$14,000 per MW? 'Renewables' = economic suicide

[tautech]

Anyway, at the end of the day, Nuke is fked.  The public opinion against it, the costs, build times and risks mean very few places will entertain the idea of building new reactors as the numbers of Nuke Vs. coal plants under construction show.

Which might suggest the Paris accord will fall over in time.

Everyone, well nearly, thought it was a great idea at the time but in the cold hard light of day with no really viable energy alternatives on the horizon maybe common sense will prevail ?

[apis]

What I am saying is to assign all these deaths to coal is just a guess and there are a Loads of other things that could also cuase the same condidions so how do we scientifically know which cause was what?

You do epidemiological studies on very large groups of people exposed to different levels of pollution. People exposed to air-pollution get sick more often. You have the same problem when estimating the effects of low levels of radiation.

[nctnico]

Anyway, at the end of the day, Nuke is fked.  The public opinion against it, the costs, build times and risks mean very few places will entertain the idea of building new reactors as the numbers of Nuke Vs. coal plants under construction show.

Which might suggest the Paris accord will fall over in time.

Everyone, well nearly, thought it was a great idea at the time but in the cold hard light of day with no really viable energy alternatives on the horizon maybe common sense will prevail ?

Today we had elections. The party who wants to spend the least on meeting the 'Paris CO2 goals' has won big time. It is time the world re-thinks CO2 reduction strategies because now the real costs are becoming clear. The time for costly half-assed experimental solutions is over.

[tautech]

Anyway, at the end of the day, Nuke is fked.  The public opinion against it, the costs, build times and risks mean very few places will entertain the idea of building new reactors as the numbers of Nuke Vs. coal plants under construction show.

Which might suggest the Paris accord will fall over in time.

Everyone, well nearly, thought it was a great idea at the time but in the cold hard light of day with no really viable energy alternatives on the horizon maybe common sense will prevail ?

Today we had elections. The party who wants to spend the least on meeting the 'Paris CO2 goals' has won big time. It is time the world re-thinks CO2 reduction strategies because now the real costs are becoming clear. The time for costly half-assed experimental solutions is over.

Don't you believe it !

Just because some gubbermint policy has failed to address their country's CO2 emissions doesn't mean they won't come up with some other hare brained scheme to meet their Paris accord targets rather than loose face in the international greenwashed community.

Dumb shit that has been proposed here to reduce methane emissions:
Fart/belching tax on farmed livestock......... FFS, next they'll wanna tax human flatulence !
How can a gubbermint also tax wild animals and their contribution to methane emission ?

On one hand we have legislation to preserve and enhance wetlands from 150 years of drainage and yet no account is made of the methane that's emitted from them. Without the efforts of our forefathers draining these unproductive methane emitting wet wastelands we wouldn't have the productive lands we do today.

Oh that's right, artificial food sources could mean we don't need all the productive land we have today, yeah right and the worlds population is gunna stop growing. 

It's all a right furking mess !
Everyday I see ppls in high places making dumb decisions and getting paid for their BS when the truth be known they couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery.

[paulca]

On the point of radioactive coal.  It seems people were comparing it to rector accidents.  This is not what is meant.

A nuclear power plant contains it's radiation (except in the event of extremely rare accidents).  The plants are monitored 24/7 both inside, the perimeter and for miles around.  The levels they must achieve are very strict.

Coal on the other hand is not monitored.  It does not contain it's radioactive waste in the fly ash and smoke.  Instead it's either left in the open or distributes on the wind in the smoke particles.

So while it is low level and probably not a major concern it still stands that coal plants and coal mines release a higher amount of radiation across the land than a nuclear plant or a nuclear fuel storage facility does.

On the nuclear waste problem.  Lets consider that current tech is already considering mining land fill because we can now recycle a lot of what is buried there.  The only issue is the cost of getting it out.  With nuclear waste there are many proposals to turn it back into reactor fuel to make it much less radioactive before it becomes waste again.... and in many cases they don't need to dig it back up as access is provided to the underground storage.

