Talk:Sustainable energy/Archive 7

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UNECE

I would like to draw everyone's attention to this UNECE Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Options[1] just published in October 2021 that contains comparison of energy sources in the following parameters normalized per kWh:

• Lifecycle GHG emissions,
• Lifecycle eutrophying emissions
• Public and occupational ionising radiation exposures from electricity generation
• Lifecycle human toxicity potential, carcinogenic,
• Lifecycle land use, in points per kWh
• Lifecycle dissipated water
• Lifecycle mineral and metal requirements
• Lifecycle cumulative energy demand, fossil
• Lifecycle impact on ecosystems
• Life cycle impacts on ecosystems, no climate change
• Life cycle impacts on human health
• Life cycle impacts on human health, no climate change
• Normalised lifecycle impacts, unweighted, of the production of 1 TWh

In the article, the first one is certainly covered to some extent based on IPCC data as well as the land use, but this UNECE approach is unique in covering all these parameters, all critical from sustainability point of view, in one place, per one methodology, in normalized way. Cloud200 (talk) 20:02, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Having added a summary of these findings in the article I would love if someone could have a second look as these long sequences numbers are notoriously prone to typos. I would also suggest that we rename the "Environmental issues" section into "Environmental impacts", and build on the list of impacts produced by UNECE as it's a great starting point to what actual impacts on environment need to be considered when talking about "sustainability". Cloud200 (talk) 12:22, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

It's a great source, but I'm not happy with the addition. It's a huge table, full of jargon, which only covers

• Europe rather than the globe
• Power rather than energy
• Environmental sustainability rather than the three or four pillars of sustainability.

The added paragraph is also not at FA standards in terms of prose. It's just a big summations, not encyclopedic text. Femke (talk) 17:30, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

I really recommend reading the report in its entirety, I'm sure the prose can be much improved. I proposed this source a few weeks ago and aside from a single "thank you" it didn't get much attention, which is why when I had some time I laboriously transcribed the UNECE chart into the table. Still, I feel both the article and the general concept of "sustainability" are just desperately crying for a bit for quantitative approach, which UNECE does provide, even if limited to Europe - I think it's the best systematic and normalized comparison of energy sources to date. Note that in terms of the pillars of sustainability, most of these are actually captured in the indicators such as use of materials, especially fossils. Cloud200 (talk) 21:10, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, we've all been quiet lately (I think some of us have been recovering from the big Featured Article status push, and COP26). Good suggestion on renaming the section to Environmental Impacts - I made that change. I like the idea of having this section discuss a wider variety of impacts such as human toxicity.

Femke, I'm not sure why you think this source only covers Europe. I have to agree with Femke that the table in its current form and location doesn't work though. At this point in the article we haven't explained CCS, and we'll probably never include the level of detail that would explain things like CdTe and CIGS.

More importantly, the calculation of weighted scores is controversial On page 13 it explains, Weighting denotes the more subjective ranking of impact categories, and a step through which normalised results are multiplied with variable coefficients (weights) to yield a single score. Weighting is the optional fourth and final step in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), after classification, characterization and normalization. This final step is perhaps the most debated. Weighting entails multiplying the normalized results of each of the impact categories with a weighting factor that expresses the relative importance of the impact category . (emphasis in the original).

For some reason that I can't figure out, the way they've done the weighting gives climate impacts little weight, so coal with CCS gets worse scores than coal without CCS. In other words, the report concludes that CCS makes overall environmental impacts worse rather than better. This is a minority point of view and shouldn't be presented as a majority point of view, so I'm going to remove the table for now. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 00:44, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

The European scope comes from the caption on the normalized table which says "Europe, 2020" (which I copied verbatim to our table as seen below). While coal probably shouldn't be included in "sustainable" either with CCS or without, I didn't feel appropriate to just remove it arbitrarily. Which probably could be done by statement like "out of sustainable technologies UNECE found..." etc Cloud200 (talk) 07:45, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh, of course I missed the Europe scope in the table header.

