User talk:Garzfoth/Archive 1

Garzfoth, breaking up the comments of other editors to reply within them as you did here goes against our best practices. Per WP:TPO, "It is generally inappropriate to add replies in the middle of another editor's post. Instead, add your reply at an appropriate point after the other editor's signature, using proper threading and indentation." If you think about it, you can see why this is. If you reply within my comment, the original context and flow of my comment is completely lost. I'll be correcting this now by separating it. Viriditas (talk) 02:05, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up! I'll keep that in mind in the future. Garzfoth (talk) 02:51, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Garzfoth, you have followed me to two separate articles in the last several weeks. This is a formal warning for you to stop what you are doing per Wikipedia:Harassment#Wikihounding. If you continue to do it after receiving this message, I will escalate this matter accordingly. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

First, let's quote that policy...

Wikihounding is the singling out of one or more editors, and joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia.

Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done carefully, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight. Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam. The contribution logs can be used in the dispute resolution process to gather evidence to be presented in requests for comment, mediation, WP:ANI, and arbitration cases. Using dispute resolution can itself constitute hounding if it involves persistently making frivolous or poorly-based complaints about another editor.

The important component of wikihounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason. If "following another user around" is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions.

I don't see how I've violated policy. In case 1, I completely agreed with you, made various tweaks to the wording you had used to improve it, and did a few broader edits to the page. I do not believe that this can be claimed as an example of "confront[ing] or inhibit[ing] their work". In case 2, I removed a strongly unjustified bit that was unsupported POV-pushing and disrupting the broadness of the claim, then tagged your unsupported claims with citation needed tags, because they quite clearly needed that. This is a borderline at best case. Either way, this is a total of TWO cases at most, and they are separated by sixteen days! It's not as if these are the only edits done in that period -- I made over 50 edits to various pages during those sixteen days.

You can hardly claim that I've been following you from place to place, repeatedly confronting or inhibiting your work, attempting to create irritation, annoyance, or distress to you, etc... They state quite clearly that "the important component of wikihounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason", and that I need to display a pattern of "tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior" for it to be serious enough for "blocks and other editing restrictions".

You have been immensely hostile to me and other users on McMillan's page, violating countless policies in the process. You have displayed a clear pattern of bias, policy violations, and other issues. You have attempted to discourage me from editing both directly and indirectly, a clear violation of WP:DNB. I'm not happy about that, but I'm not going to do anything idiotic about it.

Yes, I have gone through your contribs a number of times, out of general curiosity about the content you edit and how you edit it, and also just to find more interesting articles and discussions. You are by no means the only user whose contribs I have reviewed multiple times -- there are at least three users I can think of that I've reviewed multiple times for similar reasons. I have only made edits to two articles because of your contribs. The first was because you had made an interesting edit that I thought was rather bold but also strongly needed, and I realized that I was interested enough in the article to make some various changes to improve things, none of which should have inhibited or confronted your work. I do not believe that this edit could be considered in any way an example of Wikihounding. The second was to an article where your changes had clear issues -- I covered this above already. I suppose some people may feel that this edit could be viewed in part as an attempt to inhibit or confront your work, although given that you had managed to fail to cite any supporting refs, and had added a very problematic additional bit that clearly deserved removal, I don't think there's anything about the edit that justifies viewing it like that.

Now, as I have shown, you have one example of maybe pseudo-Wikihounding, and one example of what is clearly not Wikihounding. None of the criteria were met...so that's that, eh? If you continue to threaten me, please keep in mind that your activity on McMillan's page would more than justify bringing you to ANI, and given your past history of blocks for near-identical behavior, it may not end well for you. I do not want to do this for various reasons, I would prefer to assume some good faith here. This kind of attack is not in good faith at all. Garzfoth (talk) 21:09, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

You have not been threatened, you have been warned per best practices. Since you did not seem to understand the warning, I will repeat it again: do not continue to follow me around to articles that I edit. If you do, I will pursue administrative remedies against you. In case you are not aware, we have automated tools that shows which editor arrives at an article, and which editor stalks them. Those tools show you hounding me in an unambiguous manner, so no amount of wikilawyering will change that fact. This is your last and final warning. Viriditas (talk) 22:41, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

The public tools that you appear to be referring to do not show what you are claiming. There are only two articles that could possibly be included in this analysis, and the tools report exactly what I've outlined above -- two articles edited, both on the talk+main pages, separated by 16 days and 50 edits.

This isn't a warning at all, this is clearly an unsubstantiated accusation that fails to be supported by my edits. Wikihounding does NOT apply here. I am 100% allowed to look at your contribs. I am 100% allowed to edit the articles to correct "unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy", which the second case should fall under. The first case fails to meet the Wikihounding criteria in the first place. It in no way is intended to cause "irritation, annoyance or distress" to you, and the same stands for the second case too.

Oh yeah, guess what? "Using dispute resolution can itself constitute hounding if it involves persistently making frivolous or poorly-based complaints about another editor". This is pretty much exactly what you are doing right now. How ironic.

"If "following another user around" is accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, it may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions" -- oh hey, let's see, I've done NONE of this at all.

Once again. You are clearly abusing Wikihounding in an attempt to attack me. I cannot assume good faith when you react like this. I have not violated the Wikihounding policy, and am nowhere near close to violating it. Please stop these inaccurate accusations immediately. If you continue, it will likely end up resulting in you getting yet another block for disruptive editing or unsubstantiated accusations. Garzfoth (talk) 01:09, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

You have been warned, not threatened. I have corrected you twice on this point. Further, the public tools in question show unambiguously that you followed me to three articles. If you persist in this folly after 1) being warned, 2) being informed of stalking/hounding, and 3) being told to stop, I will bring this to the attention of the wider community. It is your choice as to what to do next. Nothing I have said here is "unsubstantiated" in any way. Go ahead and test me by following me to a fourth article. If you do, you will immediately end up on the admin noticeboard in a thread with your name on it. Try me. Oh, and before you engage in stalking again, I should warn you, the admins look poorly on sleeper accounts created in 2013. Please try to come up with some kind of reasonable excuse as to why you created an account in 2013 but never started editing until 2015. I would hate to see you blocked too quickly for being an obvious troll. Viriditas (talk) 01:56, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Ahhh, wow. Seriously?? The public tools do NOT show that I followed you to three articles, they show overlapping activity on three articles (and their talk pages). Overlapping activity != followed you there. I'm not even sure how I found the McMillan article at this point, but given the age of those edits, and the context, you cannot seriously claim that to be anywhere near evidence. I freely admit that I found both Free speech zone and [[United States Department of Homeland Security via your contribs, but I do NOT believe that my edits to Free speech zone could in ANY way be considered a violation of the Wikihounding policy, which leaves us with a single edit to hang your argument on, an edit that may not even satisfy the most basic criteria for Wikihounding anyways.