I agree that nuclear has been hurt by public opinion, in some cases that opinion is valid.  However I stress again this has mostly been the result of greed, government short-termism and military influence. Basing our civilian reactors on US Navy submarine tech was a gross mistake which has been heavily opposed since the 1950s by nuclear scientists.  However the US Navy had produced the first fully commissioned reactor and tested it to be safe, in a submarine, so governments went for it.  The cost of comissioning a new reactor design was far, far too high when they could just spin up another "rickover" PWR design.  BWRs were designed to make them simpler and thus cheaper, but in no way at all safer.  The fuel issue was never addressed.  It was originally thought the waste would be reprocessed to extract the plutonium, the remainder having much, much shorter half lives, but this has never been achieved on the industrial scales needed.

The trouble is, we need to get off fossil fuels and quickly.  Europe's target of 2030 will probably be missed.  The US is nowhere near that.  New safer, cleaner reactor designs even if funded will take 10-20 years before they could become viable.

Renewables currently require almost an equal amount of coal or gas plants to take up the slack when it's dark and/or calm.  There is no getting around that.  Battery tech capable of buffering the power grid in developed nations is probably longer away than next gen nukes and... can you consider the chemical waste from some of those techs?

So while the public opinion is against nuclear, how many more years of increasingly deadly weather events and deadly heatwaves do you think it will be before public opinion starts to sway towards climate change being more deadly than nuclear power.  Unfortunately I think it will take too long and our children and their children will suffer for it.

[george80]

Paulca,

While I don't agree with your Climate change and some other views, I can't say how much I admire and appreciate the balanced, honest look you give on everything you posted about.

It is so good to read a post that one might disagree with in part but isn't full of bullshit and lies trying to push the agenda. You would be more likely  to win me over and make me think again because of your honesty than so many others talking rubbish but trying to make out it is fact.  There are other things that i think you are spot on with but it's the way you factually relate what i don't agree with that impresses me  and I appreciate the most.

Thank you.

[Marco]

With nuclear waste there are many proposals to turn it back into reactor fuel to make it much less radioactive before it becomes waste again

None of which works well without breeding reactors and all of which provide technology with high proliferation risks.

[apis]

My take on which nuclear reactor technology is best is to let the nuclear engineers figure it out. The old BWRs might not be the best, but almost 80 years of history with P/BWRs shows it's still one of the safest and cleanest forms of energy. It's safer than coal, wood burning and hydro by a fair margin. It's even safer than wind and rooftop solar according to some sources.

It's sort of impossible to judge proliferation risks for a layman since most of the relevant information is classified. But North Korea isn't going to care if Germany builds a fast breeder reactor or not. If NK want one they will build it, and I assume they already have the best type of reactor in that regard. Russia, USA or China isn't going to shut down their nuclear weapons programs because of anti nuclear power hysteria here in Europe. (They are probably very happy that they can sell us lots of expensive LNG though.)

[Marco]

I doubt Russia is terribly happy that their small power plant breeder keeps catching fire while PWR makes them money.

Breeders breed money into fire, reprocessing plants process money into heavily polluted sites ... I'd not be surprised if MSRs do both.

[paulca]

I'd not be surprised if MSRs do both.

Why not read up on them?

Someone previously said something about a test thorium MSR partially melting down.  Pause for a moment and let that failing in logic settle in.  A "melt down" is when the reaction runs out of control to the point the fuel rods melt.  How can a reactor which uses molten fuel, "melt down" if it's already molten? 

This is a key point in why these are being proposed.  They are designed with positive safety trends, the more out of control they get the more they control themselves.  The higher you run them the slower the reaction takes place (the opposite of Chernobyl).  With the MSR designs being proposed not even a presidential order to cause a "melt down" can be achieved.  If you suddenly shut off the pumps and shut off the water supply the reactor heats up, melts it's salt plug, the fuel drains out and without the moderator slowing the neutrons fission stops.  The fuel is not even under pressure and has a huge thermal liquid temperature range, so it sits in the basement and cools into a solid lump of salt which can be recovered either in solid form or by heating, melting and pumping it.  I believe this has been tested for real at ORNL.

In comparison the PWRs and BWRs operate under many atmospheres of pressure, require tons of water per second to cool them, requiring constant access to water and electrical power or they melt down.  If containment is breached there is a volume of high pressure steam which can escape explosively exposing the reactor fuel to oxygen, causing a significant fire, releasing fission products in the smoke plume.  Aka, Chernobyl, which is the worst case scenario for a reactor. 