I don't believe the UNECE document says that the technologies listed in the table, even if coal is removed, are sustainable. The UNECE document compares all the major options for generating electricity. It doesn't categorize them as "sustainable" or "not sustainable".

I've started reading the source in more detail (thank you again for finding it) and I think it will be a good source for adding factual detail to various sections. However, I'm not currently convinced that we should use its conclusions on the overall impacts of the options for generating electricity. The weird results that they calculated for coal with CCS make me wonder about the methodology in general. Furthermore, overall impact scores are fundamentally subjective. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:09, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's "weird" at all. If you look at the Table 1, p. 10, it shows exactly what they include and what they include. CCS itself is a very high energy intensive process and it comes at a rather massive cost of mining, energy used for capture and storage, chemical reagents and their carbon footprint. Which is precisely in terms of EROI it may simply have zero or negative net impact on decarbonizing electricity generation, especially if it's powered by fossil fuels (see discussion on p. 17). Cloud200 (talk) 09:24, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

We can disagree over whether it's weird that to think that coal with CCS has worse environmental impacts than coal without CCS. Whether it's weird or not, I believe it's a fact though that it's a minority point of view. Our WP:NPOV policy forbids presenting a minority point of view as if it's a majority point of view.

The idea that CCS may have a zero or negative net impact on decarbonizing electricity generation isn't held by anybody, as far as I know. Even the source we're talking about says that CCS, when used with coal, reduces lifecycle CO2 emissions by around 64% (p. 17). Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:14, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Please read the UNECE methodology as they present a reasonable methodology while admitting a number of assumptions and limitations. And they do have a point in that while CO2 intensity is one of the most frequently used factor for comparison of energy sources, it is not by all means the only pollutant that should be taken into account, which is the whole point of life-cycle analysis. For example (page 6):

All technologies display very low freshwater eutrophication over their life cycles, with the exception of coal, the extraction of which generates tailings that leach phosphate to rivers and groundwater. CCS does not influence these emissions as they occur at the mining phase. Average P emissions from coal range from 600 to 800 g P eq./MWh, which means that a coal phase-out would virtually cut eutrophying emissions by a factor 10 (if replaced by PV) or 100 (if replaced by wind, hydro, or nuclear)

And moving further down on the same page:

Ionising radiation occurs mainly due to radioactive emissions from radon 222, a radionuclide present in tailings from uranium mining and milling for nuclear power generation, or coal extraction for coal power generation. Coal power is a potentially significant source of radioactivity, as coal combustion may also release radionuclides such as radon 222 or thorium 230 (highly variable across regions).

Which explains pretty well why, in spite of CCS significantly reducing CO2 intensity (~200 with CCS vs ~1000 without CCS), coal generation has high overall environmental impact whether with or without CCS - because its negative impacts are well beyond the CO2 emissions and thus not controlled by CCS. I encourage everyone to read the analysis in whole as it's really interesting. Cloud200 (talk) 10:47, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

• Just my two cents: the information from the source is likely useful, but I think it would be better incorporated directly into the prose than listed in a table. Even if we can just say, for example, "One kwh of coal has the same emissions, or environmental impact, as xyz kwh of wind power" I think that would be helpful. In general, I'm not a huge fan of tables where they aren't strictly necessary. We also want to keep the length of this article reasonable, because it is providing a summary level overview of the topic, and links to many articles that cover more narrow aspects in greater detail. Going into lots of detail about CCS would be out of scope here, in my opinion. We want to provide a mention here, sure, but going into detail about the costs of CCS may be too much focus on one area.

