing. For wind, it is possible to build half a farm and be done if money runs out. Third, there are so many more dangers for nuclear that permitting times and construction times are longer. For these additional reasons, the time-lag between planning and operation of nuclear will always be much greater than for wind.

With regard to extremes, they are excluded in both nuclear and wind cases. For example, Watts Bar Unit 2 took 42 years between planning and operation. I have not stretched the 10-19 year time frame to make it 42 years. For the same reason, I would not include the Cape Wind project since that is an outlier compared with all other U.S. wind farms, which effectively go up with 2-5 years between planning and operation. The 10-19 years for nuclear is a number I would estimate covers at least 90-95% of cases. 73.170.240.208 (talk) 06:50, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

As it seemingly was for the CO2-emission-figures dscussion we had above, it is the same for the "plan"-construction-time figures that, naturally feeds into it. It appears there is a consistent point of view WP:POV trend emerging with respect to Jacobson's publications on nuclear matters. One can naturally select the close-to extremes on both ends of the scale to push a particular point of view, for example taking Vattenfall's 3.3 g/kWh figure for nuclear or even Werner & Heath's median value of 9 grams and then highlighting the real world 80 g CO2/kWh of additional wind-energy-derived-emissions that Pehnt and colleagues concluded in (2008), some 80 grams of additional emissions derived from the use of wind turbines when one factors in the need to have or build reserve capacity, reserve that is increasingly needed for wind energy, when higher and higher grid penetration occurs. One could then take these two values 3 or 9 for nuclear and 80+11 for wind and say, in much the way Jacobson has, that in the real world "Nuclear is some 10-30+ times less polluting than wind energy when it comes to CO2, as far as the planet is concerned, which is really all that matters". One could likewise do this without putting the qualifiers in: that this is at the extreme, the best case scenario for nuclear being compared to wind at high grid penetration. So it's wind energy at close to, though not quite, at it's worst.

First, you may want to take a deep look at who is writing articles/blogs against my nuclear results (which are mostly in the 2009 Review article). They are virtually all nuclear advocates, since they are the ones who feel the most affected by the results. What does having 5 different articles by nuclear advocates mean? It just means they feel I am a threat. On the other hand, why not look at the citation of that article (978 on Google Scholar) versus, for example, the citation index of the articles critical of that paper. Specifically, for example, the Kharecha and Hansen response article you cite has 2 citations on Google Scholar. So, their articles is basically given equal weight although only 2 authors felt the paper was worthy of citation, with a paper that 978 authors felt worth of citation.

With regard to the argument that wind needs backup but nuclear does not, that argument is incredibly fallacious. Power demand is variable; nuclear supply is flat, so nuclear requires just as much backup as wind. Some claim that nuclear can match loads in France. That is BS. Nuclear only partially ramps in France (not in the US at all), but the time scale in France is long enough it still needs backup for other peaks.

More important, Lazard 11.0 https://www.lazard.com/media/450337/lazard-levelized-cost-of-energy-version-110.pdf shows now that the unsubsidized leveled cost of utility solar PV plus batteries is 8.2 cents/kWh, whereas the mean cost of nuclear without storage is 14.75 cents/kWh. Thus, a completely stable grid with solar/batteries is 55% the cost of nuclear before nuclear storage is even added in. Wind in Lazard is even cheaper than solar. This means your 80 g/kWh from Pehnt is entirely fiction. In fact, because you can buy 3 times the delivered stable energy supply with wind+batteries as you can with nuclear+batteries, that is an additional opportunity cost because with nuclear, the 2/3 of clean energy you cannot buy will allow the background fossil grid to emit more.

As such, in addition to the time lag between planning and operation, there is a huge opportunity cost in emissions from nuclear due to the fact that you can get only 1/3rd the power from nuclear as wind or solar for the same price, as proven in the latest costs of energy+storage by Lazard 11.0.

That is definitely something to add to the nuclear emissions 2601:647:4C00:6C69:8944:3DA8:67FE:6AB4 (talk) 07:19, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Would you similarly regard this as fair or balanced? It is taking the 11 value of the IPCC into account for wind energy. Is it not? How would you write a biography of someone that was advancing this reciprocal case? As ultimately, as an editor, you have a duty to readers to let them know that this is not the consensus value. You don't want to mislead readers on this, do you? So what one is looking for, is the median value, the value of actual merit, the median value that the IPCC support is ~9-12 g/kWh for both nuclear and Wind(when wind is at low grid penetration).

I am not sure why you think you are being fair when you say "taking the 11 value of the IPCC" when the IPCC clearly never once states in the text anywhere the number 11, but instead does state the range 4-110 g/kWh and states in the Executive Summary "less than 100 g/kWh." Can you point to exactly in IPCC where they adopt the number 11 as opposed to the range 4-110 or less than 100 as part of their recommendation. Just because this claim is repeated and put on Wikipedia doesn't make it true. Just because they cite some other study doesn't override what they state in the text. 2601:647:4C00:6C69:8944:3DA8:67FE:6AB4 (talk) 07:30, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Likewise, as Hansen remarks, the plan+construction time is not Jacobson's "10-19 years". It can and has been, in reality some ~6 years, when Hansen's "political framework" is in place. All this does therefore indeed cast a WP:NOTABLE net over Jacobson's claim of "10-19 years" being typical, when it is in truth, a controversial claim. We'll give Jacobson a fair shake, but we have a duty to readers too. Incidentally, as a major editor on the article : Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of energy sources, I would welcome your "opportunity cost" analysis, if and when it is applied to all energy sources in a fair manner. It could add to the field of study, if or when the same scrutiny is given to wind as you have given to nuclear. Perhaps Oriel Wind Farm will get a mention for 15+ years of planning and the Pehnt (2008) figures on the deleterious reserve capacity effect hat results from high wind energy penetration? Some 80 grams of CO2 occuring at the extreme.

Where does your claim, "It can and has been, in reality some ~6 years when Hansen's "political framework" is in place" come from? The 6 years for construction alone may be a reasonable, albeit optimistic, estimate, but you are ignoring everything else, which does not get wished away. In addition, why are you giving more weight to Hansen rather than to the 7 authors of http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es401667h who specific republished and agreed with the opportunity cost emissions of nuclear from Jacobson (2009). Hansen is not an energy expert; he is a climate expert and nuclear advocate. He has barely published any papers on energy, whereas the 7 authors on the other paper are all energy experts with numerous publications. You make the claim that Hansen's remark casts some kind of net, as if 7 far more experienced authors' opinions mean nothing. 73.170.240.208 (talk) 07:52, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Though to return to nuclear construction times. As Jacobson has not cited any kind of intimate study of construction times, instead selecting reactors that fit into their criteria and seemingly ignoring all those that don't. The rebuttal issued by Hansen stands up to scrutiny, despite some serious efforts to misdirect attention away from it, and or, try to have it removed from this encyclopedia. That is, if I'm not mistaken, the editorial desire here, correct? When, without an authoritative IAEA study that explicitly supports this "10-19 year" suggestion. Without something like this, I hope you can see that the entire thing, just seems to be an exercise in pretty much worst-case-scenarios being presented as somehow typical or normal. I also find it especially curious, why, there has been no effort by Jacobson to likewise compute these "opportunity costs" from delays in wind farm construction and planning objections^? Why this, essentially upper-end worst case scenario methodology is only employed by Jacobson when it comes to nuclear energy and it literally has never been applied in the case of wind energy by Jacobson or his colleagues? I find that especially curious. The whole publication enterprise, smacks of a kind of upper-high-end apples-to-oranges comparison. If Jacobson's "opportunity cost"+ "catastropic risk" methodology, if that methodology actually helps in determining the most efficacious energy sources to pursue, if that methodology has true merit, why not apply it to wind-wave and solar? Why did Jacobson only apply it to nuclear?

If you disagree with the 10-19 years and if you disagree with the 7 expert authors here http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es401667h who agree with the 10-19 years, then you should write and try to publish your own peer-reviewed paper on the subject. Please don't just throw barbs and provide inaccurate information. For example, you claim, Jacobson has not cited any kind of intimate study of construction time. That is simply not true. Earlier on this page, I stated that Koomey and Hultman (2007) provides construction times for all U.S. reactors completed after 1970, and the AVERAGE was 9 years. Further, stating "the rebuttal of Hansen stands up to scrutiny" is high comedy. His claim that the construction time for a bunch of reactors in France was 15 years? That is only the construction time, not the planning to operation time. You then exaggerate by saying the opportunity costs are "worst-case scenarios." More BS. The LCA's alone are less extreme than the IPCC range. You then claim that the opportunity cost methodology was not applied to wind, wave, and solar. More BS. In fact it was in Jacobson (2009). Did you not read the paper? 73.170.240.208 (talk) 08:07, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

As you included the "mean value derived from hundreds of papers on the CO2 emissions from nuclear, including those of Van Leeuwan" and arrived at (68 g CO2/kWh) + "opportunity costs derived from assuming build rates are 10-19 years" (108 g CO2/kWh) + nuclear wars every 30 years. (4.1 g CO2/kWh). Sum = 180.1 g CO2/kWh. A value and treatment which most everyone recognizes, is by definition, the worst case scenario for the "mean" value, for the delay period and nuclear wars every 30 years.