As Bill Nye put it once, current reactors suffer from the "Homer Simpson Effect".  It is a very real possibility that, just like in Chernobyl some one can "press the wrong button" and cause a catastrophe.  Nuclear incidents always have a cause of "Why on earth did they do that?".  What people are currently trying to design are reactors that cannot be miss handled without them failing safe.  Of course you could still drop a bomb on one, or a terrorist could blow one up, but even then the designs place the cores in a pit underground making even that extremely hard to do.  I'm sure there will be other problems yet to discover, but at least they are thinking the right way rather than just lifting a sub reactor out onto land and pumping water to it.

Fuel tech is also moving in similar directions to address previous issues with waste and "melt downs".  Fuel that is orders of magnitude more efficient in terms of how much of the fertile fuel is consumed against how much waste is produced.  Fuel which self limits and slows it's reaction the hotter it gets.

Tech is also trying to address the decommissioning, by making reactors modular, so when a core is beyond it's life cycle, it is allowed to cool for 5-10 years and the highly dangerous short half-life waste has time to decay before the whole core, minus it's fuel, is removed and shipped to a decommissioning site (yes I'm sure there are risks there), but you don't have to decommission it on site but at a special facility where lots of parts can be recovered and recommissioned in new cores.

I'm sure a lot of this is 30+ years away but with the right funding, some of it is only 10 years away.

[Marco]

It's not like the liquid sodium cooled reactors are meant to catch fire all the time, it just kinda happens. It's not like reprocessing plants need to have leaks all the time, it just kinda happens. I suspect for leaks at least that on site reprocessing for MSRs will have similar costly fuck ups, which just kinda keep happening.

Being passively safe is nice, but they don't mean it will be cheap.

[paulca]

It's not like the liquid sodium cooled reactors are meant to catch fire all the time, it just kinda happens. It's not like reprocessing plants need to have leaks all the time, it just kinda happens. I suspect for leaks at least that on site reprocessing for MSRs will have similar costly fuck ups, which just kinda keep happening.

Being passively safe is nice, but they don't mean it will be cheap.

As I understand there aren't any liquid sodium cooled reactors.  Salt (almost certainly NOT liquid sodium which is 1) not a salt and 2) is a dangerous highly reactive metal) cooled reactors are being built in India and China and there are a few test set ups with electrical heating in labs.

There is a big difference between liquid salt cooled (with salt having a much more stable thermal range than water and not involving pressure or steam) and liquid fuelled reactors.  However it seems current near-term progress is aiming at salt cooled reactors with gravel bed fuel.  This is to avoid the issues like hydrogen explosions (such as at fukashima) and steam expansion and pressure build ups.

Can you point me to the examples of waste containment leaks?  Given that almost all of the waste is solid I can only see "leaks" being an issue if ground water leaks into storage, irodes the vessels and carries radiation out.  Also bear in mind that waste sites do not only store waste from reactors, but some really nasty exotic high-level waste from the nuclear weapons industry.

A very unsellable solution for nuclear waste is to grind it into dust and distribute it across the planet.  Remember that nuclear fuel was original dug out of the ground where it naturally occurs.  It is then reacted to make it LESS radio active.  So distributing it widely enough actually makes the planet less radioactive.  I'm only being academic, in real world terms this is completely impractical.

As a random aside... you will hear this from people, "Plutonium does not exist in nature.  It's man-made".  This is only correct within certain time framed.  Many examples have been found in nature where ground water has concentrated Uranium 238 in such ways, with water moderators and natural breeding to cause critical reactions and melt downs in bed rock.  This will result in plutonium production.  (Uranium 238 aborbs a neutron to form Uranium 239 with a very short half-life decays via beta emission to Plutonium 239.)  The only reason you can be fairly confident that plutonium you find IS man made is because it decays with a half life of 60,000 years.  So the naturally occurring stuff will have almost completely disappeared.

Note also that thorium reactions (if we ever get there) burn most of their own waste products and do not produce much plutonium containing waste.

[nctnico]

A very unsellable solution for nuclear waste is to grind it into dust and distribute it across the planet.  Remember that nuclear fuel was original dug out of the ground where it naturally occurs.  It is then reacted to make it LESS radio active.  So distributing it widely enough actually makes the planet less radioactive.  I'm only being academic, in real world terms this is completely impractical.

I think this is tried somewhere at the coast of England but now there is a large heap of nuclear waste in the sea because the stuff somehow managed to accumulate in a small area.