If you report me using false accusations of Wikihounding, I will invoke the line "using dispute resolution can itself constitute hounding if it involves persistently making frivolous or poorly-based complaints about another editor" and accuse you of Wikihounding. Then I will include the evidence from the talk page of McMillan's article to illustrate your continued pattern of violating an impressive number of Wikipedia policies, disruptive editing, attacking users, etc. This should be enough to get you a nice shiny block as a reward for being so nasty to other editors. You have received several blocks for doing exactly this in the past, so we can just repeat history once again.

Or you can just acknowledge that I am nowhere near violating the Wikihounding policy, and move along. Your choice!

One last bit: There is nothing wrong with my account. I have made numerous positive contributions to wikipedia, I have never been blocked, there is no reason for the admins to view me in an excessively negative light, especially when compared to you. Scare tactics are pathetic, go troll someone else. My contribs are clearly not those of a troll. Garzfoth (talk) 03:20, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have to correct you again, but you either don't understand how to use the tool in question or you are misusing it. The tools show that you followed me to three separate articles, nothing more, nothing less. This is not overlapping in any respects. The tools specificaly show that I made the first edit and you showed up after. If that isn't clear, then have someone you trust explain it to you so that you can avoid getting blocked for a very long time. And please, put on your thinking cap and try to come up with some kind of plausible excuse for your sleeper account. The admins will probably run an SPI and then I won't have anyone to stalk me anymore. I'm afraid I'll be lonely with you indefinitely blocked. Hint: you could always fall back on ye olde "fresh start" excuse, so they won't go digging too hard into your original account that's likely blocked hard like an old senior citizen who hasn't had a bowel movement in a week. I mean, let's face it, you create this account in 2013 and then disappear for two years, only to show up in the middle of an editing dispute? You can yell "I've never been blocked" as many times as you want, but we all know you mean, "I've never been blocked with this account". Yeah, that's the ticket. Good show, buddy. Viriditas (talk) 03:31, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Apparently you just flat-out don't understand how to interpret the results. My edits on McMillan's article cannot be held up as an example of Wikihounding because it does not conform to the policy in any way, shape, or form. You have quite literally no proof to back your claim up at this point, and it's clear from my edits and talk page comments that I was not targeting you. All you have is proof that you contributed to the article before I did. Woah, big fucking shocker right here, a Wikipedia editor with 140k edits contributed to this random fucking article. I guess I can't edit that article now, because it's clearly Wikihounding to start editing an article that you've touched at some point, right? Oh waaiiiiit, that's not at all how it works!

So, sleeper account? Well, I created an account with the intention of contributing to Wikipedia, but ended up deciding that I wasn't ready to start contributing yet. Oh no, I waited before I started editing, what a terrible terrible thing to do. I truly must be a terrible person for doing that.

The admins are welcome to run a SPI. This is my account, I use it for editing a variety of topics, I have made 218 edits already, it's clearly nowhere near single-purpose. I'll give the admins additional proof if they want it. Nice threats though.

I don't have any blocked alts/IPs whatsoever. 100% clean here.

So, if you want to run whatever bullshit, be my guest. If you want to make bogus reports, I hope you're ready for another block. Garzfoth (talk) 05:34, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I’m contacting active participants on this article to vote “yes” or “no” on this suggested format. [Talk: List of Internet Forums]
72.181.218.181 (talk) 00:40, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Garzfoth - you and I haven't interacted much - I have noticed your work. You are editing in a way that is a pretty aggressive, and pretty pro-industry. While Wikipedia encourages all editors to be bold, I'm writing here to ask you to be aware that Wikipedia is a community with editors who have many points of view, some of them very strong. All of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines describe best practices (what we should do) as well as practices that are allowed (what we can do). Per the very helpful essay, WP:Controversial articles, when working on controversial subjects, where there are a wide range of very strong points of view, it is all the more important that everybody aims high, and edits as we should, not as we can. So - reach for the best sources you can find, write as neutrally as you can, be mindful that people who think very differently than you are going to read and respond to your edits, and be ready to compromise where that makes sense. In general, "write for the other side", as it were, especially on controversial subjects. Articles where a significant number of editors fail to exercise self-restraint turn into hellish battlegrounds and end up at Arbcom with all kinds of editing restrictions... and suck up a ton of the community's time.

We need more editors aiming for the sustainable middle, not for articles that reflect their POV purely. It is hard to be there, but I am asking you to be part of the Wikipedia solution to difficult topics, which is self-restraint and always editing as we should. We need less advocacy, which is one of the thorniest problems here. I hope that makes sense - happy to discuss. Jytdog (talk) 13:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Can you be a bit more specific? I'm afraid that this is extremely vague and I'm not clear on the details, if you could bring up examples that would be great. I have a very poor tolerance for bullshit, idiocy, sensationalism, etc - and I am appalled at the state of many articles on here. I want Wikipedia to be high-quality and accurate, my edits are aimed at working towards that point. So, if you can, please expand on this further. Thanks. Garzfoth (talk) 14:36, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

You know what you are doing, and I am not going to get into the weeds with you on an edit-by-edit basis. I deal with POV-pushers from across the spectrum on the GMO stuff, mostly anti-GMO advocates who seem to show up more frequently and with more passion than pro-industry editors, but they come from across the spectrum. Most of your edits are part of the problem, just on the other side from the anti-GMO POV pushers. I am asking you to be part of the solution. You do seem to understand the science and the actual use of genetically engineered products and could be useful in making and maintaining sustainable WP articles on this topic. It is hard to edit neutrally on controversial topics but please aim for the middle. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:05, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

So much for useful advice. Apparently I'm pro-industry because I'm against a coatrack of fringe/non-npov shit. Yay. Most of my edits are part of the problem? Well this is why I wanted clarification, because I was under the impression that you were here primarily because of the brief edits on Monsanto article/talk, not that that's really being legitimately used by you anyways. What other edits have issues? Where the hell are the edits that are "part of the problem"? I skimmed my entire edit history, I'm not seeing this trend you're claiming. This is fucking ridiculous. Garzfoth (talk) 16:44, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that pro-industry might be a bit of an overstatement, and I don't think you're quite as out of line as Jytdog was initially saying in terms of your intent. That being said, your edits can appear pro-industry when the are other more extreme POVs in the mix. I saw your edits as a bit more neutral, but I was also coming at it from a different perspective in that I didn't think the sections really had noteworthy content in the first place, including the one source you left. Unfortunately, some editors can be so far on a POV extreme that almost anything (even someone like me who's job sometimes entails being critical of industry when they're out of line) looks pro-industry. We can't really dig into individual editors on who's really doing that, but it is a systemic problem in the topic that results in hornet nests on sometimes unsuspecting editors. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:48, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. Garzfoth (talk) 18:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Hm. I have been editing here pretty steadily since 2012 or so and in the beginning worked extensively on the article about Monsanto and GMO stuff and pesticides - so much so that those articles remain the biggest single chunk of my editing overall even though I work on a much broader range of stuff for the past few years. I worked very hard to craft reasonably good articles NPOV, well-sourced content, that could be stable in the Wikipedia that actually exists, and to maintain good NPOV content against the constant onslaught of POV-pushers. If you look at the edit summary for all those articles, you will see that I am the biggest contributor to most of them (for example see here. Anti-GMO advocates here (like V with whom you were arguing above) have hounded me for years with accusations that I am an industry whore.