To give wind, the actual same scrutiny. You would've produced something like this.

• The("mean" of wind energy at low grid penetration is 35 g CO/kWh) +

• Add the opportunity cost of delays with wind farms, (let's assume something equally high and not at all the median, of 10 years) = 59 g CO/kWh +

• Then add Pehnt and colleagues 2008 analysis of utility scale wind energy, no wind turbines in isolation but the "system wide issues unique to intermittent sources", that is the backup power-supply needs for wind energy and therefore let's include the real-world issue that wind energy at high-grid-penetration produces downstream emission effects on the other generation systems within the grid, when wind is at a "high" 20-40% grid penetration in Germany the value was found to be an additional = ~ 80 g CO/kWh +

• Now on top of that, let's then add the team at MIT's hypthothesis that deriving just "10% of world energy from wind will increase the world surface temperature due to changing wind patterns, by some 1 degree celcius" and quite plausibly considerably more that 1 degree celcius if it's Jacobson's ~30% of world energy that is planned in the renewable world approach, all this, thus then equals = Well that's a good question, isn't it? How many units of carbon dioxide equivalent are we to add here?

Response. A) A mean of 35 g-CO2/kWh is inaccurate for any large turbine (2.5 MW or larger) operating in wind speeds > 7 m/s. I challenge you to find a single lifecycle study for a turbines under these conditions with such emissions, let alone a "mean" value.

B) Opportunity costs of wind relative to nuclear are always 0 because nuclear always takes longer than wind between planning and operation. The time-lag between planning and operation for wind is 2-5 years.

C) The Pehnt values are negative, not positive, because because wind+batteries is less than 8 cents/kWh, whereas nuclear is 14.75 according to Lazard 11.0, as discussed earlier.

D) Wind turbines reduce global temperatures, not increase them, as demonstrated with global modeling accounting for the competition among wind turbines for available kinetic energy on Page 15,683 of https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/SatWindPot2012.pdf

As such, your scenario does not hold water. 73.170.240.208 (talk) 08:19, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Either way, even neglecting that possibly critical problem with the plan that the MIT team have raised, we already have 35+59+80 = 174 g CO2/kWh . This is essentially the same as Jacobson's nuclear value of 180.1 g CO/kWh. The point here, is not to begin championing this comparable 174 g CO2/kWh numberfor wind. It is merely to give a general outline of what would occur if one gave wind the same close-to-"worst-case-scenario" scrutiny, that Jacobson gave nuclear. When one does, one clearly does not come away with Jacobson's statement that "wind energy results in 9-25 times less CO2 emissions than nuclear". One instead comes away realizing that, in these near to, but not quite, worst-case-scenarios vs worst-case-scenarios assessments, it could be wind energy that actually comes away with the larger number of question marks over it. Depending upon the assumptions that one makes. It is this general criticism of Jacobson that come from more energy ambivalent de-carbonizing scholars in the field and that is the general WP:CONSENSUS opinion. By the way, there is even a paper dealing with nuclear construction times/"opportunity costs", titled : Apples and oranges: Comparing nuclear construction costs across nations, time periods, and technologies. It seems that "apples-to-oranges" issues are endemic to the issue of nuclear energy, in much the same as are generated from GMO crops and vaccines, which have likewise, such strong opinions and personalities intentionally publishing to generate policy-changing statements on them.

Again, another paper by 3 nuclear advocates and not even a question as to whether the paper is objective. 73.170.240.208 (talk) 08:22, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

In any case, Hansen, in his rebuttal to Jacobson & Sovacool etc. Hansen cited the french build rate of nuclear energy facilities. Despite this not being the forum to get into this discussion, because you are passionate about it and out of a desire to be fair to editor Mark Z. Jacobson & also out of just sheer curiosity. When one just goes and looks up the French build rate as Hansen suggests, the Gravelines Nuclear Power Station was planned, built and commissioned between 1973-1980. This was a dual reactor facility in 1980 and these 2 reactors, the dual ~2000 MW power station was planned in earnest, "financed" & finished in 6-7 years. This is not supportive of Jacobson's "10-19 years". Therefore it is fair and uncontrovserial to retain Hansen's rebuttal. Or do you have some firm data that suggests the "planning" didn't occur in earnest, in 1973?

The website says construction started in 1974. What evidence do you have that planning started in 1973? It took me 1 year just to plan my house construction, let alone to site, permit, finance, plan, obtain orders for a nuclear power plant. I call BS unless you can provide firm evidence. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 08:35, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I also don't know what website you are referring to, with respect to Gravelines Nuclear Power Station? From my reading, the oil shocks of 1973 served as the impetus for the French Messmer plan and that propelled the planning into a firm commitment. With the dual Gravelines facility built over the period 1974-1980 and likewise both, connected to the grid in that same year. This represents a dual reactor facility that was planned & constructed in under 7 years, well below Jacobson's "10-19 year" suggestion that is for a single reactor...and by the way, I just selected this Gravelines facility at random. There are very likely, faster planned and built facilities, that another, more knowledgeable editor, could chip-in with? That might further put this "10-19 years" suggestion, in its proper context.

However, having recognized that this too is just one, essentially anecdotal example and wanting something scholarly to put this "10-19 years" suggestion, in its rightful context. I did some digging and sure enough Hansen is correct. See Fig 5. from Energy Policy 2016. The median construction time for French reactors, which were typically dual facilities, was some 5-7 years. Not Jacobson's "10-19" years. This paper also states the following of interest to this question of financing that Jacobson brought up and I thought it worth including, to satisfy anyone elses curiousity. It states. - "It is clear that there is not a singular cost trend for nuclear technology, but a plurality of different country-specific experiences"...With the US on one end of increasing costs and South Korea on the other, with costs decreasing. I note that you again did not select any S.Korean reactors to support your "10-19 years" suggestion? As they seemingly are on the faster end of plan-build-commission. The paper further continues "The latest experience in South Korea, with its standardized design and stable regulatory regime, suggests the possibility of learning-by-doing in nuclear power"...It is this exact factor that Hansen expresses in his rebuttal to Jacobson, in relation to plan+construction times depending upon the "political situation". - From the analysis done here by Norhaus & Lovering in 2016, one gets the impression that the primary cause of delays in other countries, when they occurred, was primarily due to the so called "regulatory-flux" and a myriad of other changing political/economic uncertainties. In an identical manner to wind farms, it is not any intrinsic issue to the technology and historically, delays were not typical. There are some 400 civil nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Though it is the very suggestion that delays are inherently typical to nuclear, which is the impression that Jacobson seems to be championing? That nuclear cannot remain or be an increasing part of the energy portfolio employed to combat CO2 emissions, because of these historically untypical delays? It seems pretty tenuous at best.

A construction time of 5-7 years in right in the middle of the estimate construction times of 4-9 years for nuclear in Jacobson (2009). Obviously whoever is writing this still hasn't bothered to read the 2009 paper that explains the full time between planning and operation. Clearly, whoever is making this comment doesn't care about accuracy, just expediency Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 08:40, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Another criticism of Jacobson, that somewhat ties into this whole "opportunity cost"/emissions-occuring-from-delays approach, comes from ^| Cohen from the Clean Air Task Force (who) compares the Cape Wind project, which would have installed 468 megawatts of wind turbines off Cape Cod. "That project collapsed following legal and political opposition from millionaire landowners, but also local townspeople and fishermen. Jacobson’s proposal amounts to building nearly 1,700 times the offshore capacity of Cape Wind." - While this is, an acknowledged, singular and perhaps similarly undue example, it does raise the issue that wind energy can have major delays and NIMBYism too, in fact it would appear, given the number of wind turbines suggested by Jacobson for the "100% renewable world", which number in the millions, it would appear that going by Jacobson's methodology of adding "opportunity costs" onto energy sources due to delays and opposition to the construction. Then it would be wind turbines, it will be wind energy, that will bear the brunt of the most delays/"opportunity costs". As they have and will increasingly have a major "opporrtunity cost" facing them, no matter what way you try to slice it, the "100% renewable world" plan, that is reliant on Wind & Dams, will by definition, have far longer delays, legal challeneges and NIMBYism than the more energy ambivalent plans that are being proposed by others, to de-carbonize the world. Simply down to the fact that the specific scale of construction proposed by Jacobson is unparalleled by everyone else. This is again the general sentiment of others in the field of study. With Cohen from the Clean Air Task Force being yet another critic who expresses a general dubious attitude towards the plan. Cohen, is again someone who is WP:NOTABLE. The WP:CONSENSUS in the field of decarbonization, is that the "100% renewable world" plan is the least realistic. Is it not? It is the one that has received the most criticism, right?