I'm a firm believer 'we' should keep dangerous waste stored in a place where it can be inspected and moved if necessary. Burrying it underground is likely to cause problems down the road because it may become inaccessible and/or it may pop up at some time when everyone already forgot about it.

[Marco]

The only "commercial" breeder reactor (kinda an exaggeration, since there is only one) is the BN-800, a liquid sodium cooled reactor. Still it's far closer to a commercial design than any MSR, which is pie in the sky. My intuition tells me the on site reprocessing will be a shitshow ... but until there's some commercial scale designs running it's impossible to prove.

Reprocessing dissolves fuel. Thorp (Sellafield) had a big leak in 2005 and had to shut down for 2 years, dumped a ton of low grade nuclear waste into the sea as well. La Hague had a leak into ground water in 1976 and also dumped a ton of low grade nuclear waste into the sea. Toikamaru had its share of very costly accidents, Hanau too ... reprocessing is a giant fucking shitshow. The only reason to reprocess spent nuclear fuel at the moment is because you want to waste money or because you want weapons grade plutonium.

[RoGeorge]

do some research on your own it's not that hard to find.

The problem is that the Internet is so big nowadays, that it became a WHAT YOU SEARCH IS WHAT YOU FIND place.  Search flat Earth.  You'll find plenty.  Search round Earth.  You'll find plenty.  A simple online research (which is the only research affordable individually) won't settle any debate.

That is why a search engine can not replace education.

Please note that the above remark is completely offtopic, and I don't care who is taking what side, but that quoted idea it's a fallacy that tends to spread way too fast, and it's a dangerous one.  That is why I am pointing to it, not trying to blame anybody.

[apis]

The problem is that the Internet is so big nowadays, that it became a WHAT YOU SEARCH IS WHAT YOU FIND place.  Search flat Earth.  You'll find plenty.  Search round Earth.  You'll find plenty.

That's very true. It is possible to find someone who claims anything you'd like (not only on the internet). That is why you also need a large dose of source criticism.

A simple online research (which is the only research affordable individually) won't settle any debate.

If you restrict yourself to credible sources It's quite possible to sift through the noise, even if the signal to noise ratio is low. I believe the biggest problem today is that people are loosing faith in traditional institutions, like mainstream media, (inter)government agencies and universities. If people don't even trust peer reviewed journals like Nature or the Lancet we are in for trouble. I mean, you shouldn't just trust a single source, but when the majority of them say one thing then it makes little sense to mistrust them or else you are going to fall deep into the rabbit hole and a world where everything seems possible (that is not a good thing).

Of course, if you are unable to judge the credibility of sources you are screwed and there is nothing that can save you. If you don't trust the WHO, then why should you trust your doctor?

Example:
https://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/vaccines/
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/vaccine-decision/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-vaccines-are-dangerous/
vs
https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/six-reasons-to-say-no-to-vaccination/
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-11532/8-reasons-i-havent-vaccinated-my-daughter.html
https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qUxIyoFX7ZU (anti vaccination video)

To be clear: the first three pages are credible. Two of them are from government agencies and the last one a well known and fairly reputable popular science magazine, while the other three are from random people I have no knowledge of or reason to trust.

(Is there a better way to prevent youtube links to become embedded video?)

That is why a search engine can not replace education.

I don't disagree with that. Education hopefully has a better signal to noise ratio than the average search engine. But it is also dangerous to believe that education is foolproof.

[nctnico]

In general it is best to stick to government bodies for credible sources or websites where fact checking takes place (like Wikipedia).

[TerraHertz]

http://joannenova.com.au/2019/04/renewables-stress-the-daily-battle-just-to-keep-the-lights-on-in-australia/
On the continuing reduction of stability margin and capacity of the Australian electricity grid.


Other recent articles:
20190216
http://www.petitionproject.org/index.php
Global Warming Petition Project
http://www.petitionproject.org/seitz_letter.php
http://humansarefree.com/2016/09/over-30000-scientists-declare-climate.html#.XGb33e4JetU.email
Over 30,000 Scientists Declare Climate Change A Hoax
A staggering 30,000+ scientists have come forward confirming that man-made climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the elite in order to make money.