I mean what I say here, and I speak from experience. Some of the stuff you are doing, like trying to remove the list of books and movies from the Monsanto article and removing the genetic engineering connection at the Tryptophan article, is not helpful. It will just generate a shitstorm of drama and and even if you "win" now, it will not be sustainable because someone new will come along and freak out and there will be a whole new round of drama. You are aiming for some kind of purity that is unattainable/unsustainable in Wikipedia - just like the anti-GMO advocates are aiming for a kind of purity that pleases them. Advocates end up leaving frustrated and burnt out (self righteousness burns one out) or getting thrown out of here. What Wikipedia needs is more sane, steady, centrist editors on these topics. There are very few of them. I wish you would tone it down and come more to the center. Jytdog (talk) 17:51, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

btw, Kingofaces, who wrote above, is one of the few other sane, centrist editors. There are so few of us that some editors have started to accuse Kingofaces and me of being some kind of WP:GANG. We are not - we just share topic interests and a sane, science-based approach to editing. Jytdog (talk) 17:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Eh. I guess. The GE connection at tryptophan was more about inaccuracy and overly-high levels of unnecessary detail, you'll notice that when I rewrote the EMS article I summarized things differently, someone was misusing sources initially. I may eventually figure out a way to summarize it briefly so that I can replace the shitty paragraph about the GE connection with something better. I'm expecting other bits to be contested eventually (in EMS), as I drastically changed things and even though the article is now actually accurate, I know that people will eventually start ruining it to fit comforting but inaccurate narratives... I get your point about centrism, but Jesus Christ, I do not have the patience to deal with these people. I've been avoiding the GE-related topics because of that, I have quite a lot of knowledge on the topic, but I just cannot deal with this kind of drama. The Monsanto edits were just my hopeful stab at a quick fix to something that seemed drastically out of line, but this just reaffirmed that I should keep avoiding most GE-related articles. You've done a really really good job working on those articles, I don't want to know what it'd look like without you keeping things together, there are so many horribly ignorant anti-GM editors out there (even just looking at major ones alone, not counting the endless IP users and new accounts). I think I'll have to stick to my various broad pharmacy/psychiatry topics (as well as a little bit of fringe stuff), that's worked out well so far, and there are less issues with idiots and drama on these topics (excluding fringe of course). Garzfoth (talk) 18:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I hear you on the frustration. :) I haven't seen you at WP:MED - consider joining? Most of my edits are drugs/diseases/diagnostics/dietary supplements, and a spend a bunch of time on COI matters. The GMO stuff is just a small part of what I do now. .... So happy to have more science-based editors working on psych drugs! So much bad content that still needs cleanup. I do hear you that in general the hardcore MED topics are much more science-based, much more free of bullshit, much less passionate advocacy. Alt med, of course, is another story. Oy. Jytdog (talk) 21:44, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning that, I went and joined the medicine and pharmacology wikiprojects. It'll probably take me a little while to get used to it though since I'm new to WikiProjects, it looks great though! Garzfoth (talk) 03:08, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

• On the Dexmethylphenidate page, your edit caused a broken reference name (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:23, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Huh, apparently transcluded content is not handled very well when a ref is used by name instead of in whole. I'll leave this notice here for now instead of removing it like I normally do after resolving the issue, just as a reminder for the future. Future me, see this diff for more info. Garzfoth (talk) 22:25, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Garzfoth. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with some of the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest. People with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, see the conflict of interest guideline and frequently asked questions for organizations. In particular, please:

• avoid editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, its competitors, or projects and products you or they are involved with;
• instead, propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (see the {{request edit}} template);
• avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see WP:SPAM);
• exercise great caution so that you do not violate Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use require disclosure of your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, sourcing, and autobiographies. If you receive any money in exchange for your edits, then per the paid editing policy you must disclose the connection. -- Callinus (talk) 11:00, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Oh dear lord, this is rich. First: your reversion, your talk page edit

So you've already poisoned the well with "no matter what paid editors with undisclosed COI think", then you head on over here to slap a notice on my talkpage even though it clearly seems that you've already made up your mind. Guess what? I'm not a paid editor! I have no relevant conflicts of interest here whatsoever! And yes, I see your little note, so I'll reiterate that I do not receive any money or any other sort of compensation whatsoever for my edits to Wikipedia. This kind of behavior from you is disgusting and highlights a disturbingly frequent trend on this website and elsewhere. Garzfoth (talk) 12:26, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:02, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi! Could you please add a source for the Korean S. boulardii study you mentioned on Helicobacter pylori eradication protocols#Role of probiotics? You just wrote "50" after the sentence, so I suppose something went wrong with the ref. Thanks, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:21, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I actually didn't edit that section of the article at all (intentionally avoided it), check my diffs, you have the wrong user. Garzfoth (talk) 17:16, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. Don't know how I missed that. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 21:10, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I recently edited psychiatric medications that you reverted. I think you are misinformed about the success of psychiatric medications. Robert Whitaker has written two books questioning the success of psychiatric medication. You do know of the Harrow study "Do all schizophrenia patients need antipsychotic treatment continuously throughout their lifetime? A 20-year longitudinal study." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22340278 and Dr. Nancy Andreasen reveled antipsychotics shrink the brain. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/201102/andreasen-drops-bombshell-antipsychotics-shrink-the-brain . To write I was performing "borderline vandalism" to Wikipedia is unfounded.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 23:11, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Please reread WP:5P2, WP:NPOV, and WP:FRINGE. What you did was indeed borderline vandalism, and as you might notice, there are now four very reputable references backing up the claim. Your editing is slanted severely towards fringe topics, which must not be given WP:UNDUE weight. Wikipedia is also NOT a WP:SOAPBOX for your views. Garzfoth (talk) 01:15, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soapbox for the pharmaceutical industry either. You can not change the fact that the seriously mentally ill have a 10 to 25 shorter life expectancy. You can not change the fact of the more than 40 Billion dollars in profits (yearly) are made from psychiatric medication. You can not change the fact that if the psychiatric medications were working the rate of incidence should go down, not up. Year 1955 , 3.38 per 1,000; year 1987, 13.75 per 1,000; year 2003, 19.69 per 1,000. Peter_C._Gøtzsche, Irving Kirsch, Ivan Illich and the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry http://cepuk.org/ are not a fringe group.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 13:05, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you don't seem to understand that we use the findings in the peer-reviewed literature (and other sources) that pass WP:MEDRS. We are not a soapbox for the pharmaceutical industry.