As stated earlier, the 10-19 years for nuclear (and 2-5 years for wind) account for at least an estimated 90-95% of projects. Extremes, such as the 42-year Watts Bar nuclear project and Cape Wind are outliers not captured in those numbers. Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 08:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

To end with, do you have a reference for this claim -> "All but nuclear advocates concede it takes much longer between planning and operation of a nuclear plant than it does for a wind or solar farm on average." This claim appears to be unsourced. As I have actually never seen a capacity factor inclusive toe-to-toe done between the two? If this is truly common knowledge then surely there is data to support it. To be fair and have a level-playing-field, we'd need to toss out the wild card of NIMBYism and the like of millionaires protesting against things, likewise it would need to look at median construction times, in a G20 country for all the technologies. The time it takes to go from greenfield status to electricity production. That would be interesting to see data on, you'd need to ensure that you select countries that actually have current experience on all 3, countries that both produces, installs and sell: Solar(CSP, PV) units, reactors and wind turbines. Which is just China and S.Korea, right now. Correct? How fast can a consistent 1 to 5000 Megawatt facility be installed? An interesting question. Do you have median data on the time for something like that?

Boundarylayer (talk) 16:12, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

All you need to do is look at the rate of wind buildout in Iowa, for example, or solar buildout in Hawaii. Some solar plants are now put up (between planning and operation) of less than 1 year. I am sure I can dig out multiple citations, but I'm afraid this has taken way too much time for now. Goodnight.Mark Z. Jacobson (talk) 08:46, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

You guys are covering a lot of subjects in this section on "bias/outside help". It would be helpful to move things out into separate sections since things are becoming mess -- Sjschen (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Though I think editor Mark Z. Jacobson has suggested he does not wish to continue discussing the merits of their proposed edit changes? Specifically, editor Mark Z. Jacobson indicated that the criticism written by Professor James Hansen should be removed or re-worded to suggest Jacobson was correct on this matter of fact? This matter of data, of fact, has I'll admit raised my curiousity over Jacobson's suggestion that "It takes 10-19 years to plan-to-commission a nuclear energy facility". As alongside the 1970s French plan+construction rate, which Hansen specifically was referring to, there is also the more recent South Korean building rate that corroborates it, alongside this reference that a fellow editor on the CANDU page just added. In relation to the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant. The station completed 2 reactors(700 MWe each) in the timespan according to this IAEA reference on pg 10. "Contracts" signed "Feb 1997", First concrete, "June 1998",(construction phase), connected to grid 2003(commercial stage), both hundreds of days "ahead of schedule". That looks to be some 5-6 years to go from plan-to-commission. When the construction crew "have experience". Not Jacobson's "10-19" years. So Professor James Hansen's criticism of Jacobson's analysis, definitely seems to stand up to scrutiny.

In relation to the relevant data editor-Mark Z. Jacobson suggests I look up for Iowa wind or solar in Hawaii, I have not been able to find any reliable references that support their suggestion that the time it takes, between planning and grid connection for these projects was "less than 1 year".

The closest thing I could find was this 200 MWe nameplate capacity wind farm in Iowa, built by the German company Siemens and called the Whispering Willow Wind Farm – East. The small amount of data I could find on "Whispering Willow" was that construction or erection of the farm took about 1 year, it doesn't however say how long planning took, or does it even specify if commissioning of the farm occured concurrently or later, that is it does not specify at what point in time grid-connections and commercial production commenced? Though, for the sake of argument, assuming the best case scenario and this 1-year figure is indeed representative of reality for the plan-to-commissioning phase for this Iowa wind farm, at an installed 200 MWe of nameplate capacity with a lifetime capacity factor of 33% as like Ireland, it is unusually windy in Iowa, the wind blows very frequently.

Correcting for this capacity factor so that wind energy can be compared with more consistent energy sources, such as hydro and nuclear, this wind farm would roughly translate into being equivalent to a small ~ 70 MWe hydroelectric dam or nuclear reactor. Going by this rate, it would take the wind farm builders in Iowa, some 10 years to construct an equivalent energy CANDU reactor, which produces ~700 MWe. So even going by this unreferenced figure of a plan-to-commission time of just 1 year for this wind energy project, Jacobson's argument of "opportunity costs"/construction delays causing extra reliance on fossil fuels, that argument, actually appears to be against wind energy in Iowa, the most favored location for wind energy in the continental US. That's interesting. As the IAEA state that it took the experienced european builders in China just ~5 years to plan-&-commission the dual CANDU facility, a 700 MWe+700MWe system, it didn't take 10 years and it didn't take 20 years, as this is a dual facility, so I suppose one might argue that it's really 1400 MWe built in 5-6 years.

Do you know of any larger wind farms that have reliable plan-to-commission data on them, that might produce a more favorable comparison for wind energy? As I believe in fairness and appraising editor disputes rationally. I presently however see no convincing rationale for suggesting as you have argued, that James Hansen is wrong on this matter and Jacobson was correct. The contrary seems to be the reality and the "opportunity cost" metric for ranking energy sources by their rate of offsetting fossil fuels, a metric suggested by Jacobson, also seems to favor nuclear energy in most every comparison, such as the one just discussed here. Though as we discuseed before, this is more an issue for the article Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of energy sources which I am a major contributor to. While on that article, I'd like you to note that I added a factor that applies to nuclear energy, titled "Heat from thermal power plants". A section which is not favorable to such generating means. I bring this to your attention, just so we're clear, that you see that I agree with adding uncontested arguments and scientific data, whatever they might say.

Boundarylayer (talk) 23:03, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Article needs rewrite

Responding to Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Mark_Z._Jacobson:

I looked through the article history, hoping to find a good version to roll back to or work from, but I'm consistently finding a lack of historical context in the article and an emphasis on providing a soapbox for Jacobson and his research findings, sometimes with poor attempts at balance by adding criticisms.

To start a rewrite, the sources should be expanded with basic meta-info of publisher, date of publication, etc.

I suggest finding and identifying independent sources, highlighting those that provide historical and other broad contexts, then working from those sources. While other sources can be used, especially for providing details on topics already identified in the better sources, care should be taken not to use the poorer sources to determine weight or other emphasis. --Ronz (talk) 18:15, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

The "no primary source issue" WP:PRIMARY, is something that needs work.

Boundarylayer (talk) 23:09, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

My impression of the changes in consensus over time is that there is less and less tolerance for primary and non-independent sources, in line with our aim here to create a serious, respectable encyclopedia. --Ronz (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Problematic Higley Quote

In the article we read 'she later said her remarks were" insufficiently nuanced"'; but the referred website does not have the quoted words. In fact it has the opposite. It quotes a comment from her after showing the e-mail she had written, in which she says she provided a too complex answer to the journalist (presumably because the parts they selected were not those that she considered more important): 'in retrospect I think that my nuanced response was perhaps not the best way to respond to CNN’s inquiries'. N p holmes (talk) 16:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as you point out, there appears to be a consistent attempt to present both critiques by Higley and Burton Richter, in a manner that emphasizes the positive to the detriment of giving the actual balanced reviews, that each communicated, N p holmes.

...a number of people who made career choices to specialize in radiation biology and the health effects of low level radiation. Some of them have taken the time (in 2012) to approach Dr. Jacobson directly and to offer to share their knowledge of the field so that he might produce a better, more informed scholarly work. My information from those sources is that he has stubbornly refused that assistance and has repeated(ly) cited two snippets from Burton Richter’s two page commentary about the paper...It is a first rate job… and I agree with the authors’ choice.

"Richter’s concluding commentary, points out that Jacobson’s paper contains evidence of an antinuclear intent" "I also think there is too much editorializing about accident potential at Diablo Canyon which makes the paper sound a bit like an anti-nuclear piece instead of the very good analysis that it is."

Richter's 2 page commentary and its conclusion are notable as after publishing, in more recent years, Jacobson has specifically mentioned that he now advocates for Diablo Canyon to be closed.

This dimension to Jacobson's work, specifically their publication history on an energy facility that they do not like, and now their more recent public advocacy directed at closing that facility, here now, 5-6 years down the line, was something that was added by an IP editor last month here. If you care to check the edit history, their addition wasn't perfect but closer to the mark. Jacobson however took issue with the entirety of what the IP editor added and has re-written that paragraph to essentially read, It is a first rate job… and I agree with the authors’ choice.

This consistent selection of sentiments and the dismissal of all others, is something that you and many others have picked up on and perhaps if you have the time, please be WP:BOLD and take a balanced stab at writing the paragraph in question, to reflect the source and indeed the critique made by Richter in his conclusion of Jacobson's paper.