20190219
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/02/nasa-hides-page-saying-the-sun-was-the-primary-climate-driver-and-clouds-and-particles-are-more-important-than-greenhouse-gases/
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-15/climate-change-religion-and-related-cover-ups-what-hell-nasa-hiding
NASA hides page saying the Sun was the primary climate driver, and clouds and particles are more important than greenhouse gases


20190309
https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/03/07/greenpeace-founder-global-warming-hoax-pushed-corrupt-scientists-hooked-government-grants/
Greenpeace Founder: Global Warming is a Hoax Pushed by Corrupt Scientists ‘Hooked on Government Grants’

20190305
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/03/05/30-years-of-noaa-tide-gauge-data-debunk-1988-senate-hearing-climate-alarmist-claims/

20190310
https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/31677-trump-climate-panel-could-expose-huge-fraud-hence-the-hysteria?vsmaid=3717&vcid=1734
Trump Climate Panel Could Expose Huge Fraud, Hence the Hysteria

20190312
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/03/the-cost-of-one-days-electricity-on-the-australian-grid-is-three-times-or-50-times-more-than-it-was-in-2012/
The cost of one days electricity on the Australian grid is three times (or 50 times) more than it was in 2012

20190321
https://www.iceagenow.info/questioning-climate-hysteria-video/
youtube.com      watch?v=Np_CHy9ql4M
Good News on Climate Change! We're Safe. We're Adaptable. Six points for Discussion.


youtube.com    watch?v=Yze1YAz_LYM
Dan Britt - Orbits and Ice Ages: The History of Climate
Published on Feb 8, 2012

youtube.com    watch?v=dSVkSCN_hLQ
Prof Don Easterbrook Crashes the Global Warming Party
Published on Nov 19, 2017

20190331
https://www.iceagenow.info/climate-change-helped-destroy-ancient-civilizations-with-no-help-from-your-suv/
Climate Change Helped Destroy Ancient Civilizations – With No Help From Your SUV
youtube.com      watch?v=CKMFQmMv8zI
Here a few of the excellent comments about this video:
“Here’s five examples of pre-industrial climate change. But this time climate change is totally man-made. You just have to trust us.”
“All of these predate fossil fuel use. So what your saying is extreme climate change is a cyclical thing. Got it.”
“If this can happen naturally, then I’ll take my chances with fossil fuels! Greatest natural resource in our history, and we haven’t found a sustainable replacement yet.”
"Thanks to the World Economic Forum for showing us that naturally occurring climate change destroyed civilizations. Fortunately, since there is no more naturally occurring climate change, beware of man-made climate change.”
"So you’re saying it’s natural climate change that destroys the world? Or are you saying a Carbon tax would’ve saved the Mayans and Vikings?"
"We need to correct the problem that destroyed the Viking civilizations of Greenland. I suggest we heat up the Earth some more, until the Greenland Ice Pack is gone."


20190221
youtube.com     watch?v=U-9UlF8hkhs
World In Midst of Carbon Drought (w/ Prof. William Happer, Princeton University)
Conversations That Matter, with Stuart McNish.   Published on Jun 22, 2015
We are in a carbon drought. That is according to Professor William Happer of Princeton University. The renowned physicist says when it comes to carbon dioxide, there’s more good than bad. He goes on to say most of carbon dioxide’s effect has already happened. He points to the logarithmic dependence of temperature on carbon dioxide levels.



Same as I've been saying since 2008. 300-400ppm CO2 is around the lowest Earth's atmosphere has ever been through the history of life on Earth. The entire ecosphere is starving for carbon at present. The historical norm, for which plants evolved, is in the range 1000-4000ppm. "CO2 induced global warming" is the most outrageous lying bullshit ever pushed on the public. It's a vile myth, that only survives and prospers because most people are incredibly ignorant of both science and the geological and climate history of Earth. Also because the idea that an organized group of Elites would actually construct such a massive conspiracy, and that their aims are to crash industrial civilization and kill 80% of the human race, is simply beyond most people's conceptual grasp.

As usual, long list of links here:
  http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_links.txt     
  http://everist.org/archives/links/__AGW_quotes.txt
(and other files in that folder.)

[TerraHertz]

In general it is best to stick to government bodies for credible sources or websites where fact checking takes place (like Wikipedia).