I also concur with Clayoquot that the table has a lot of jargon. I run into this all the time in my usual area of editing (trains, obviously). When you are a subject matter expert, it can be easy to fall into the trap of assuming most people are familiar with terms specific to your subject area. We want this article to be understandable to someone who isn't an expert (not to downplay the importance of the contributions by Femke and Clayoquot, among others, who are experts and have done an amazing job with this article). I would say I have a bit more knowledge of this topic than the average person, but I'm not an expert. And I do not understand many of the abbreviations in the table. If we do retain the table, I would strongly suggest it be simplified a great deal. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

100% agree with how you proposed it should be summarized - I myself had to look up most of the acronyms in the table :) What I would like to propose we take from the UNECE report are mostly highlighted on pages 6-7 which are facts that are new or not yet covered in the article (although some are). These could be probably just added as statements to sections of individual technologies:

• CO2 intensities of some sources are updated in comparison to IPCC 2014, for example max range of coal is up to 1095 gCO2eq/kWh, average for nuclear is down to ~5 gCO2eq/kWh; also concentrated solar power (CSP) can be quite high (up to 122 gCO2eq/kWh) but the following discussion shows it's quite complicated
• geothermal and coal are significant sources of ionising radiation
• coal and CSP contribute to human toxicity due to arsenic and chromium waste
• land use is very high for CSP, coal and PV (ground-mounted)
• material resources use are high for PV

And probably this statement from p. 7 should find its way to the lead: "With no exception, every electricity generation technology generates environmental impacts over its life cycle; and these impacts may vary widely with implementation site and other design choices." Cloud200 (talk) 11:01, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Here is the table I removed: Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 00:48, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Normalised lifecycle impacts, weighted, of the production of 1 TWh, per technology, Europe, 2020

Technology	Type	Impact
Hard coal	PC, no CCS	81
	IGCC, no CCS	67
	SC, no CCS	76
Natural gas	NG, no CCS	25
Hard coal	PC, with CCS	87
	IGCC, with CCS	69
	SC, with CCS	82
Natural gas	NG, with CCS	21
Hydro power	660 MW	13
	360 MW	1.2
Nuclear	average	4.2
CSP	tower	3.8
	trough	8.0
PV	poly-Si, ground-mounted	12
	poly-Si, roof-mounted	14
	CdTe, ground-mounted	5.0
	CdTe, roof-mounted	5.4
	CIGS, ground-mounted	5.1
	CIGS, roof-mounted	5.5
Wind	onshore	5.7
	offshore, concrete foundation	5.6
	offshore, steel foundation	6.5

References

Solar panel GGE from NF3

Strange how this seems to be ignored when solar is mentioned as sustainable. https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_greenhouse_gasthat_nobody_knew Batvette (talk) 02:26, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Batvette. The Yale.edu source you cite is from 2008. My understanding from the 2014 IPCC report is that it is indeed a powerful greenhouse gas but is released in such small quantities that its overall effect is relatively small (search for "NF3" here). NF3 was added to the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, as the Yale.edu piece anticipated - the "Nobody Knew" part of the title is really old news. Femkemilene might have more to say about this. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:57, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the intent is to ignore that solar panels do not have a carbon footprint of zero to manufacture or operate. Sustainable energy is a very broad topic, and that means we as editors must decide what is important enough to include versus what not to include in this article. As Clayoquot mentions above, since the effect is relatively small, it is not necessary to mention in this article, barring reliable sources which say otherwise. It may well merit a mention at solar power and/or solar panel, however. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:47, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Agree with the two comments above. Femke (talk) 16:57, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

"What makes it go?"

The article uses the word "energy" a lot – 380 times – but it doesn't define it clearly. For example, I found the following sentence quite jarring, "Eighty-five percent of the world's energy is derived from fossil fuels and the global energy system is responsible for 76% of the human-caused greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change."

Now, from a physical point of view, this is incorrect. The main source of energy for the world is the sun. This is mostly what keeps us warm and so, in summer, when the sun is shining I don't need to heat the house. And this energy is what powers all plant life and all the other creatures that depend on that. Here's what MIT says,

The sunlight that reaches Earth every day dwarfs all the planet's other energy sources. ... A total of 173,000 terawatts (trillions of watts) of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That's more than 10,000 times the world's total energy use.