Boundarylayer (talk) 17:02, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Change title

I suggest to remove irrelevant personal details and change the title to express that this article describes scientific analyses rather than a scientist. Then the biographies of living persons policy does not apply. Jacobson is not an isolated author. Rwbest (talk) 11:15, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

What do you mean by "irrelevant personal details"? Guy (Help!) 17:07, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Intro

JzG reverted my edit of the intro and wrote on my Talk page:

The statements you added to Jacobson's article represented his opinion as fact - this is not a good thing to do, since he's an outlier in many areas. Please propose changes on Talk first. Thanks. Guy.

I edited the intro because it does not summarize well the article. The statements added to the intro are taken from the article text and make the intro more balanced. Why is that not good?

The article needs rewriting. I intend to use Amory Lovins as an example for my edit of Jacobson, and change the intro accordingly.

There are several ways to decarbonize energy supply: nuclear, sun, wind, hydropower, biomass with replanting, carbon capture with storage, and more. Jacobson proposes WWS and supports that with groundbraking research. Of course he gets critisism, like Lovins got. He was an outlier like Lovins was long ago, but now he is not.

Please don't revert my edits immediately, that makes work impossible. Rwbest (talk) 09:57, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Your "work" is introducing problems. For example, your edit contains "Controlling soot is the fastest way to begin to control global warming and it will likewise improve human health" - this is an opinion stated as fact, as I have pointed out several times. Per WP:BRD, you made an edit, it was reverted, the onus is now on you to achieve consensus for the changes you want to make. Jacobson is an outlier in many ways, as the article makes clear, so we need to eb clear per WP:FRINGE that we don't unfairly represent his views in the context of the global community of climate scientists. Your response to these concerns has been merely to reinsert exactly the same text with no modification. that's not how it works.

As to using Lovins as an example, please point out whee int he Lovins article we discuss his attempts to use SLAPP suits to shout down criticism of ideas widely seen as impractical. If Lovins didn't do that, then the Jaobson article will always be different. Guy (Help!) 10:45, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I changed "Controlling soot is .." to Controlling soot could be .." Rwbest (talk) 16:52, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

It would also be nice when you removed all sources written or co-written by Jacobson and replace them by independent, reliable sources. The Banner talk 18:25, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Agree. This is not consensus science, it needs to be placed in proper context per WP:FRINGE. I looked for other sources making similar claims re soot, yesterday. None that looked reliable. Bit of a red flag.Guy (Help!) 10:04, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

The Banner, this article is mainly about his research for which he famous, so it is ridiculous to remove all sources written or co-written by him.

Guy, I added some sources about controlling soot in the main text. Rwbest (talk) 14:31, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

You can mention the research in the main text, but you have to back it up with reliable, independent sources as this is not a CV. The Banner talk 08:34, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

The lead is very short now. It is not a proper summary at all. I proposed a text, see User:Rwbest/sandbox, which was removed many times. PLEASE SUGGEST A BETTER LEAD. Rwbest (talk) 14:31, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

That's not how it works. You are the one who wants to change it, you propose a better one, and when there's consensus for it, it can be edited. Guy (Help!) 17:07, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

??? I proposed a better lead and ask now for suggestions to improve the lead. Why should that not work? You remove the added sources about controlling soot. Why? You are only criticizing and removing edits instead of helping to improve the article. Rwbest (talk) 17:45, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

No, you added the same thing you've been pushing from the outset. Suggest a change here, see if it gets consensus, if it does, then add to the article. That's how it works. Guy (Help!) 18:11, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

• Coming to this discussion for the first time, after seeing it mentioned at ANI. For proportional coverage:

1) the lawsuit does not belong in the lede. It is excessive in weight to the discussion of his work in general. 2) the paragraph on the lawsuit should explain the claims made--it may be to some extent a repetition of material earlier, but it should be written as a very short summary in two or three sentences. If the lawsuit was also against the authors of the paper, that should be indicated. If there was a response to them, involving the scientific issues, that should similarly be briefly included also. If however the lawsuit was withdrawn because of the unlikeliness of such a claim against the journal being successful in the US court system, that should be included if there is a 3rd party reliable source. 3. The controversial scientific results are in greatly extensive detail. To the extent possible, they should rather be discussed in the articles on the specific subjects of contention being analyzed. I;'ve done editing here of thousands of biographies of scientists, and it is not generally appropriate to include such detailed analysis of the science in the biography. DGG ( talk ) 01:49, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

• @DGG: The lawsuit is the only reason most people have heard of him: it is what he is mainly known for. He assiduously manages his brand, but it still appears on the first page opf Google results for his name, and it was discussed in Nature, the most prestigious scientific journal on the planet. In fact I think it might have been Jacobson himself who put it there, and he then became upset when perspectives other than his own were included.

The lawsuit is highly unusual, almost to the point of independent notability. Michael Mann sued for libel, but the statements at issue there were made outside the realm of scientific publishing. Google "scientific journal sued for libel" and this is the most prominent case. Peter Wilmshurst was sued in England by the maker of a product his studies showed didn't work, and that was one of the cases that led to a change in English libel law. Another example is Hi‐Tech Pharm., Inc. v. Cohen, but in both these cases the plaintiff was selling a product that was shown not to work. I cannot find any other examples of a scientist suing a journal for libel because his ideas were criticised - and that's probably why it made national press. There have reportedly been examples of libel claims in pre-print ([1]) including defamatory papers or paragraphs withdrawn as a result, and a small number of possibly similar examples over the years, but a lot of discussion of those is in the context of discussing this case.

Jacobson, incidentally, remains convinced that he is absolutely in the right, that publishing this critique of his work was defamatory and unacceptable, and that defending the suit rather than settling was outrageous, as the respondents apparently figured he couldn't afford to pursue it. That view, like many of his other theories, appears to be idiosyncratic: Ken White wrote that the suit was "clearly vexatious and intended to silence dissent". Normally in science, if you disagree with a paper you write a letter to the journal that stands alongside the paper (some of these academic spats are hilarious). Jacobson believes the paper is Wrong™ and therefore must be corrected. That is an unusually dogmatic view, and again contributes to the unusually high profile of this case. As I say, taken form the point when the case became public knowledge, few articles about Jacobson fail to mention the case, and most articles about academics suing journals, mention it. It's notable from both angles.

I agree with you that Jacobson's views are given excessive weight in this article compared to their objective status in the field. This is not a surprise: the article was started by a sockpuppet and has a long history of promotional editing, including by the subject himself. It's been pruned several times but could undoubtedly do with more. Guy (Help!) 07:57, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Guy, why did you remove the added sources about controlling soot? Please answer. Rwbest (talk) 09:01, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Because you are presenting an idiosyncratic view without independent context. As I said before. I searched for references to contribution of carbon particulates to warming, but I am really struggling to find any that reference Jacobson but are not authored by him - i.e. any which analyse the validity of his claims and put them in context. What sources are there for this which reference Jacobson but are not written by him? This article is consistently too close to Jacobson and his own writing and does not relay half enough on independent sources. Guy (Help!) 09:07, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

DGG. I agree. Maybe it's better to reduce the Jacobson article to short sections about his education and research, followed by the list of his publications, as I did on the Dutch Wiki https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z._Jacobson. In a separate article I wrote about his WWS plan and the critisism https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energievoorziening_met_wind,_waterkracht_en_zonlicht. Rwbest (talk) 14:10, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

And those two articles perfectly exemplify the problem. Neither is neutral. Guy (Help!) 08:09, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Guy, you searched for independent references about soot, I added two and you removed them because you supposed that Jacobson authored them, right? He did not, so please revert your removal or come up with a valid reason. Rwbest (talk) 07:48, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Do you understand what "independent" means in this context? Guy (Help!) 08:01, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Guy, here are more examples of your prejudices. In your answer to DGG about the Nature article you "think it might have been Jacobson himself who put it there". He did not. You also "cannot find any other examples of a scientist suing a journal for libel because his ideas were criticised". In fact, the lawsuit was not because his ideas were criticised, but about falsification and fabrication of three material statements of fact, as is clear from the lawsuit itself. Rwbest (talk) 10:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Do you think accusing people of "prejudices" helps your case? I know what Jacobson asserts. I also know how independent sources describe his lawsuit. There is a substantial disparity. Wikipedia goes by the independent third party sources. We already know that Jacobson hates that, but it's really not our problem to fix. Guy (Help!) 11:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the arguments subsequent to my comment, I continue to think it excessive weight to put the lawsuit in the lede.It should of course be treated in the article, probably in somewhat more detail. There is presumably some third party comment on the case to be used as a reference.

I additionally think it is not the purpose of a WP article or a WP talk page to discuss the validity of scientific work as if it were a referees report on a paper. Third party opinions on the validity should be given, in a balanced manner. We do not have to decide the scientific consensus, but just say what authorities think it to be.