You serious?
I'm not even going to touch "trust government bodies not to lie".
As for Wikipedia...
  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meet-the-man-behind-a-third-of-whats-on-wikipedia/

Paraphrasing another's comment on that: (and do check out the photo.)

Man behind 1/3rd of edits on Wikipedia is an old school Soviet Russian, who lives with his mom.
First of all, this shows just how shallow Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is TOTAL CRAP compared to what Geocities was before it got wiped out, which had millions of unique sites by millions of different people, and there's no way one guy could have ever edited a third of them. If one man managed to edit a third of Wikipedia, Wikipedia is shallow GARBAGE.
Second, this shows that Wikipedia does not have quality control on anything. If one guy can screw the whole system, Wikipedia is BUNK.

Just to run this ONE web site, I have to spend between 8-12 hours a day looking for stuff that's good enough to put here and make sure it is accurate. Wikipedia is orders of magnitude larger than this site, and if ONE dufus edited a third of it, he's blowing pudding out his @ss. There's no conceivable way he's doing anything at all other than deleting what he does not like, he's not researching CRAP. NOT POSSIBLE, even with Wikipedia being only a shadow of what Geocities was.

Mundane web sites have multiple editors. How much larger is Wikipedia than the New York Times? MANY TIMES LARGER. How does ONE guy do all that editing, complete with real fact checking? Answer: NOT.

So here we have a CBS report that just admitted a guy with first generation roots to Bolshevik Russia is doing 1/3 the edits on Wikipedia, as a "volunteer" and he's getting it all done in 3 hours a day. If that's the case, BAG WIKIPEDIA, there's no fact checking, no quality control, ONLY BIAS. But everyone knew that already, RIGHT?

What do I think he's doing?

1. Removing all conservative content.

2. Stripping all the details out of any post that has any scientific value. Wikipedia is TOTALLY worthless as a reference for anything of that nature, and there's no excuse for it. If it is beyond 8th grade, it's not there. It's not that it never gets posted there, it is that it consistently, every last time, gets WIPED OUT.

3. NOT WRITING OR ADDING JACK, ONLY DELETING. You can't go through that many posts and EVER hit Google or pick up a book while doing it.

The CBS hero piece on this guy is the same kind of fake media reporting that has become the BANE of the MSM. There's no way the credibility they hand this guy could EVER, in a MILLION YEARS happen in "3 hours a day", the only thing possible is that he's a saboteur, with direct family roots to Bolshevik communism.

[nctnico]

If you would have investigated on how Wikipedia works you'd know there is a process and it is required to have credible third party references for any claim made on Wikipedia. I'm not saying everything on Wikipedia is right but you can check the sources yourself. They are listed below every Wikipedia page. A page on Wikipedia is basically a comprehensive excerpt from various third party sources.

The rant you quoted is just nonsense. The use of the the term 'Bolshevik Russia' is a dead giveaway. The fact is that articles on Wikipedia aren't written or audited by one person. The procedures behind Wikipedia ensure that.

Either way, Wikipedia is a way better source compared to Youtube or Facebook. Allover Europe we see outbreaks of Measles dissease due to less people having their kids vaccinated. The primary cause is misinformation spread on Youtube and Facebook. Someone has succesfully turned Youtube and Facebook into biological warfare weapons!

[coppice]

If you would have investigated on how Wikipedia works you'd know there is a process and it is required to have credible third party references for any claim made on Wikipedia. I'm not saying everything on Wikipedia is right but you can check the sources yourself. They are listed below every Wikipedia page. A page on Wikipedia is basically a comprehensive excerpt from various third party sources.

If there are some excellent technical pages on Wikipedia you remember from 10 years ago, try looking at them again today. There is a good chance they will look considerably different. They might have had all the detail stripped out. They might have been replaced by total drivel. They might have been replaced by pages pushing commercial interests. Wikipedia loves tagging pages as needing more citation, but good solid citations are being stripped out all the time as pages are dumbed down. I used to know a few people who contributed quite a lot of material to Wikipedia, but they gave up long ago, tired of working in a war zone.

[apis]

That's true, but Wikipedia is still surprisingly good. There have been several studies comparing factual errors with other encyclopedias (like Britannica) and Wikipedia is just as good (bad). You just have to keep in mind how the sausage was made and check the sources if it's something important. Ideally you should check several independent sources. Wikipedia is often a good starting point though.

[paulca]

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/humans-are-free/