I'm not sure exactly how much money in profits is made from psych meds, but I'd like to point out that this point is utterly irrelevant, and the same argument can be made for quite literally anything, so this is just foolish.

Psych meds, as a whole, are generally effective. This is a point of clear consensus in the medical literature. You cannot challenge this on the basis of diagnoses made per year. Why? Because the number of diagnoses made yearly is an independent variable that is increasing because of reduced stigma, increased awareness, and a better understanding of the nature of mental disorders/illness. The fact that effective treatments are available has an indirect impact on that, but the efficacy of the treatments has no impact. Making this argument is bizarre.

Peter and Irving are controversial and somewhat fringe, Ivan is definitely fringe, and the CEPUK is absolutely a fringe group. Garzfoth (talk) 15:08, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

You do not have the power as an individual to judge my edits to Wikipedia as "borderline vandalism" . I submit to you more evidence that the drug industry is corrupting the legitimacy of genuine science. http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/bmj-fiona-godlee-science-1.3541769 "Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor of the BMJ, has strong words about the overuse of drugs, and the influence of industry on the types of questions that scientists ask, and the conclusions that are drawn from the evidence."

The money involved is totally relevant because those that judge the effectiveness of the drugs are the ones selling the drugs. It is the fox in charge of the hen-house. --Mark v1.0 (talk) 15:11, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

• I actually do have the power as an individual to do that, and what's more, I would be quite willing to take you to WP:ANI or WP:NPOVN over this if that's what's required to resolve this (right now it is not). You vandalized an article by unjustifiably deleting text in an attempt to push non-NPOV views into the article. That is quite clear. I gave you the benefit of the doubt by reverting your edit in good faith, but that was by no means required, and I would have been justified in reverting it as vandalism.
• "Godlee is leading several campaigns to change the way science is reported, including opening up data for other scientists to review, and digging up data from old and abandoned trials for a second look" - this is excellent work (at least when done correctly), and is a huge issue in many fields irregardless of industry influence.
• "She has strong words about the overuse of drugs," - Without her expanding further on that I cannot comment on this beyond saying that if it's taken as a vague generalized statement, it's completely reasonable.
• "and the influence of industry on the types of questions that scientists ask, and the conclusions that are drawn from the evidence" - This is a well-known problem, but it does not invalidate the results of countless studies (which is what I think you are considering this to mean), and the amount of bias is extremely variable and not unique to industry. I see potential bias all the time when I read scientific papers, but it's often minor, and some of the most blatant cases I've seen were not industry studies. Also, a lot of the bias I've noticed is more of a limitation of the paper than an actual issue. And, as WP:MEDRS states, we are to use reviews, and those are usually much less biased than primary sources are (the best reviews are the ones that actively seek to identify potential biases in a comprehensive manner).
• "The money involved is totally relevant because those that judge the effectiveness of the drugs are the ones selling the drugs" - The FDA is a rather major roadblock in the drug development pipeline, and they are very experienced with dealing with these cases. There are a LOT of drugs that you'll never hear about because they died in the FDA approval process. There are a LOT of drugs that have died in Phase II & III trials that you also will never hear about.
• "It is the fox in charge of the hen-house" - If you truly believe that, then you really should not be editing medical articles at all, because that isn't true and it's a major indication that you are here to push WP:FRINGE content and give it WP:UNDUE weight. Garzfoth (talk) 22:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

I added a section on the legality of MethylPhenidate in India. Being a qualified psychiatrist in India I don't quite get how my edit was vandalism. By the way, please take the effort of going through my changes before actually branding them vandalism. Also kindly refrain from posting passive aggressive stuff on my talk page. Thank You --Thestringtheorist (talk) 19:55, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

@Thestringtheorist: The reason I reverted your edits is primarily because of Special:Diff/728118130, which is blatant vandalism. You do not have any reason to remove side effects at random, especially ones that are so well-supported by the cited literature. Now it's true that you added data on legal status in India in this and the subsequent edit (Special:Diff/728118277), but your source is broken and this is overshadowed by your vandalism. Feel free to re-add the India legal info with a non-broken reliable source.

What I posted on your talk page was a warning proportionate to your actions, which is considered standard procedure here on Wikipedia when reverting certain types of edits. There is nothing passive-aggressive about it - this is what editors are supposed to do in vandalism cases. Garzfoth (talk) 22:57, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

I removed the sentence because it did not have any source. Depression from Methylphenidate is not common. In fact, methylphenidate has been used to fight depression in certain cases. Link -http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22208450. The sentence in that article gives the impression that depression is very common which is not the case. Moreover, I have linked the Wikipedia article to Schedule X drugs in India in the edit which I made. The source which I linked is taken from that article. I'll add a new source. --Thestringtheorist (talk) 08:27, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

@Thestringtheorist: ...the sourcing for the section covers all of that (the 5 refs cited following the sentence "Methylphenidate is generally well tolerated"). I'm not going to re-cite the same group of 5 base refs on every sentence in the section. Even if I grouped them it'd still look ridiculous. I wrote most of the current adverse effects section from scratch a while ago (which involved a huge amount of literature review), so I can quite confidently tell you that the sourcing is primarily based on those refs, with additional refs for a few specific things. I can also quite confidently tell you that the section accurately reflects the data in the scientific literature, from numerous major clinical trials, from the drug labeling, etc. It is true that stimulants such as methylphenidate can be used to treat depression in some cases (although this is a highly controversial use), but they are also capable of causing depression, and I don't see how you would draw the conclusion that my wording implies depression is a "very common" adverse effect -- this is not at all what I wrote.

Here's a de-construction of how I wrote the section:

• Sentence #1 - Overall summary of how well the drug is tolerated
• Sentence #2 - The most common adverse effects
• The rest of paragraph #1 - Various grouped adverse effects that range from very common to somewhat rare. Note that the ophthalmologic ref is supplemental only, and I can't recall why there's that ref after the chest pain sentence (not sure if it's one I added or one that someone else added and either nobody screened it or it was screened and left as-is for whatever reason).
• Paragraph #2 - Some specific information. Sentence #1 and #3 are primarily supported by their refs, sentence #2 is supported only by general refs.
• Paragraph #3 - Precautions and some other side effects, mostly very rare ones. Most or all of this is supported by general refs, although there are a number of supplemental refs used due to the specificity of topics discussed.
• Paragraph #4 - Information on a specific concern. This paragraph was re-used, I did not write it from scratch.
• Paragraph #5 - Information on when side effects may emerge. This paragraph was re-used, I did not write it from scratch.

I hope this helps you better understand the situation.