There's no rule that you have to accept my opinion. You're welcome to ask others also. I'm not planning to look at this further. DGG ( talk ) 01:15, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Guy, clearly you have no valid reason to remove the added sources about controlling soot. Your removal was perhaps by accident, no problem if you restore the sources. Rwbest (talk) 09:04, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

If one excludes the valid reasons I gave on the grounds that they do not fit your determination to include these claims, then you'd be right. But that's not how it works. Guy (Help!) 08:07, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I propose to replace the unbalanced lead by the text below. Following the opinion of DGG the lawsuit is not mentioned in the lead, it should be summarized in the main text. Rwbest (talk) 09:48, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Proposed lead

Mark Zachary Jacobson (born 1965) is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and director of its Atmosphere/Energy Program. Jacobson has developed computer models to study the effects of fossil fuel and biomass burning on air pollution, weather, and climate. His GATOR-GCMOM computer model simulates air pollution, weather, and climate. With this model he refined the range of values on exactly how much black carbon affects the climate and concluded that it may be the second leading cause of global warming. Controlling soot could be the fastest way to begin to control global warming and it will likewise improve human health.

Jacobson, along with his primary coauthor, Dr. Mark Delucchi, published in 2009 a paper proposing that the world move to 100% renewable energy, namely wind, water, and solar power, in all energy sectors.

In 2015 they published two peer-reviewed papers that examined the feasibility of transitioning the United States to a 100% energy system, powered exclusively by wind, water and sunlight (WWS). He addressed the grid reliability problem with high shares of intermittent sources. For this study Jacobson and his co-workers got a prize in March 2016, and also criticism for making modeling errors and assumptions in June 2017. In his response Jacobson wrote that all error claims are false.

In the lasting debate about nuclear power Jacobson argues that if the United States wants to reduce global warming, air pollution and energy instability, it should invest only in the best energy options, and that nuclear power is not one of them.

What do you not understand of the part "independent sources"? The Banner talk 09:56, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

The lawsuit appears to be a large part of his notability to the general public. I think the current lede far better than this proposal. --Ronz (talk) 20:08, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree. The lawsuit is a major point of notability and as the lead summarizes the article, needs to be mentioned. Natureium (talk) 20:13, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

The section Soot and Aerosol has independent references [7], [27], [28] and two more if the sources added by me but removed by Guy are restored. Rwbest (talk) 07:48, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Reads as a fan page, all self-sourced, and doesn't mention the highly public lawsuit, so: no thanks. Guy (Help!) 08:18, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

The present lead must adhere to BLP which includes NPOV. It does not. NPOV demands fairness and proportionalty, which are not nearly met. Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times. The lawsuit gets disproportional weight in the present lead. NPOV cannot be superseded by editor consensus. It must be replaced! Rwbest (talk) 15:32, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

The lead and the article also need to be sourced by Reliable and Independent Sources, not by sources written or co-written by Jacobson. The Banner talk 19:58, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

New version of the lead

RWbest changed the proposed lead without being clear about this. Here is new version and I have restore the old version above. The Banner talk 13:48, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I added text and independent sources to the new version. Rwbest (talk) 15:27, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Mark Zachary Jacobson (born 1965) is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. He investigates air pollution and global warming problems.

Jacobson (1994) developed a unified fully-coupled online meteorology-chemistry-aerosol-radiation model on urban and regional scale: a gas, aerosol, transport, and radiation air quality model / a mesoscale meteorological and tracer dispersion model (GATOR/MMTD, also called GATORM).

Jacobson, along with his primary coauthor, Mark Delucchi, published in 2009 a paper proposing that the world move to 100% renewable energy, namely wind, water, and solar power, in all energy sectors.

In the debate about the Paris Agreement on Climate Change the analysis of Jacobson and his co-workers was supported in 2016. Neither fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage nor nuclear power enters the least-cost, low-carbon portfolio. They got a prize in March 2016, but also in June 2017 criticism for making modeling errors and wrong assumptions. In his response Jacobson et al. wrote that all error claims are false.

Ow, the second paragraph is an one-on-one-copy from the source. The Banner talk 15:37, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

The last para looks like WP:SYN to me, and Rbwest still relies far too heavily on Jacobson himself as a source. Guy (Help!) 15:49, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

And another new version...

How to get chaos in the discussion... The Banner talk 15:37, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Mark Zachary Jacobson (born 1965) is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. He investigates air pollution and global warming problems.

Jacobson (1994) developed a unified fully-coupled online meteorology-chemistry-aerosol-radiation model on urban and regional scale: a gas, aerosol, transport, and radiation air quality model / a mesoscale meteorological and tracer dispersion model (GATOR/MMTD, also called GATORM).

Jacobson, along with his primary coauthor, Mark Delucchi, published in 2009 a paper proposing that the world move to 100% renewable energy, namely wind, water, and solar power (WWS), in all energy sectors.

In 2015 they published two peer-reviewed papers that examined the feasibility of transitioning the United States to a 100% energy system, powered exclusively by WWS. Jacobson et al. addressed the grid reliability problem with high shares of intermittent sources and showed using LOADMATCH and GATORM simulation that reliable energy supply with WWS is feasible.

In the debate about the Paris Agreement on Climate Change the analysis of Jacobson and his co-workers was supported in 2016. Neither fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage nor nuclear power enters the least-cost, low-carbon portfolio. They got a prize in March 2016, but also in June 2017 criticism for making modeling errors and wrong assumptions. In his response Jacobson et al. wrote that all error claims are false.

The second paragraph is still a copy of the source. The Banner talk 15:42, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, this version is way to much reflecting the viewpoints of mr. Jacobson and not neutral. It would be positive when it is mentioned that he has withdrawn the court case to silence his opponents and the reasoning behind that.

But far better would be that RWbest stops working on the lead and first improves the article to a neutral one, sourced with proper independent and reliable sources. As the leads is a summery of the article, first the article must become reliable and not a hallelujah-story. The Banner talk 15:48, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

As above, the last para looks like WP:SYN to me, and Rbwest still relies far too heavily on Jacobson himself as a source. Not an improvement. Rbwest will not make the article less of a hallelujah story, this much is pretty clear. His focus is entirely the other way. Guy (Help!) 15:49, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

The Banner doesn't understand the difference between science and POV. My new version summarizes Jacobson's research including the WWS proposal and its scientific foundation. WWS is a way to replace fossil emissions, as are nuclear and CCS. Of course proponents of the latter two ways critisize Jacobson, that's ok. It's not ok that Clack et al. publish error claims which are demonstrably false. The lawsuit was over publishing false statements, it was not to silence criticism.

I want to replace the unfair, unbalanced lead first, and then proceed to the main text which is not a hallelujah story but needs editing too. But clearly The Banner and Guy are only trying to keep that old lead. Rwbest (talk) 09:55, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Alternative hypothesis: you are here to fix the real-world problem that Jacobson is not recognised as the visionary you and he think him to be, per WP:RGW. In support of this hypothesis: you have 500 mainspace edits to a handful of articles, versus TheBanner's 30,000 plus edits to thousands of articles. This happens all the time with scientists. You probably don't realise the difference between Wikipedia and academic publishing. Guy (Help!) 10:03, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Seeing our history, it is you having a problem with WP:RS, WP:SYNTH and WP:OO. And including a blunt refusal to give proper sources, like on Talk:Worldwide energy supply. The Banner talk 10:26, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

What one editor deems "fair" is not the same as proper POV. Please get consensus first. Look to WP:DR if you are feeling frustrated by your lack of progress at this point. --Ronz (talk) 16:37, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 July 2018

Typo on page: "pulications" should be "publications" Mcps39 (talk) 13:45, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Synthesis and COI

@Wtmusic: please explain this addition to the lead section of the article, when it violates WP:LEAD (the lead should provide an overview of the body of the article, and the body doesn't mention it), it's cited only to primary sources, and it appears to be a non-notable fact singled out among many others in the subject's VC.

Your edit summary indicates that you feel there's evidence of some sort of conflict of interest, but this isn't mentioned or implied anywhere in the sources cited, and WP:SYNTHESIS on Wikipedia is prohibited. I have removed the statement because the WP:BURDEN of supporting this addition hasn't been met. ~Anachronist (talk) 17:43, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

@Anachronist: I've read your comments, and for the most part appreciate and agree with the corrections you've made. As a relative novice I welcome any suggestions on how I might improve my participation on Wikipedia.

The YouTube video is an exception. Wikipedia's policy for using videos as references states "There are channels for videos uploaded by agencies and organizations generally considered reliable...". Do you have any reason to assume World Efficiency is an unreliable source, that the material in the video was not produced by World Efficiency (their banner appears multiple times therein), or that the video was doctored or edited to use climatologists' comments out of context? Otherwise, the video is subject to peer review like any other, and alternative interpretations of comments in the video would be welcome.

Also: "...don't use the YouTube information, but instead find the original movie or TV program's data.". The YouTube information is, as far as I can determine, the only record (and a valuable one) of these climatologists' comments, and I hope you will help me understand what might qualify as editorializing in my edits.

