Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 1001 posts

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#421

Post by matthewterhune »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #361
polotics wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe does not have enough wind power potential to power the world, by a very large margin. To power France with wind, not just electricity but all energy needs including oil, natgas, etc... you would need one large windmill for every single square kilometer of the country...

Research paper with data to provide a citation for my assertion: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2019.06.064 I confirmed it’s in SciHub if you want to grab a copy. > The continuous development of onshore wind farms is an important feature of the European transition towards an energy system powered by distributed renewables and low-carbon resources. Thi…

"Global" in this context means all of Europe, not all of earth. 1 MW per 16 European citizens is not remotely close to enough power for the entire earth.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#422

Post by matheusmoreira »

pkulak wrote: post #259
squarefoot wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Russian forces seem to be trying to encircle or assault Kyiv. Yes, but although Putin is a bloody bastard, he's not stupid. His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily but to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would control at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few days, he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will slowly return to normal and in a few years Ukr…

Holy crap, Europe needs to get off natural gas yesterday.

Yeah. Maybe this will be the thing that finally pushes people away from fossil fuels.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#423

Post by throw10920 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #281
avazhi wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America will do nothing except 'strongly condemn' what's happening, just like the rest of the world. The simple fact is that there is no real upside to risking actual war with Russia - that the Russians will dominate the Ukraine while walking away with a bloody nose (in the form of minor troop losses of its own) is a foregone conclusion. Without more, that's a localised conflict that Russia rather hilariously can try…

> China invading Taiwan at some point in the future And that's the perspective this should be viewed from. The US may not have a firm interest in Ukraine. The US has a fairly firm interest in Taiwan. The US has a serious interest in Korea, Japan, and the countries bordering the South China Sea. You have to strongly and unconditionally support international order re: Ukraine, so that Xi takes away the right message.

> The US has a fairly firm interest in Taiwan.

Why only "fairly firm"? I've heard arguments that if Taiwan is invaded and TSMC falls under PRC control, then the US faces massive chip shortages for years (possibly leading to riots and a destabilized government), and those seem plausible to me.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#425

Post by selfhoster11 »

toyg wrote: post #404
selfhoster11 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia were forced to shore up their vulnerable flank Russia wasn't forced to do anything. They could've merely quietly dropped two of their delusions: a) NATO was never going to attack them, unless it literally went crazy, or someone framed Russia so badly that a nuclear response was preferable to any other option. The West doesn't want to trigger a MAD scenario, and are keen to keep the post-WW2 peace and (in the…

> and (in the case of the US) bomb less defended countries for their natural resources. That's not terribly different from what Russia is doing with Ukraine - they will overwhelm a weaker country for their own strategic reasons, enjoying the impunity granted by a nuclear arsenal (and not just your average one: the largest!).

The power differential is far smaller between Ukraine and Russia, compared to the one between the USA and whatever countries they invaded. I don't think these are equivalent in any practical sense.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#426

Post by toyg »

eps wrote: post #418
toyg wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas is important, but what is more important is the nuclear arsenal. The US, China, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, are effectively untouchable by conventional military means, because they are able and willing to unleash nuclear holocaust in return - no matter what they do.

+ France and the UK

Those two don't have the resources to project significantly (like superpowers), nor the pressure of border conflict (like the others I mentioned). So their nuclear capabilities are somewhat irrelevant.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#427

Post by SyzygistSix »

crisdux wrote: post #168
lend000 wrote: post #91

It's hard to view the events unfolding with an objective gaze. Virtually all of western journalism condemns Russia's attacks unilaterally, which seems reasonable, considering people are dying to grow a dictator's empire. But then I read about the history of the conflict and see that Ukraine has had separatist states and civil war for years. It isn't like Ukraine is a stable, peaceful, and unwitting nation, like, say,…

This isn't a Ukrainian or Russian perspective, but an alternative perspective. John Mearsheimer gives a popular alternative perspective. He has a realist foreign policy perspective suggesting that the US and the west provoked Russia by trying to push Ukraine to join NATO and by intervening in the protests/coup in 2013/2014. Russia has a legitimate security interest in ensuring Ukraine does not join NATO and become mi…

Thank you for a written source. I much prefer it to a video lecture.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#428

Post by dudeinhawaii »

I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization?

Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation and outcome, MAD, is not an acceptable trade for a tank crossing your border.

Repeat until arrival at French coastline. The terrorist steps forward waving a trigger to a bomb and either you show him your bomb and threaten to blow yourselves both up, or you step back.

At some point, the only option is to call the bluff and give him a good punch and hope that he values life as much as you and won't actually detonate. It has to be a solid one but not so hard as to make him think you might kill him, as that would make the detonation a certainty.

I don't know that NATO has the guts to give Putin that bloody nose.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#429

Post by munk-a »

dudeinhawaii wrote: post #428

I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization? Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation an…

I think that's a good point but I also think it's important to remember that war suuucks. A citizen in Ukraine right now is not having a good day, there have been arbitrary arrests and some fighting in the streets... but if other military powers got involved they'd be having an even worse day with mass destruction of property and loss of life.

Escalating a conflict to using deadly force can be a necessary step to prevent tyrannical dictators, but it often has very steep short term costs to everyone innocent stuck in the middle. I personally am in favor of intervention at this point, but it isn't something to be considered lightly.

Re: Chernobyl power plant captured by Russian forces

#430

Post by pixl97 »

dudeinhawaii wrote: post #428

I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization? Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation an…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o861Ka9TtT4

Yes Prime Minister: Salami Tactics.

Post reply on HN