So, when we're talking about energy, we should be clearer about what we mean. Here's how Feynman put it,

I turned the page. The answer was, for the wind-up toy, "Energy makes it go." And for the boy on the bicycle, "Energy makes it go." For everything "Energy makes it go." Now that doesn't mean anything. Suppose it's "Wakalixes." That's the general principle: "Wakalixes makes it go." There is no knowledge coming in. The child doesn't learn anything; it's just a word

In the section above, someone says "In this article, we use the colloquial English sense of "power" and "energy"". But the colloquial English sense of these words is quite fuzzy and imprecise. What are we actually talking about here? Fuel and electricity? When I eat, sunbathe or ride my bicycle, is this part of this energy total? The article has a section called Definitions and it should define what it means by this word that it uses so much.

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks.49.178.138.126 (talk) 09:42, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that sentence is quite ugly, but I disagree why. This is not a physics article, so we should not use their definition of energy. This is an article about how energy is used in todays society, and we use the word energy like that literature. Femke (talk) 09:48, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

This still seems to require explanation. As this is the English wikipedia, I like to use the OED to clarify the meaning of words. It has 10 main definitions of the word "energy" and these seem to be the most relevant ones:

"6. The potential or capacity of a body or system to do work by virtue of its motion, position, chemical structure, etc., frequently regarded as a quantifiable attribute or property which can be acquired, transferred, and expended."

"9. Power or force derived from the exploitation of physical and chemical resources in order to operate machines and devices, to provide light and heat, etc., and frequently regarded as a resource or commodity."

The latter seems to be what is meant and the significant point seems to be that this is power which has been captured and is being exploited by humanity. There are still issues of detail though. If crops are grown, do they only count if they are used as biofuel?

Andrew🐉(talk)

I feel like such discussion fits better in articles like World energy supply and consumption. Do you have any overview source about 'sustainable energy' that goes into that level of detail? The OED seems to equate energy and power, which is inconsistent with literature on SE. Maybe we should clarify that power and electricity is the same thing. Femke (talk) 10:44, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

World energy supply and consumption starts by defining what this is or isn't: "global production and preparation of fuel, generation of electricity, energy transport and energy consumption. ... It does not include energy from food." Something along these lines seems needed and, for completeness, it should perhaps include corner cases like geothermal heating which would not otherwise be included. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:41, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Why shouldn't we use the definition from energy in physics? I think that's generally what is being described in the article. It's true that immediate concerns revolve around power production/consumption, but ultimately it is energy production that matters. The power-draw on an energy supply is a matter of energy distribution, storage, and use. It really has no immediate bearing on the question as to whether the energy in question was produced sustainably. There are secondary effects, of course (if you go overcapacity on a grid, then fallback to problematic and less-sustainable energy production methods can occur), but surely it is the production itself that matters. jps (talk) 13:03, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The definitions in physics don't really make a distinction between human use of energy, and all energy. I'm happy to reconsider if there is a source about sustainable energy that goes into this nitty gritty. If not, it's mixing fields of studies, and risks going into WP:SYNTH territory. Femke (talk) 13:16, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, the term that properly relates to what can be used by humans comes from thermodynamics and is any of a number of forms of thermodynamic free energy. Since the definition of "sustainable energy" invokes energy (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/sustainable-energy) I think we can refer people to that article. Since all forms of energy can be converted from one to another by definition (subject to the laws of thermodynamics), there really is no "synth" going on here to point out that this is what is meant when discussing "sustainable energy" (or any other form). jps (talk) 15:09, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Just my 2 cents, I concur with Femke here. To me it's quite obvious what is implied by the words "Sustainable energy" and this is a rather pointless debate over semantics. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 13:24, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I think it's obvious on the one hand, but there is an entire section of the article called "definitions" and that term is not defined. jps (talk) 15:09, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The link to sciencedirect confirms my argument that HQRS typically do not refer to thermodynamics. There is synth going on if you decide that thermodynamic free energy is a relevant term here, when none of the reliable sources about "sustainable energy" mention this word.Femke (talk) 15:39, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

What? Now I'm getting concerned that you may not actually understand what thermodynamic free energy is. I will admit that Wikipedia's use of this as a catch-all is a little unique, but the definitions are unmistakeable. Why do you think this is about a different subject? jps (talk) 15:51, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