Yes - I do feel the YouTube material is absolutely necessary to include, as well as the designation of his 100%-renewables papers as "controversial" - there are many reputable sources of disagreement with Jacobson's perspective. I have no conflict of interest with him, but seek to offer a balanced presentation of his topical and highly-controversial positions on renewables and nuclear energy. -Wtmusic (talk) 21:25, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing on the talk page.

First, we cannot dictate to readers how to interpret professional disagreement. We give readers the facts, which should be sufficient for them to form their own views about whether something is controversial. I removed the word "controversial" from one sentence because the cited source failed to characterize the paper as controversial. Generally it's a good idea to omit adjectives to avoid the appearance of subjectivity. Yes, there may actually be controversy. But it's better to state objectively that a paper was published that met with disagreement from peers.

I'm bothered by the YouTube video because interviews are considered primary sources, and primary sources aren't desirable. The interviews aren't covered independently in secondary sources, and the interviews have no connection to the lawsuit, as far as I can tell. Also, the quotations included do nothing more than accuse Jacobsen of making errors without actually presenting any arguments, so they're no better than subjective opinions, even if they do come from scientists. The interviews might be appropriate in a standalone article about a controversy, but in the context of a biography, they don't seem relevant. The lawsuit, on the other hand, received coverage in mainstream media, so it deserves a description in this article. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:54, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

@Anachronist: "alleging errors in methodology and assumptions" is an inaccurate summary of "writing his analysis involves 'errors, inappropriate methods, and implausible assumptions'". Key to Jacobson's theory of 100% WWS is the notion of plausibility - whether the hypothesis itself merits a lengthy, in-depth analysis, or instead such an analysis is being misused to confer legitimacy to what some believe to be a patently ridiculous idea to begin with. In my opinion, assumptive or methodical error implies oversight or carelessness; inappropriate methodology and implausibility calls into question the intent and competence of the author. Others may disagree. In such cases is it not best to include the exact wording they used, and allow readers to come to their own conclusions? Wtmusic (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

What is your objective here? To present the subject in the most critical light possible? You have expressed your own personal opinion about the author's competence. Trying to get that opinion reflected in this article by peppering it with quotations supporting that view amounts to WP:SYNTHESIS, and I warned you about that on your talk page. I advise you to disengage. This is a biography article. The subject of this article isn't how others view him or what others have said. It is sufficient to state that his claims have met with disagreement from other scientists. Readers can examine the citations if they want to learn more. More detail might be appropriate for a stand-alone article on the controversy generated, but not here. A biography article should focus on the subject of the article. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@Anachronist: Re: "how is that 'unsupported by reference'? It's plainly there. Replaced link with archive link." Former link provided was 404.

Yes, this is a common problem that we call WP:Link rot. A non-working link isn't, by itself, a reason to remove a true statement that was verifiable in the past. If you find dead links, it's a good idea to correct the citation with an archived version of the referenced page. Pasting the link into archive.org often finds an archive copy. If that fails, I have found that the original page may still be found on the original site in another location because the site had changed the way it archives its own pages. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

@anachronist you discuss a good point about this being a biography. As per wp: primary "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge" then using the federal government source such as dccourts.gov and making a "descriptive statement of fact" such as "on (date) judge (name) ordered that (plantiff's/defendant's) motion is (granted/denied/withdrawn) " I am deeply confused as to how the above could be construed as an unreliable source, or a unverified statement of interpretation? Please explain and thank you for your coaching. LearnCivics (talk) 01:13, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

@anochronist: please see above paragraph. I forgot to use the : character. LearnCivics (talk) 01:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Lawsuit and anti-SLAPP undue weight in lead?

There seems to be some edit-warring over this currently, so I thought I'd bring this to the talk page. As explained in MOS:LEAD, the lead should be a summary of the article as a whole, and so should reflect the weight given different subjects in the body of the article. Currently, about 95% of this article is about the subject's research, and that appears to be what he is most notable for. However, most of the lead is dedicated to explaining the circumstances of his lawsuit against the National Academy of Scientists and the authors of that paper. If we're trying to follow WP:DUE and MOS:LEAD, then this is a problem. One approach would be to substantially rewrite the lead to give proper weight to his career and research, so that maybe a short sentence about the lawsuit would take up relatively the right amount of space. I'm probably not going to do that, and if no one else will, the the next best option would be to just remove mention of the lawsuit from the lead.

I don't know a lot about this guy. My impression of him is that he's a long-term researcher and professor who has published quite a few notable papers, and who also filed stupid and petty lawsuit. At this point it seems likely that'll he'll end up owing the defendants tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps hundreds of thousands, so make that an incredibly stupid lawsuit. The lawsuit got a lot of coverage in the mainstream press because of the novelty of a scientist suing a peer-reviewed publication for defamation. But I think Mark Jacobson is known primarily for his work. His research and ideas take up the vast majority of the article body, and rightly so. I think the coverage of the lawsuit in the body is fine as-is. But it shouldn't be over-represented in the lead.

User:The Banner, User:Rwbest, LearnCivics, what do you think? Red Rock Canyon (talk) 18:36, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Rwbest and User talk:Mark Z. Jacobson. This looks like another frivolous case. The Banner talk 18:39, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Do you have an opinion on my suggestion for the article? Red Rock Canyon (talk) 18:49, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I suggest to wait with that discussion till the AN/I-case is played out. The Banner talk 19:02, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Red Rock Canyon, as far as I can tell, the SLAPP suit is the only reason most people have heard of him. Guy (help!) 19:11, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

It's certainly how I first heard of him. But that doesn't mean it's what he's most notable for. It's not like he was just some nobody until the lawsuit, he's got decades of published books and articles and his ideas were receiving coverage in mainstream, non-science media. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 19:29, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Red Rock Canyon, he's most notable for what most sources are about. That's how it works. Like Rupert Sheldrake, who claims to be a professional biologist but is known only for "morphic resonance", a crank theory. Guy (help!) 22:15, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

JzG, What someone is notable for is a more subtle question than just counting up the number of sources that talk about something. We weight sources according to their long-term impact. If we didn't do that, the article on Christian Cooper would be 90% focused on the day he met Amy Cooper. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:18, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I've spent many, many hours in the past year or so reading papers to update the Sustainable energy article and I agree that Jacobson is most notable for his work, not for the lawsuits. His views on 100% renewable energy are not the scientific mainstream, but they represent a pretty popular point of view in a field where there is a wide range of respectable views. The IPCC's Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C mentions his research. He is definitely one of the best-known speakers in the U.S. on the topic of 100% renewables. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:06, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

He is, however, best known for the lawsuits, because they were publicised by climate change deniers so went well beyond the technical community. "Mark Z. Jacobson" -lawsuit only gets 113 unique results. And you can see why, for the history of his talk page: not a man who appears to take dissent well. Guy (help!) 05:30, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Even if he's best known for the lawsuit, that's only because it has become a very public event, as opposed to the rest of his life and career, which has mostly been within a the relatively non-public world of climate modeling. Newspapers don't print stories about the minutiae of statistical models, but those did receive coverage within their own sphere. And Mark Jacobson's behavior on Wikipedia is irrelevant. I've read through a bit of his talk page history, and it's certainly not something to endear one to him, but it really shouldn't have any bearing on what goes in this article. Also google hits aren't a great measure of someone's career, ever. Especially in this case when his work is in a specialist field with publications in scientific journals. If someone were to write a biography of Mark Jacobson, the lawsuit would get get a chapter, but it wouldn't get half the book. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Sources

In a series of edits, I just removed all mention of the order to pay legal fees, per WP:BLP. There were several issues:

1. The Robert Bryce article] is a self-published source so we can't use it at all for contentious material on a living person. See WP:FORBESCON and WP:BLPSELFPUB.
2. The Climate Case Chart website is a database of court documents. Per WP:BLPPRIMARY we cannot use court documents except to supplement a secondary source.
3. I have looked for reliable secondary sources on the legal fees issue, e.g. a Google search for "Mark Jacobson 2020" and can't find any. Since the motion is still being disputed, I imagine the press is waiting for the dispute to be more settled before they write about it.

FWIW I'm not a fan of Jacobson's views. Just trying to apply Wikipedia policy the best I can here. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:34, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• Robert Bryce (writer) specialises in this field, so is an expert and meets the qualified exception - requires attribution though. Guy (help!) 05:32, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Not everyone who has a writing specialty is an expert in what they write the most about. It would be unusual, to put it mildly, for the Wikipedia community to consider a self-described climate change agnostic and former conservative think-tank fellow whose only degree is a Bachelor of Fine Arts to be an expert on a sustainable energy researcher. Let's keep our BLP standards higher than that. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:49, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I think you're wrong about Climate Court Case. The site there is a database of court documents, but that's not all it is. The specific link used as a source, [2], contains this text:

Climate Scientist Must Pay Attorney’s Fees After Bringing Defamation Suit Regarding Publication of Article. The D.C. Superior Court granted defendants’ motions for attorney’s fees and costs in a defamation lawsuit brought by a climate scientist in connection with the publication of an article written by one of the defendants that evaluated an article published by the plaintiff. The other defendant was the publisher of the journal in which the article appeared. The plaintiff voluntarily dismissed his action approximately five months after filing it and two days after a hearing on the defendants’ special motion to dismiss pursuant to the D.C. Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) Act. The court found that the defendants were entitled to attorney’s fees because the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act covered the plaintiff’s claims, a jury could not reasonably find that the claims were supported, and the plaintiff’s attempts to obtain corrections in the article before filing suit did not constitute special circumstance that made a fees award unjust.

