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

Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 894 posts

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#471

Post by tablespoon »

eru wrote: post #435
ck2 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purposely causing nuclear disasters is one way to ensure a country can never join NATO or the EU Putin doesn't have to occupy the country to "win", all he has to do is set them back to the dark ages and make everyone (who can) flee. He can't be allowed to get away with this. Ukraine needs a "no fly zone" ASAP

> Purposely causing nuclear disasters is one way to ensure a country can never join NATO or the EU Why? Nuclear disaster is bad, but how would it ensure that a country can _never_ join NATO or the EU? Ukraine already had the Chernobyl disaster on their soil, and I don't see that one as keeping them out of either organisation _forever_.

>> Purposely causing nuclear disasters is one way to ensure a country can never join NATO or the EU

> Why? Nuclear disaster is bad, but how would it ensure that a country can _never_ join NATO or the EU?

> Ukraine already had the Chernobyl disaster on their soil, and I don't see that one as keeping them out of either organisation _forever_.

And didn't the EU pay a lot of money to help them build a new containment building for it?

It's a bizarre leap to say a nuclear disaster would disqualify a country from joining NATO or the EU.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#472

Post by JohnBooty »

MandieD wrote: post #469
yabones wrote: post #314

This has been a real reckoning for me, as somebody who has historically been very pro-nuclear. Quite simply, humanity is too good at screwing things up to harness such a fundamentally powerful and dangerous source of power. It requires a commitment to long lasting peace and stability that we're just not capable of.

And this is part of why a lot of Germans have always been uneasy with nuclear power.

And that is why Germans are in an uncomfortable situation, being so dependent on Russia for gas.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#473

Post by HWR_14 »

Comevius wrote: post #157
doener wrote: post #98

Firefighter have access now: https://twitter.com/bnonews/status/1499555239351005194?s=21 https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1499555095817728023?s=21 "According to Andrey Tuz, spokesman of the press service of the nuclear power plant, there is no threat of radiation spread."

Thankfully the reactors are behind the camera streaming the administrative building. Hopefully nothing goes wrong during the takeover. The reactor containment itself is robust, but the potential for human error in a war that keeps escalating should not be discounted.

Internet speculation is that the power plant will be shut down once taken over. Which at least minimizes the ongoing risk of human error. Heck, shutting down is probably a far simpler process than continuing to run - nuclear power plants are designed to be shut down if necessary.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#474

Post by kulikalov »

eru wrote: post #435
ck2 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purposely causing nuclear disasters is one way to ensure a country can never join NATO or the EU Putin doesn't have to occupy the country to "win", all he has to do is set them back to the dark ages and make everyone (who can) flee. He can't be allowed to get away with this. Ukraine needs a "no fly zone" ASAP

> Purposely causing nuclear disasters is one way to ensure a country can never join NATO or the EU Why? Nuclear disaster is bad, but how would it ensure that a country can _never_ join NATO or the EU? Ukraine already had the Chernobyl disaster on their soil, and I don't see that one as keeping them out of either organisation _forever_.

Even though it was on Ukrainian soil, still: USSR had Chernobyl disaster, not Ukraine. It’s one of the reasons Ukraine separated from USSR.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#475

Post by tenpies »

21723 wrote: post #269
HL33tibCe7 wrote: post #135

Allegedly, Ukrainian firefighters were shot at by Russian troops. If true, then that’s another war crime to add to the growing list.

Indeed, which is fucking terrifying. You don't do war crimes unless you expect to get away with it, which means either you're fighting a war that more powerful nations don't care about, or you expect to win it. Putin can't win against NATO but he can make both sides lose. I used to think he was rational and only minorly evil, but now I'm not so sure of the rationality... and clearly he's more than minorly evil.

Two thoughts come to mind:

1) The West has already weaponized the law. It is currently operating on the Latin American dictator model of "for my friends, anything; for my enemies: the law!".

2) The United States strongly opposes the ICC treaty and does not accept its jurisdiction overs its nationals and is even willing to use military force to free any of its nationals should the ICC ever try to enforce jurisdiction over an American[1]. In similar, but less violent terms, Russia withdrew from the ICC back in 2016.