In my somewhat bewildered state trying to make sense of this comment, I did a search for the work that connects thermodynamics and sustainable energy (there is a lot of it). What I found interesting was how many of these groups invoke exergy which, fair enough, is a term from ecology and allows for a certain overlap of these ideas (it's a see also for thermodynamic free energy, after all). I'm not saying here that this is the proper way to go, but as a matter of definition, it seems pretty obvious to me that what we're talking about here is usable forms of energy and the only academic treatment I know which deals with usability of energy is thermodynamics and its applications to engineering. What am I missing here? jps (talk) 16:13, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

We don't seem to be having the same conversation. What I'm worried about is giving WP:DUE weight. You've not given any source about sustainable energy that delves into the physics definition of energy. Why make the article substantially harder to understand for nonphysicists without relevant sources discussing this. Femke (talk) 16:14, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, here's a source which delves into it: [2]. I don't want the article to be harder to understand. I want the terms clarified. If there is a good way to do this, great! If not, I worry that the article remains substantially harder to understand in any case. jps (talk) 16:15, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The topic renewable energy is a topic closer to engineering / physics than sustainable energy. I'm not surprised to see a paper connecting those two. Sustainable energy is more focussed on the social side. Femke (talk) 16:23, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

One thing I worry about is that the disambiguation between sustainable and renewable energy is not at all clear in the literature often. I am totally on-board with your disambiguation, but I don't think the sources are quite there, for whatever reason. jps (talk) 16:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Here's another source on exergy as it relates to sustainability: [3] The more I'm researching this, the more I think exergy may actually be the way to go since it incorporates the other major feature of energy consumption by humans which is that of temperature change (especially as it relates to "useful" heat). By definition, free energy only considers heat "useful" when it can be converted to work which is not the right context for this article. jps (talk) 16:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

And if you really want to stick to "sustainable" as a must have word, here's a source which approaches it from that perspective: [4]. jps (talk) 16:30, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A few thoughts: 1) The term power in this article is used as a synonym for electricity (see the Cambridge dictionary's fourth meaning of "power" here). 2) I agree with Femke that the definition of energy in physics textbooks would be a distraction in this article, but could be useful in the article on renewable energy. The way we use the term energy in this article is basically the way it's used in everyday English,[5][6] which is why we don't define it. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:42, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

That's not a good rationale for not defining the term. The problem is that some people use energy to mean "excitement" as in "I have a lot of energy today". Others use it in the terms of energy (esotericism). This article defines it implicitly by linking to Energy as its very first action. As we discuss above, shunting this discussion completely off to renewable energy is not a good compromise. In any case, both ideas refer to the same sort of physical (as opposed to emotional, psychological, metaphorical, spiritual) energy. jps (talk) 16:48, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I've removed the link to Energy, as it's currently a very physics-oriented article that doesn't cover most of the ways the term is used in everyday English. We didn't link to it at all until just a few hours ago.[7] I wish we had an article on Energy resource or Human use of energy to link to - talk about a core topic that we don't have an article on! The closest thing we have is Energy industry, but it's not close enough - many of our current sustainability issues are with traditional use of biomass.

I don't think readers coming to this article will wonder if it could be about psycho-biological excitement or esotericism. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:40, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Just thinking aloud a bit: We used to have an article called Energy and society, which unfortunately was merged into Energy industry in 2011. One of the interesting points it made was

"In society and in the context of humanities, the word energy is used as a synonym of energy resources, and most often refers to substances like fuels, petroleum products and electricity in general. These are sources of usable energy, in that they can be easily transformed to other kinds of energy sources that can serve a particular useful purpose. This difference vis a vis energy in natural sciences can lead to some confusion, because energy resources are not conserved in nature in the same way as energy is conserved in the context of physics. The actual energy content is always conserved, but when it is converted into heat for example, it usually becomes less useful to society, and thus appears to have been "used up".