That's not a primary court document, that's a summary of a court ruling by an independent source. If we consider Climate Court Case reliable, and I don't see any reason not to, then this text should be an acceptable source for this material.

I wasn't able to find any other coverage of this ruling. Given how much the earlier stages of the lawsuit were reported on, it seems likely there would be some other mention of this. Perhaps there will be more sources available once the final decision comes down with the court's determination of how much he owes the National Academy of Sciences and Clack, but that could be months or years, or never, depending on whether he appeals. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Red Rock Canyon, you're right, there is more to this website than raw court documents. The summary that you quoted from the website is indeed not a court document - it's an independently-written summary of a court document, so it is something we could consider as being a secondary source. Having said that, I would argue that it doesn't have the qualities of a secondary source that make it a suitable basis for the narrative of an encyclopedia article: It exists to make a database table more complete, not because someone with editorial oversight made a judgement that it told an important story. And it doesn't have enough context to indicate whether the decision is final or whether it's part of a larger process. I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, but at the moment I don't yet see the existence of sources that we can use to give this court motion any weight in the article. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:14, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Clayoquot, "Bryce has been writing about the energy business for three decades. He spent twelve years writing for The Austin Chronicle.[1] From 2006 to 2010, he was the managing editor of the online magazine, Energy Tribune.[2] From October 2007 to February 2008 he was a fellow at the Institute for Energy Research. From 2010 to 2019 he was a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.[3]" Guy (help!) 11:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

JzG, have you looked at the Wikipedia articles for the Institute for Energy Research? Did you see the part about its predecessor being founded by Charles Koch, or the descriptions of the organization as a front group for the fossil fuel industry and one of the most prominent organizations questioning the extent of climate change? You seem to be saying that being involved in this organization makes a person a more reliable source about the lives of academics who research alternative energy. I really don't understand why you would think this. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:34, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

With regard to 'considering climate court case" a reliable source, just go straight to the source, the United States Government, Superior Court, D.C.

https://eaccess.dccourts.gov/eaccess/search.page.3.1?x=*iM9GWJ86cWFIE*l3ugn1BFOhqJj4nsgB4OL-xmYHPF5B59MfvykeyenNGeDOM*QaWXxr5uLO-Sz65csdDhC9Q

Without any interpretation, are we still going to reject statements such as "court order for (defendant/plantiff's) motion was (granted/denied/withdrawn)" that directly reference the heading and conclusion of a US Federal Court document? LearnCivics (talk) 22:43, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

See WP:BLPPRIMARY: "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." Generally it is not acceptable to use court documents as sources. The idea is that we should take our cues from secondary sources to see if the material in question is important or relevant enough to include in an article about someone. I've searched a couple times, and I haven't found any sources discussing this other than Climate Court Case, and there are questions whether we should consider that a primary or secondary source, since it's mainly just a collection of links to court documents. And then there's that Forbes article, which is considered an opinion column and isn't reliable for factual claims (since it's one of their "contributor" pieces that aren't fact-checked). Basically, even if we know something is true, it might not be suitable for inclusion in an article, especially an article about a living person, where WP:BLP requires us to be especially careful due to the possible consequences of screwing up. If the case is notable, it will be reported in other sources. Judging by the amount of reporting when he first filed his lawsuit, I'd guess some newspapers will pick up the story when the judgement is finalized, so we might as well wait until then. If it's not reported, then it probably doesn't belong in the article. Personally, I'm really not sure about what to consider Climate Court Case. If you want to pursue this, I'd recommend opening a thread at WP:BLPN to ask other editors' opinions on what to think about the sources and whether to include this material.

Oh, but in any case, even if it is included in the article, it definitely shouldn't be in the lead. The lead is supposed to summarize the body of the article and should devote space to material in accordance with how much space it receives in the body. Something minor like this shouldn't be in the lead. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 02:22, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments red rocks. As far as climate court case goes, I previously suggested not using it, as it could be selectively cherry picking documents and I wouldn't know one way or the other, so instead going straight to the irrifutable source, dccourts.gov

As far as it being in the lead, it all ready IS in the lead. It's widely reported by the NYT and 4 other cited sources.

This is merely follow up recording of the courts decision to grant the defendents motion and that the plantiff's motion is denied. 1 sentence addition to the lead.

When someone does write about it, that can be added to the body to further describe the decision.

Yes, care should be taken to not include unnecessary opinion. But excluding statements of fact solely because they have not been reported on is also a disservice to readers who are wondering the status of something previously reported and recorded in Wikipedia.

Enjoy Sedona! LearnCivics (talk) 07:22, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Questions re: primary source, statement of fact, waiting for secondary source (specifically about lawsuit outcome anti-SLAPP case)

tl;dr territory, plus a rhetorical framing of the events to date rather than a neutral statement. Feel free to focus on something more specific, i.e. propose "change X to Y using Z reliable source".
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The questions before the editors are: I - what is a reliable source? II - what is a statement of fact? III - what belongs (or not) in the lead of a bio? IV - combined, what is or isn't valuable information to Wikipedia readers? The following is in reference to talk between @LearnCivics and @Clayoquot, for which @LearnCivics is very thankful for the coaching, direction, explanations, and WP: links from @Clayoquot. 1) Mark Z Jacobson is a PhD in climatology with a Wikipedia biography page. 2) In 2017 Jacobson (plantiff) sued Christopher Clack, also with a PhD in climatology, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS (defendents) for libel and other torts. 3) In 2018 Jacobson withdrew his suit. 4) the dispute was widely reported by the NY Times, San Diego Union Tribune, Washington Post, and at least three others, all cited in Wikipedia. 5) as such this is a major story, a brief paragraph summarizing the dispute is published in the Wikipedia lead and further describe in the body. 6) in April 2020 the court granted defendents motion for attorneys costs to be paid by plantiff Jacobson. 7) this was reported by Robert Bryce of Forbes. 8) however it was published in Forbes.Com not the print magazine and is therefore deemed a self-published unreliable source, per WP:FORBESCON. 9) in July is was discovered by @LearnCivics (no relationship to Jacobson) that a. In May 2020 Jacobson filed a motion for reconsideration. b. In June the court granted the defendents motions for payment and denied the plantiff Jacobsons motion to reconsider. c. Clack submitted attorneys fees of $75,000. d. PNAS submitted attorneys fees of $535,904. 10) the source for (9) is the US federal government website for the D.C. Superior Court, www.dccourts.gov specifically https://eaccess.dccourts.gov/eaccess/search.page.3.1?x=w*98LtbQNQiCEtYkGFow8aWT1p*MZanCmEdFIcj9uxAYqaF3v0Yuz0uA5pBXt0y5rrx7FwRRVA5rXFTcZ4HXzg docket 4/20/20 order that defendants motions are granted, signed judge J.Wingo, and Order Denying Motion for Reconsideration of Order Granting Defendants¿ Motions For Costs and Attorney¿s Fees Under the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act signed by Judge Wingo submitted 06/25/2020 14:54:22. kc. Image 11) www.dccourts.gov is considered by @LearnCivics to be an irrifutable primary source, not subject to misinformation and public manipulation, therefore highly reliable. 12) in Talk: Mark Z Jacobson, 'lawsuit and anti-SLAPP undue weight in the lead?', editor @Red Rocks Canyon believes: a. an additional statement such as "court order for defendants motion to collect attorneys fees is granted" is "minor" and doesn't belong in the lead. b. 'Just wait for some newspaper to pick up the story.' 13) WP:BLPRS says a source must be verifiable. Is not a court order signed by a US Federal judge (PDF) on a .gov website of the court a verifiable source as unlikely to be challenged as can be? 14) WP:BLPPRIMARY says to not use trial transcriptions *to support an assertion*, however, @LearnCivics insists that the words "court orders motion by defendants granted" or "court orders motion by plantiff denied" are NOT assertions. 15) As per WP:PRIMARY, policy " A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge." @LearnCivics insists that a. the words "court orders motion by defendants granted" or "court orders motion by plantiff is denied" are as straightforward and descriptive fact as can be. They are the actual wording at the head of the court document, and repeated at the conclusion. b. No specialized knowledge is required to comprehend "granted, denied, or ordered." No legal analysis is being made, and the logic of the ruling is not being summarized. c. Any educated person can access the courts ruling on PDF without specialized knowledge. d. Any educated person without specialized legal training can still understand the meaning of one sentence such as "court orders motion by defendants granted" or "court orders motion by plantiff is denied." 16) A follow-up to the previously published Wikipedia biography page clearly stating there is a libel suit is of utmost interest to Wikipedia readers. 17) Regarding 12(b), having up-to-date information on a Wikipedia page regarding the outcome of a legal proceeding should be of upmost concern to Wikipedia readers, and having to wait until "some newspaper picks it up" shouldn't be the basis for an update to a previously published proceeding. 18) An award of over $610,000 is not a minor news item. Therefore it is also not a minor statement. 19) what if no newspaper ever picks up the primary court order and makes a secondary news article about it? Does that mean that per Wikipedia policy, it didn't happen and can't be stated in a Wikipedia biography? Therefore: I - is the direct website of a federal court a reliable, verifiable source? II - is notice of a court order granting, denying, or dismissing a plantiff's or defendents motion, worded directly as such, without opinion or expression, a statement of fact? III - is a courts ruling on a legal matter previously secondarily sourced by some of the largest newspapers in the country and previously published in the Wikipedia biography lead worthy of a single sentence follow-up, regardless of whether or not a newspaper has written about the decision and ruling, thereby making a secondary source? IV - shouldn't Wikipedia readers have the benefit of learning the outcome (being a ruling with a court order, or an appeal of that order) of a legal matter that has previously been published in Wikipedia, regardless of whether or not a reliable secondary source has written about the outcome, if the source of the outcome is the publicity available documents in the government website? All of the above is a lot to digest and the editors and moderators of Wikipedia are thanked in advance for their thoughtful participation in this matter of what we hope you will agree are very serious questions. Furthermore, the page has reported issues. Hopefully timely, up to date information can resolve some of the issues. LearnCivics (talk) 10:48, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