I've re-added the India info, minus your broken source, and with a citation needed tag on part of it that urgently requires a source. It'd be ideal to cite a (working) source for the base claim, but linking to the article is good enough here (ignoring the exclusive prescribing referencing issue). Garzfoth (talk) 18:59, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

I've added the source for legality of Methylphenidate in India. I have checked and ensured that it is a working link this time. You can check page 463 of the link and you'll find that Methylphenidate is a Schedule X drug in India. Regarding, depression as a side effect, I personally have not found anyone suffering from depression as a result of taking Methylphenidate, but if you have peer reviewed research which says that depression has been observed in clinical trials then I think there's no point in arguing about this. Let me know if the changes work. I hope it's not vandalism this time !! --Thestringtheorist (talk) 22:07, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

The link definitely works now, so thank you for that contribution! I understand that your professional viewpoint is different (although anecdotal), but depression is definitely a potential side effect (It is both a potential symptom of withdrawal and a potential directly-induced side effect. Depression has definitely been observed in clinical trials of methylphenidate products, and I think I could find you some other sources on this if necessary). Garzfoth (talk) 00:24, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

You are receiving this notification because you participated in a past RfC related to the use of extended confirmed protection levels. There is currently a discussion ongoing about two specific use cases of extended confirmed protection. You are invited to participate. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:07, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Garzfoth, I'm having difficulty reconciling the meanings that you use for "pump-back": "Pure pump-back means no inflows to upper reservoir. closed loop means no inflows to either upper or lower reservoir. major difference!" with the meanings used in the article on pumped storage, perhaps you might want to change that article? Comments? Dougmcdonell (talk) 18:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dougmcdonell: Hmm, it looks like there's an issue with different sources using different terms and confusing the picture. It sounds like I got pump-back and pumped mixed up judging by the sources I'm reviewing, so I'll clarify things...

There are two primary forms of pumped-storage, one of which can be split into two sub-types:

• Closed-loop systems - these systems are composed of two completely isolated reservoirs. They are initially filled with water during construction via artificial means. During operation, there is no natural inflow of water into either reservoir, and neither reservoir will ever intentionally discharge water into a connected stream, river, lake, etc.
• Open-loop systems - these systems are composed of two reservoirs, one or both of which has natural water inflow. The lower reservoir dam could in theory generate hydroelectricity, but this dam would not be considered part of the pumped-storage system for generation purposes (as it would just be a traditional hydroelectric dam grafted onto the system). Water is eventually irreversibly discharged from the lower reservoir's dam into a connected stream, river, lake, or other outflow.
  • Pure pumped - this system utilizes a lower reservoir with natural inflow, and an upper reservoir with no natural inflow. Water is pumped out of the lower reservoir and into the upper reservoir, then later released back into the lower reservoir during generation operation.
  • Pump-back - this system utilizes an upper reservoir with natural inflow. The lower reservoir may or may not have natural inflow, but has a dam just like a pure pumped operation. These systems are an odd sort of hybrid of a traditional hydroelectric dam and a pumped-storage design. Part of the generation capacity (potentially all in some cases) is comprised of reversible pump-generators that pump water from the lower reservoir back into the upper reservoir when conditions allow for this.

I'm sure this description isn't the best, I find it difficult to explain the particularities of the different systems given the variability in operation and the varying disagreement among different sources as to the proper definitions. A very good example of what a pump-back system looks like can be found at http://balancingthebasin.armylive.dodlive.mil/2013/02/27/pumpback-2/.

I'll try to straighten out the two articles to correctly define the different systems. Thank you for pointing this out. Garzfoth (talk) 01:52, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Garzfoth, I appreciate your clarification & reference. Dougmcdonell (talk) 02:12, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dougmcdonell: I made a bunch of edits to improve the articles (primarily on the main pumped storage page). I may have a bunch of future material to add to the pumped storage page as I've been intensively researching Taum Sauk and have come across a lot of useful generalizable and historical material on pumped storage in the process, but synthesizing a usable summary of it will take some time (and I also need to add a bunch of material to the Taum Sauk article). On the pumped storage page, I think you need to roll your "Pump back Hydroelectric dams" section back into the "Overview" section - it's out of place in the current article. Either that or we need to restructure the article as a whole. I'm not quite sure how to deal with it right now, but it's problematic in its current form (the additional info is great, it's just that the section feels out of place). Garzfoth (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Lots of good additions Garzfoth, and I would prefer to restructure the article as a whole. I think the overview is already to big and more sections would be helpful ie:the only purpose in the past was to move nighttime baseload to daytime peak, the big future demand is to make intermittent energy dispatchable. I expect the topic to get more complicated over time as all kinds of existing reservoirs are used to cut costs. Dougmcdonell (talk) 08:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Garzfoth,

I was surprised at your reversion (rolled back again), there seems to be a misunderstanding here. I wanted to show and quantify that pumped-storage can move the "limit" of non-firm renewables up, and my wording is the opposite of "exact" and "generalizable".

National and regional borders are becoming decreasingly relevant for viewing electricity grids, as generation and demand types are changing and more interconnectors (AC or DC) are built. Interconnectors are 90-95% efficient, whereas pumped-storage is 70-90% efficient. They both compete with and complement eachother, as with other technologies (demand response etc). Also, the traditional "baseload - peak load" scenario is becoming obsolete, and replaced by multiple types with different flexibility, which is more difficult to understand and describe.

The generation mix and grids are different in different areas, and changing over time, so generalizations cannot be made. What we CAN do is show examples and note that they are just that; examples. 20 years ago, the view was that non-firm renewables could supply 10-20%, whereas 20-40% is reached several places now. Experts now say that 60%-70% is feasible.

In short, the "limit" has moved up over time, and may move further up. Pumped-storage can move that "limit" even further up. TGCP (talk) 10:36, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@TGCP: Nobody disputes that pumped-storage is an important (if underutilized) asset for integrating renewable resources into the generation system without increasing fossil fuel use. However, borders between countries (and electrical systems, and even just generating assets) are extremely important because countries are changing their grids at different rates, and a very substantial amount of non-renewable generation capacity and offloading energy to other countries is being used to balance out the impact of regional renewable energy sources (instead of using storage). The effect of this in Germany in particular is that they very heavily and extensively rely on three strategies to compensate for their high penetration of wind/solar generating assets - using a large amount of native coal/gas plants, dumping excess energy onto neighboring countries, and using neighboring countries' generating assets. If they reduce the first, the second and third become larger factors. This is why they believe that extremely high percentages of wind/solar penetration would be viable without storage. In reality, this will all fall apart the instant you try to apply this model to, say, Australia, or to any country/area where uniformly high penetration of wind/solar has occurred in neighboring regions/grids/countries. Due to this, it is fallacious reasoning to try to use this example in a general sense (where storage and other measures are needed much sooner than the example would anticipate), which is what is being done in the content that I reverted. Also, I would like to point out that the idea of "traditional baseload/peak load" being obsolete is more of a fantasy than anything else, as base load and peak load are important concepts in any grid, and you must be able to meet these loads irregardless of the technology used to meet them. The only thing that is arguably "obsolete" is the concept of fossil fuel baseload plants (and good riddance!), but baseload plants themselves are not obsolete in a clean energy system given the existence of nuclear power and hydroelectricity. As for the claim of "peak load" plants being obsolete, that is hilariously wrong, and a particularly ironic/bizarre claim to make when discussing energy storage. Finally, pumped storage does not move any "limits" to the point at which storage is necessary upwards given that pumped storage is an energy storage technology at its core! Garzfoth (talk) 08:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

This is a complicated (and probably never-ending) discussion which can be improved by using numbers, not just words. It is easy to misunderstand eachother when the subject is so complex, diverse and changing, so let's try to find common ground. By looking at real-world examples (and sources) we can shift the debate from theory to practice, and to verifiable content.