I'm tempted to restore this article and link to it. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:56, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Please don't. That quote you are showing is promulgating a misconception that there is a difference in the definitions of energies being considered. In particular the statement "energy resources are not conserved in nature in the same way as energy is conserved in the context of physics" isn't, in point of fact, true -- though granted the next sentence kinda clarifies matters a little bit. Are you confused by this point? jps (talk) 18:40, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The "not conserved in nature" part is sloppy writing. As a whole, the paragraph I quoted above makes an important distinction: When people talk about sustainable energy, they're talking about a commodity that gets produced, sold, and consumed ("used up"). This is indeed a different meaning of the word than the meaning used in physics. I think your addition of a link to Energy development makes sense. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:45, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

It's not different from the meaning used in physics. Rather it is a specific type of energy that is being sold. In contrast, the term energy (esotericism) is an entirely different meaning. jps (talk) 11:05, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Definitions of energy

While I appreciate that the text I proposed in addition may not have risen to the occasion (as it were) in describing the full context of sustainablility, I do think we need some explanation of energy in the article so that people who do not really understand energy as a resource can have that concept explained. If the article energy is too technical in its exposition, perhaps we can recreate (and cleanup?) the explanations that are almost provided in energy development. jps (talk) 11:22, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking that we maybe could look for simpler contextualizations in, for example, textbooks. Here is one that provides some background for the "energy" considerations of sustainability: [8] jps (talk) 13:03, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Some explanation of what energy is might be useful. Feel free to make a specific proposal. That particular source is quite old; newer sources put a lot less emphasis on the concept of running out of fossil fuels. (P.S. I might not be around to discuss much in the next few days because I need a break.) Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:14, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there are any newer sources at that level, but I will investigate. Enjoy your break! jps (talk) 17:22, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I have added a bunch of "Citation needed" since this whole article seems very oriented towards a certain idea, rather than reflecting the facts as they are; one good example of this, would be this sentence: "Carbon capture and storage can be built into power plants to remove their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but is expensive and has seldom been implemented." - which has no basis in reality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Seithx (talk • contribs)

All the text in the lede is supposed to be repeated in the body of the article (see WP:LEADCITE), where the citations are found. In this case, it is cited to an article by Greentech media from 2020 (eployment of this technology is still very limited, with only 21 large-scale CCS plants in operation worldwide as of 2020. Has the situation changed much since? Femke (talk) 18:35, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

No, because the technology is non existent to be implemented on a commercial scale. We have no carbon capture technologies to be put inside of factories. Greentech media is not a good source, as it's a new media outlet, not an actual paper on the availability and/or practicality of applying carbon capture techniques to power plants. Seithx (talk) 19:35, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

By the way, where is this LEADCITE, so I can go over the references? why is this so overly complicated to manage, then just having the source in the same page? Seithx (talk) 19:39, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Femke linked it for you, but here it is again: WP:LEADCITE. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:40, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

The references are on the same page, there's an extensive references section at Sustainable energy#References. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:43, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi Seithx. I'm interested in your thoughts on carbon capture and storage. The statements in this article are about CCS for power plants, not factories, because the article is about energy-related emissions rather than other sources of emissions. We're open to suggestions/edits on what to say about CCS in relation to energy. Do you have a specific suggestion in mind?

I agree it's not convenient for the reader when an article doesn't have citations in the lead. The reader has to search for the claim in the body of the article to see what the reference is. There is a trade-off between this inconvenience and the argument that having citations in the lead is messy and difficult to maintain. The Wikipedia community has never been able to come to agreement on what approach is better; there are strong arguments for both ways. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:41, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion for See also

My suggestion for the See also list was this:

• All pages with titles containing sustainable energy

I think it's quite elegant as it helps people easily find the related articles without making the See also link long. I've seen it used at wetland. You don't like it, Clayoquot? You wrote: "Sorry, I don't see how this addresses the proliferation problem. MOS:SEEALSO says to keep links to a "reasonable number" which would be difficult for this article." - do others also don't like it and under which circumstances would people say that this template is useful? EMsmile (talk) 12:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I looked at the search results and think it's unlikely people will be interested. In general, this links to very niche topics. I'm not sure that search function should be used in Mainspace. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:12, 6 March 2023 (UTC)