4 questions on Wikipedia policy re: BLP primary sources and statements of descriptive fact

4 specific questions in the format of "change X to Y given Z":

  I - is the direct website of a federal court a reliable, verifiable source?

 II - is a court order granting or denying a plantiff's or defendents motion, worded directly as such without opinion, a statement of fact?

III - is a courts ruling on a legal matter previously secondarily sourced by the largest newspapers in the country and previously published in the Wikipedia biography lead worthy of a single sentence follow-up, whether or not a secondary source newspaper has written about the decision yet?

IV - shouldn't Wikipedia readers have the benefit of learning the outcome (a court order, or an appeal of that order) of a legal matter that has previously been published in Wikipedia, whether or not a reliable secondary source has written about the outcome, if the primary source is reliable?

The issues and events driving the above 4 questions are listed in a prior discussion, ftiw. LearnCivics (talk) 16:19, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

1) Yes. 2) Yes. 3) No. 4) No. Wikipedia readers should have the benefit of an update when sourcing is available that will enable us to write the update properly. To do it properly we have to give the reader enough context to understand what the motion means, not just quote the motion without further explanation. If you think court documents should be allowed as the basis for a narrative in biographies of living people, you can bring it up at WT:Biographies of living persons. You might want to search of the archives there first as the issue has been discussed before. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:03, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Final or not

I notice there have been some edits added to Jacobson's bio saying "In 2020 the court ordered Jacobson to pay the legal fees of Clack and NAS" and, later on that the Order says he "must pay the legal fees incurred by Clack and PNAS" with some amounts added. However, if we read what the Judge states in this Court Order of June 25, 2020 at http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2020/20200625_docket-2017-CA-006685-B_order.pdf, she states "[an] order awarding attorney's fees but not determining the amount of the fees is not final...Here, however, Plaintiff seeks reconsideration before the amount of attorneys' fees owed has been determined." Thus, the Judge is stating that while a motion for attorneys fees has been granted, no amount of attorneys fees has been ordered and that she still needs to determine the amount, which obviously can vary from 0 to the maximum. In addition, she is stating that nothing that has been ordered so far is final. Thus, it appears that the new edits don't accurately portray what has happened. Thus, at this writing, Jacobson has not been ordered to pay anything and if he is eventually ordered to do so, that amount may be 0 or a portion of the attorneys fees, so not necessarily "the legal fees of Clack and NAS" as opposed to none or some or a majority. Of course, he can request another reconsideration, as stated by the Judge or Appeal it, so the order may be rescinded if one is issued. It seems that the edits that were added should be removed or substantially corrected given that there is no final order in place for attorneys fees, whereas the edits suggest there is. 2601:647:5A00:86D0:7921:668:E53E:5703 (talk) 16:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

In fact, he is ordered to pay but the final invoice(s) is(are) not yet there. The Banner talk 17:06, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

If you go to the Washington D.C. Superior Court website, you'll see that NAS/Clack's Attorneys submitted invoices and a request for fees on 6/2/20 and Jacobson's Attorney submitted a request to deny all fees based on violating the Court's order and submitting unsubstantiated fees, among other reasons, on 6/15/20. On 6/22/20. Clack/NAS submitted a reply to that. As shown, there has been no decision by the judge on the issue of whether Clack/NAS or Jacobson will win that issue (whether some or all fees will be denied or approved). The only decision was on 6/25/20 to deny a request for reconsideration. Thus, there is no order to pay fees. The judge is current making a decision on the amount of fees, if any. So, it is not clear why anyone would claim that a Court has a standing order in place for someone to pay fees when no such order exists. The order that exists if for the Court to consider the invoices submitted for fees, and the Court has a right to deny such invoices. 2601:647:5A00:86D0:C9E4:D2AA:3690:6EDF (talk) 17:48, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The decision was that Jacobsons attempt to dodge the bullet was denied and that he has to pay. But that amount is not yet set in stone. The Banner talk 18:05, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

As shown on the Superior Court website and based on the Judge's own statement that the amount of attorneys fees has not been determined, there is no order for Jacobson to pay fees. If there is you should show the order and the amount ordered. Stating the "amount is not yet set in stone" is an acknowledgment there is no order. An order granting a motion for attorneys fees is different from an order for attorneys fees. I think others should weigh in on this issue.2601:647:5A00:86D0:C9E4:D2AA:3690:6EDF (talk) 18:15, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

He has to pay but it is not known YET how much to pay. The Banner talk 18:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The exact sentence in the intro of the bio is "In 2020 the court ordered Jacobson to pay the legal fees of Clack and PNAS." As you acknowledge, the amount of legal fees required to be paid has not been determined, and as you know that could be 0 if Jacobson's request is granted, in which case the court will have ordered Jacobson to pay no legal fees. So, the statement in the bio is wrong. Regardless, there is no order to pay legal fees, and you still haven't shown where that exists. Only a motion granting legal fees to be considered has been approved, and the judge is considering both parties motions to determine whether the amount to pay is 0 or the full amount or something in between. Even if half the fees are granted, the above statement would be wrong since the court will then have ordered only half the legal fees of Clack and NAS, not "the legal fees of Clack and NAS." Regardless, there is no order currently to pay fees. Others should comment. 2601:647:5A00:86D0:C9E4:D2AA:3690:6EDF (talk) 19:06, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

And when you read the source properly, you can see that the request of Jacobson was denied. (Try reading the very end). The Banner talk 19:15, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

You are talking about the Motion for Reconsideration, which was denied, not Jacobson's 6/15/20 response to Clack/NAS' specific request for legal fees, which the Judge is still deciding upon. If you read that, you will see that Jacobson's Attorney asks for all legal fees to be denied for multiple reasons. As stated by the Judge herself in the decision on the Motion for Reconsideration, she still has not determined the amount of legal fees and there is no "Final Order." Again, there is no current order for Jacobson to pay any specific legal fees no matter how you slice it. Given there is no final order for legal fees or any order that lists a specific amount, it is incorrect to claim there is an order for legal fees unless the goal is to say something that is not true. What do you think Clayoquot? 2601:647:5A00:86D0:C9E4:D2AA:3690:6EDF (talk) 20:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Did you read the source at all? The Banner talk 20:23, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Are you referring to the Oransky article? It clearly states, citing Jacobson's Attorney, "The Court must now determine the level of attorneys' fees to share, which range from $0 to the amounts requested by the Clack and NAS attorneys." So again, even the source cited on the Wikipedia page is inconsistent with the claim on the same page,"In 2020 the court ordered Jacobson to pay the legal fees of Clack and PNAS." No final order for legal fees exists. Regardless, what actually matters is what the Judge says, and the Judge has issued no final order or suggested an amount.2601:647:5A00:86D0:C9E4:D2AA:3690:6EDF (talk) 21:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Speaking of which, Refs. 14 and 15 are both self-published blogs. Not sure how they are legitimate sources. 2601:647:5A00:86D0:C9E4:D2AA:3690:6EDF (talk) 21:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)