First, we must distinguish between power (Watt) and energy (Joule). Capacity is the amount of GigaWatts available; some firm, some non-firm. Renewable penetration level is about annual output, ie. energy. You probably know that, but it's important for context.

Second, the "limit" of non-firm renewables means the annual MWh electricity of solar and wind that can be accomodated in a system (stream and tidal doesn't apply yet), all else being equal. As "else" changes, so does this "limit". This "else" may be system management, demand, curtailment (3 cheap), transmission, storage (2 expensive) etc.

You're partially right; my edit attempted to show how complementaries to pumped-storage can increase "limit". It does not show that PS can increase that limit, although I wanted to. I also wanted to quantify that "limit", which is what the source does at 60-70% when excluding storage. We seem to agree that PS can then further increase that perceived "limit". The reason that Schucht talks about "up to 70 per cent penetration without the need for storage" is simply that the other methods are cheaper to implement.

The words "before storage needed" seem to be confusing the debate unnecessarily - you chose to combine the words "pumped storage" with "moves limits to the point at which storage is necessary". I didn't, but that might be (wrongly) inferred from the combination of edit and talk. Schucht says "wind and solar" to 60-70% and then "storage will be needed", for example PS. If a "limit" includes storage it may or may not be described as a different type of limit, but for now, the "limit" is NOT tied to storage. The limit is mostly about economy, which is also changing.

I agree that more interconnectors mean more power transit (that's their purpose) and higher integration of previously separate markets - that's what I mean by borders becoming less important; countries can no longer be viewed in isolation, but must be viewed in a larger context, which seems to be what you are saying.

Regions of interest

Germany and Australia has a similar mix of coal, lignite (and some nuclear in DE), gas, wind and solar, but in different areas; North Germany has wind, South has solar, East has lignite. South Australia has gas, solar and wind, whereas Victoria has lignite and NSW has coal. The Australian states are more different from eachother than the German states are.

Poland has blocked Germany from exporting wind. The amount of wind that North Germany can export north (and to South Germany) is limited to a couple of GigaWatts; not (yet) significant in the bigger picture. When strong winds create negative prices in Germany, that is also when Netherlands and Denmark produce much wind power.

Germany's low 10% interconnection level (IL) is almost as limited as Australia (IL=0%) in its ability to trade power, compared to the overall capacity. So no, Germany does not (yet) rely heavily on dumping excess, but is seeking to do so, with the blessing of the EU free trade principle.

Germany uses its own capacity to back up solar/wind, and even has the capacity to support France in hot summers and cold winters (for a higher price). So yes, Germany relies heavily (60%) on its less flexible coal/lignite/nuclear, and only 7% gas. The Energiewende has barely begun, and may not reach its goal in our lifetime - but it can change the German system significantly. Germany has a more traditional power system compared to Denmark (and Costa Rica), which is why both are suitable as general examples in different ways. Germany may be applying its system somewhat differently than similar countries, but not much - yet.

Transmission

"Dumping excess" is the consequence of official EU policy to open more free trade across boundaries in their requirement for higher ILs, benefiting consumers but not producers (Poland gives higher priority to its producers than to consumers). When increasing transmission capacity and distance, more assets are available for a larger area, enabling a shift from Baseload to distributed generation.

Paradigm shifting the power system

That is partially why experts say the scenario of Baseload powerplants is diminishing; "base" or "peak" plants will mostly remain (peak more so) but be used in a different way so they can't be called strictly "base" or "peak" anymore - note that I wrote scenario, not the powerplants themselves (base or peak). The function of basegeneration is no longer tied to a specific powerplant, but distributed among a variety of generators. Likewise for the function of peakgeneration. This is a paradigm shift which requires some study to understand, and is therefore easy to misunderstand as you did.

Some "base" will run for weeks not months, and some "peak" will run for days, not hours. That's why large and medium Pumped-storage moves the "limit" up, as does transmission. Peakerplants with low energy content (batteries and small pumped) will be the only true peakerplants because they simply can't run for longer, despite being fairly cheap to run. In other words, both basic and peak generation will each be supplied by a variety of sources, not by particular types of sources. That is a shift from physical assets to distributed capability. Systems can export power while producing zero electricity from basegeneration (bottom page).

Economy is one of the reasons for this shift: Due to cheap shale gas in the United States flexible gas engines are cheaper to run (and certainly buy) than most baseload (nuclear, coal), so US can retain a high capacity while staying flexible to accomodate a larger portion of non-firm renewables; moving the "limit" up. (BaseLoad should be called BaseGeneration). Note that USA has a higher gas penetration (30%) than Germany (7%), and thus is more able to absorb non-firm. By comparison, Germany seems to have conservative power system, suitable for generalization (but not proven).

New nuclear (and some old) may have the technical flexibility to adjust output, but not the economic flexibility - they have to produce at full power all their online time to stay economical. France is the exception.

I think Norway (maybe Costa Rica) is (nearly) the only country in the world where hydro is big enough (>90%) to remain a baseload. All other countries have too little hydro to stay as baseload, and will convert them to peakerplants and pumped-storage as transmission increases. Local areas (Quebec, British Columbia, Washington) have more hydro than they can transmit, and will have a high, but reduced amount of hydro baseload. TGCP (talk) 16:28, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@TGCP: I think our disagreement is primarily over the attempt to quantify the point at which storage becomes necessary. But nobody is transparent enough about the things being done to compensate for the lack of storage, people are making far too many huge assumptions with many models, and most models are either not realistic or not clean (in particular the over-reliance on natural gas is a huge issue that's distorting the picture). If we're building a clean energy system, natural gas is not allowed to be a part of it. The only allowable generation components are renewables, nuclear, and storage. And given the attitudes towards nuclear in some countries, it may not be something you can count on having as part of your clean grid despite its potential, so that leaves you with just renewables and storage. Things get a lot harder when you cut out fossil fuels as an option, then WAY harder once natural gas is gone. Without nuclear, it gets bleaker. It can be done, but not without huge costs. The cost of renewables does not take the externalities required in a clean grid into account - and those externalities are very, very expensive. Interconnections are of course hugely important in a clean grid, but the way they operate is very different when all of the regions/countries involved have clean grids - my point being that they are not the panacea that they are today, and shift into a role of shuttling huge quantities of energy both inside of and between countries in order to balance load and meet demand. You can no longer rely on being able to dump excess energy onto your neighbor, so now you must either curtail generation (inefficient and wasteful), or redirect it into extensive storage operations designed to handle these peaks and store it for later use (expensive at the scale required but at least it serves a purpose). You can no longer rely on having large reserves of dispatchable load-following generation capacity (unless you have a lot of hydro), and must instead combine far higher levels of overbuilding than ever before seen with a huge amount of storage capacity. You can no longer rely on gas turbines for peaking, and must instead use vast amounts of fast-responding storage technologies.