So my point is, why would Russia care what some court with no jurisdiction says? It's already obvious it won't matter. The West is already going full Treaty of Versailles on them - so what difference does it make? There is little credibility left for the West, either in terms of rule of law or moral authority to be telling anyone what is right or wrong.

This is something that most of the world sees by now, but the West is comically unable to look in the mirror and see this and I'm afraid they will only notice when it's too late. It's absurdly self-destructive but the West consider it "winning", yet the history books will almost certainly mark this as the most obvious inflection point where the West lost the plot.

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court#C...

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#476

Post by eyelidlessness »

eru wrote: post #440
wyager wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One is fighting to survive an attack by the other. This statement, while true, changes denotation depending on the scale at which you view this conflict. If you view it as a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the existential threat is to Ukraine. If you view it as a conflict between Russia and NATO, the existential threat is to Russia.

I don't agree 100%, but I don't think you deserve the downvotes. I think you could say in the wider scale it can be interpreted as an existential threat to Putin's Russia?

They are literally doing total war without provocation. The theoretical threat of NATO has not been a part of this conflict at all. Treating that imagined threat as if it’s equivalent to the very real war is navel gazing excuse for a mass murdering fascist.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#477

Post by squarefoot »

They have no intention of bombing the plant of course, or doing so in a way that would cause any serious destruction, especially when Putin's clear intentions are to take the entire Ukrainian territory; to me this is just psychological warfare to fuel the fear among other nations about nuclear dangers, so that both leaders and the public opinion will be against going at war with them. In theory, we (as EU) could intervene with traditional weapons so that the burden of escalating it further would still be on them; not an easy decision though.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#478

Post by lawn »

nomel wrote: post #203
bastawhiz wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Causing a nuclear incident in a place you want to occupy is profoundly stupid.

You're making a pretty serious assumption that they're doing something haphazard rather than something calculated and planned. What's your reason for first assuming incompetence?

Their whole invasion has screamed incompetence.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#479

Post by JohnBooty »

revscat wrote: post #342
yabones wrote: post #314

This has been a real reckoning for me, as somebody who has historically been very pro-nuclear. Quite simply, humanity is too good at screwing things up to harness such a fundamentally powerful and dangerous source of power. It requires a commitment to long lasting peace and stability that we're just not capable of.

This touches on why I think humanity will not survive for much longer. Global warming continues to be a civilization-ending level threat, and yet it continues to be more or less ignored. Vast swathes of the population believe that their egos can determine reality, no matter the actual physical reality they so hubristically ignore. > we’re not capable of I don’t think so, either. This sentiment tends to be met by the…

Yeah. Across the universe, what percentage of advanced species managed to harness nuclear power and not end themselves by nuclear energy, directly or indirectly?

It can't be a very large percentage.

I would like to be wrong.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#480

Post by JohnBooty »

worldsayshi wrote: post #373
revscat wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This touches on why I think humanity will not survive for much longer. Global warming continues to be a civilization-ending level threat, and yet it continues to be more or less ignored. Vast swathes of the population believe that their egos can determine reality, no matter the actual physical reality they so hubristically ignore. > we’re not capable of I don’t think so, either. This sentiment tends to be met by the…

If we can make energy storage simple and cheap enough I do not see why nuclear power would have any upside left except maybe for when traveling outside the solar system. Regarding survivability of humanity I have similar fear but my current hope is that while weapons will continue to be more attainable their relevance might diminish. Why fight your neighbor if you have everything you need? But warlords create a probl…

    If we can make energy storage simple and cheap enough
If you're thinking of big Tesla Powerwall-style batteries, that just kicks the problem ahead by a few years or decades.

The materials needed to make those batteries are finite. They will become "the new oil" in N years.

Energy storage is going to be a big part of any sane energy future, but it's going to have to make heavy usage of non-battery means: giant flywheels? Pumping water? I don't know.

Post reply on HN