I could go on, but I'll stop for now. I think my core point with all of this is to point out that storage is extensively needed in a clean grid, there is an unusual amount of uncertainty involved, and we cannot use guesswork from traditional grid situations to provide a hard figure at which storage becomes necessary. Wikipedia must above all else be accurate and neutral, and in order to do so, we need to avoid the misuse of these kind of "sources" in misleading ways.

To clarify my view on the matter, I think that we should have no hard figure on "the point at which storage is required" unless a very high quality source explicitly defines this point. Very high quality meaning something along the lines of a report from a major minimally biased energy-related organization, governmental or not, and any assumptions made would need to be included alongside the estimate in the article to give it context.

On the topic of the paradigm shift. Economies of scale and location constraints dictate the necessity for wind/solar generation to be focused on large-scale commercial installations, not distributed capacity. Power plants will still be power plants. I don't buy the argument that having a power plant consisting of a bunch of wind turbines (a wind farm) is massively different from a power plant with a couple of CCGTs in anything but land usage and requirements for placement. The grid will be improved in a number of ways (certainly more robust), and considerable use of storage will be necessary, but there won't be much of a change in the basic concepts. A base load will still exist around the clock that must be satisfied, it is only the means of satisfying it that will change (and to a differing degree depending on location and if the nuclear option is utilized). "Base load" plants exist because they are efficient and affordable ways to produce a large steady supply of electricity. The perceived issue with "base load" plants are their inflexibility, and that a baseload plant in load-following mode is sacrificing efficiency to do so. However, this is an issue that most clean energy sources suffer from. Solar is present when the sun shines, wind is present when the wind blows, and if you curtail production of either due to a lack of demand and saturation of storage resources, you sacrifice efficiency. Nuclear and hydro operating as "base load" plants can significantly reduce the amount of wind/solar generation capacity and storage needed, saving quite a lot of money. Nuclear and hydro operating as load-following plants differ in that hydro generally sacrifices much less of its efficiency to do so, but some of nuclear's advantages over hydro include flexibility of location, less ecological impact, large scale of production, much less of a limitation with regards to the amount of water available (not having enough cooling water can force nuclear plants to reduce production, but this is not as big of an issue as dams having too little water available to allow for sustained large flows), etc. And low fuel costs mean that it can still be quite economical to operate nuclear plants in load-following mode, while the consistent available period of generation offers up substantially increased opportunities to maximally utilize the plant's excess output for optimal storage of power. So no, I don't think that I agree with your claims here for the most part.

On the topic of hydro baseload: You don't seem to understand that providing baseload power does not mean that a single energy source has to utterly dominate the energy supply. Also, Quebec runs almost solely on hydro power, it's absolutely ridiculous how much hydroelectric generation capacity they have, they use it for everything - I have no idea how you could possibly say the amount of hydro baseload is "reduced" there.

Maybe I'm just looking at the whole concept of "base load" differently than you are. I see your point about economic flexibility being an asset, but I don't view natural gas as a viable option for clean energy - using it is massively hypocritical. It's better than coal, but nuclear and other renewables that are truly clean energy sources combined with storage are far better than natural gas. Anyways... Garzfoth (talk) 20:51, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello Garzfoth. For some time my edits regarding transport and energy have overlapped with those of TGCP, so I take the liberty of imposing myself into your interesting discussion to make two points: 1) You set out to discuss from a perspective of creating a 100% clean (electricity) energy system, thus ruling out natural gas. However, the transition of all of humanity's energy usage, including transport and heating to being 100% clean is a goal so relatively far off, that it makes sense to plan for some amount of non-renewable energy usage during this transition. After all, accelerating the reduction in humanity's CO2-footprint is useful also if it temporarily includes a non-renewable component such as natural gas. 2) Leaving the temporary usage of natural gas aside for a moment, you assert that the alternative is limited to "renewables and storage", pragmatically ruling our nuclear. Also on this point I have to differ. Improvements in the grid transmission capacity (also internationally) is a third option, and one that is being actively pursued for example among several European countries, with the support of the EU. Best regards, Lklundin (talk) 21:58, 30 January 2017 (UTC) PS. What do you think will happen with Hinkley Point C, will it ever deliver power to the grid?

@Lklundin: CCGT plants are of value in displacing traditional coal plants due to the 40% reduction in GHG emissions and improvements in other emissions such as particulates. This does NOT mean that it is a viable solution to our energy issues, nor does it mean that it is "clean" or "green" - it is merely somewhat less dirty. It is definitely NOT a long-term solution. Here is the issue. The majority of projections for significant wind/solar energy scenarios rely on a massive amount of natural gas capacity, both in CCGT plants and non-cogenerating peaker plants. These projections also generally exclude the majority of integration costs, dramatically underestimate them, and selectively include/exclude specific costs, which is an issue with an importance beyond measure. This creates an immense amount of bias and misinformation about the financial/logistical viability and "cleanness" of these plans. To make matters worse, while it is arguably generally accepted that we will move away from natural gas "at some point", the massive cost and difficulty of doing so is typically handwaved away or outright ignored. This is a recipe for a long-term dependence on large quantities of natural gas, which produces a substantial amount of GHG emissions. It is also a recipe for unexpectedly large future costs due to deferred integration costs, as well as unexpectedly large immediate costs due to immediate integration costs.

The reduction in GHG emissions from a renewable+gas electricity generation system is pathetic compared to a truly clean (which I will refer to as low-GHG) electricity generation system. Out of the major sources of GHG emissions, electricity generation is one of the largest contributors (30% of GHG emissions in the US), and it happens to be much easier to shrink than the other major contributors are. What's more, benefits from low-GHG electricity generation can eventually cascade down into other sectors in a significant way.

Examples: light transportation (50% of (all) transportation-related emissions in the US (which are 26% of all emissions) are from light transportation (cars and light-duty trucks), which can eventually be moved over to batteries or hydrogen, which when supplied/produced from low-GHG electricity produces a MAJOR reduction in emissions), heavy transportation (freight trucks, ships/boats, and trains are potential candidates for some level of switchover to batteries or hydrogen although it is not as broadly viable as it is for light transportation, and unlike pipelines/lubricants/aircraft (the rest of the transportation sector's emissions) these sources CAN potentially use batteries/hydrogen - unfortunately the emissions benefit is still too variable to estimate here but an impact can be made), industry (21% of all emissions - limited benefits are available in this sector, but hydrogen may be an aid both directly (ideal but possibly impractical) and by being turned into methane (an actively explored route - since you use CO₂ to produce methane from hydrogen, it's in theory much better than burning regular natural gas)), commercial/residential (12% of total, while we cannot deal with emissions from products containing GHGs or the handling of waste, we can still displace most of the GHG contributions from heating via either direct usage of hydrogen or the aforementioned method of creating methane from CO₂ and hydrogen)

The lower the electrical sector GHG emissions, the greater the amount of emissions the cascade effects displace. This means that using natural gas in any significant capacity is irrational when much sources with much lower emissions exist and the need to lower GHG emissions by as much as possible is so great.

CCS technology is only capable of bringing fossil fuel emissions to about the level of emissions from biomass (without the convenient more-or-less-carbon-neutral-in-the-long-term effect of biomass). While a ready source of CO₂ is an important asset to have if we are transforming hydrogen into methane at scale, using carbon dioxide captured from fossil fuels makes no sense when you could use CCS on biomass generators instead to capture their carbon dioxide (an absolutely brilliant way to minimize emissions from artificially generated methane). I am not a fan of non-CCS biomass generation in general, but if you store or reuse that carbon, the whole equation changes and biomass generation becomes a very valuable asset.

However, biomass with CCS is still not the power source that we should focus on. The power sources to focus on (in order of least to most GHG generation) are wind/nuclear, followed by hydropower, then geothermal/solar.

Hydropower/geothermal sources should generally be used to the greatest economic extent, but the remaining sources (wind, nuclear, and solar) are the primary building blocks of a truly clean/low-GHG grid. Here is where the debate starts getting ugly.

Now I want to establish that while balancing energy resources over a wide area is a great strategy in general for improving grid stability and especially so in a system with lots of intermittent/variable energy resources, any scenario involving a truly-clean grid would mean that you cannot count on being able to game the system to avoid the integration costs of renewable energy in the way that countries like Germany have been doing.

By extension, this means that integration costs are going to be a much more crucial issue on this truly clean grid even with small quantities of intermittent/variable energy resources, although the integration costs have a tendency to go up rather drastically if these resources make up a larger portion of the energy mix.

Under the proposed and assumed plans of a number of major countries, there is an active attempt to phase out nuclear power sources. At best, the plans assume no increase in nuclear generation capacity, leaving the fleet to slowly decay. At worst, the plans call for it to be aggressively phased out entirely. As such, most plans are designed around the idea of primarily using wind/solar, and not much nuclear. Due to this, integration costs are going to become a HUGE factor that initially gets somewhat hidden by natural gas. But, in the long run (and sometimes sooner), plans usually call for natural gas to be replaced with storage - and that's where things get ugly.

Now, this isn't an unsolvable issue. Throw enough money at the problem and it will go away. But it is smarter to avoid the "drown the issues in irrational amounts of money" approach in favor of "spend a more reasonable amount of money on a more intelligent solution to the root causes". The core tools to optimize a clean grid are pumped storage, hydrogen, a robust electrical grid, and intelligent deployment of variable generating assets. Excess energy that cannot be utilized any other way should be absorbed by pumped storage or hydrogen generation, while stored energy in pumped storage or hydrogen storage should be used to respond to loads when there is a lack of generating assets available to handle it (for the hydrogen you have several viable options to convert it back into electrical energy, generally at a greater overall energy loss than with pumped storage). Balancing all this is more tricky than it seems, and investing in this is unfortunately ignored by many. Early investment is key to a faster transition towards a truly clean yet stable electrical grid.

I thought about talking more about the issues with hidden integration costs, but I think I'll pass on that for now. I guess I will say that one thing a lot of people overlook is the issue of overproduction from renewables - this is much more of an issue when you don't have a lot of pumped storage or hydrogen generation to dump that power into. Solar is much more susceptible to this than wind is, and the problem is obviously increasingly drastic at higher penetrations.

So, what's left... Nuclear power. Okay, so, personally, I think nuclear power is potentially a GREAT component for a clean grid. Sadly, public opinion is generally against this, and conditions aren't optimal for building new nuclear plants right now. Some countries are making great progress with nuclear power, but others are going backwards at alarming rates. It's still possible that nuclear power will become a significant component of the future grid, but right now, the outlook isn't too good for that. And from a critical perspective, nuclear does have some problematic weaknesses, one of the biggest being the flexibility issue. Nuclear can be quite flexible...but the degree of flexibility depends on the reactor/plant design and it tends to end up wasting energy. However, wasting energy isn't necessarily a bad trait when the fuel is so cheap and you can ramp right back up later on. Advanced CANDU designs with robust steam bypass systems are supposed to be particularly spectacular at flexibility - very speedy ramp rates, can keep ramping over the entire fuel cycle, and a huge electricity output regulation range.

Clean grids utilizing a significant amount of nuclear power aren't going to be able to sidestep needing storage (among other things), especially if they're using wind/solar in significant amounts alongside the nuclear, but you can reduce costs in a variety of ways vs a without-nuclear situation if you are smart about exploiting the potential of nuclear power, and you get a MUCH more robust, affordable, and space-efficient energy system out of the bargain. With significant quantities of nuclear power, aligning the charge/discharge of your storage assets (especially pumped storage) with production (normally from wind/solar) becomes much less of an issue (partially because you've eliminated a lot of the wind/solar, but also because you have a bunch of power consistently available during off-peak times instead of just erratically at peak times when pumped storage is likely to be in generation mode (solar) + erratically at various times (wind)). For that matter, meeting demand becomes much less of an issue. Reliance on relatively inefficient storage is reduced (as I already said, but without highlighting the inefficient part). If you want to make use of hydrogen generation at scale, the inefficiencies of hydrogen generation and variability/unpredictability of wind/solar sources are much less of a concern with the very cheap, very predictable, and very highly available power from nuclear plants - and using their output for hydrogen lets you spread production out over more time, lowering the amount of surge capacity required. Anyways, I've talked too much, let's move on...

Where were we... Hinkley point C? I think it'll be built, likely with some delays and cost overruns (maybe not, who knows), but it will almost definitely end up generating power - I doubt it'll get killed or anything. Garzfoth (talk) 03:35, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

OK, thanks for taking the time to share your opinions. All the best, Lklundin (talk) 19:04, 31 January 2017 (UTC)