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

reuters.com

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

#521

Post by lb1lf »

oddmiral wrote: post #504
Comevius wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anything can go wrong AFTER takeover. Russians can convert power plant into nuclear landmine and blow up it on retreat. This is war between two nuclear states, so nuclear weapon will be used eventually.

-Unless the Russian forces have way better connections than we give them credit for, they can not control which way the wind blows. At the moment, the winds come from the southeast, so a lot of the fallout would end up in Russia.

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

#522

Post by yosito »

armada651 wrote: post #321
boringg wrote: post #274

So, aside from the obvious nature of messing around with Nuclear generating station being an idiotic move. From a tactical move for Russia - clearly they want the generating station offline to cause further chaos in Ukraine and that it supplies 1/6 of the power I believe(?). Was the generating station fighting to say online / not surrender or did Russia just show up guns blazing? It's clearly a tactically important s…

The only public statement I've read is that the Russian Army is concerned the Ukrainians would use their Nuclear Power Plants as dirty bombs.

Nuclear gaslighting.

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

#523

Post by gloriana »

boringg wrote: post #274

So, aside from the obvious nature of messing around with Nuclear generating station being an idiotic move. From a tactical move for Russia - clearly they want the generating station offline to cause further chaos in Ukraine and that it supplies 1/6 of the power I believe(?). Was the generating station fighting to say online / not surrender or did Russia just show up guns blazing? It's clearly a tactically important s…

If the reactors are on, destroying any of the infrasture around it can be devastating. The reactors need external power to operate. If external power disappears, the reactors now need emergency power from diesel gen sets. If those fail due to any reason, the reactors will probably melt down - unless they have already been off for quite a while (~weeks would be necessary). If the reactors melt down, the VVER has both a core catcher and a containment. That's not bad and much better situation than Chernobyl. But other things may go wrong such as a pressure failure and potentially related control rod ejections that could cause the temperatures to rise and pressures to become higher than what the containment can handle.

The surrounding war environment, the stressed operators, etc mean that any of these failures are now more likely. It is reaonsable that external power will not be available, it is possible the gen sets will fail, it is possible the operators will do something stupid.

To put it simply, warfare is not a design basis accident for current light water reactors like VVER-800.

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

#524

Post by ethbr0 »

labster wrote: post #464
dpratt wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to achieve victory, you must understand your enemy as well as yourself. The Russian attitude towards NATO expansion into Ukraine can be roughly viewed from an American perspective as well equivalent as the old Warsaw Pact attempting to bring Mexico into their treaty. Or, at least, this is part of the explanation used to frame it as an ‘existential threat’ for Russia. This, combined with a somewhat precari…

How would annexation of Ukraine further Russia’s strategic goals at this point? NATO expansion is getting more popular by the hour, as is joining the EU. Economic sanctions weaken Russia, and will continue for years to decades if Ukraine is annexed. Sure, the Russian army can get total victory given enough time, but winning the war doesn’t benefit Russia.

Moscow from Ukraine border: ~520 km

Moscow from Latvian border: ~620 km

Not to mention full control of a Black Sea (and therefore entrance to Mediterranean) coastline with multiple ports. As well as a major agricultural products. As well as a huge transit country for Russian energy pipelines.

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

#525

Post by Scea91 »

oddmiral wrote: post #504
Comevius wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anything can go wrong AFTER takeover. Russians can convert power plant into nuclear landmine and blow up it on retreat. This is war between two nuclear states, so nuclear weapon will be used eventually.

> This is war between two nuclear states, so nuclear weapon will be used eventually.

Ukraine is not a nuclear state as it does not have nuclear weapons.

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

#526

Post by waffleiron »

theshrike79 wrote: post #492
TillE wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every country has its propaganda and lies, but they're generally couched in half-truths. It's truly remarkable how the Russian flavor of misinformation sounds just like a pathological liar making up wild bullshit that nobody could possibly take seriously. That's been a tradition for decades, as far as I know.

The Russian language has three words for lying, two for truth. And one of those (pravda) is a kind of a half-truth used to keep moving from the current situation. Russians know they are and have been lied to, but the culture is to keep going anyways, because that's how things have been done since forever.

>The Russian language has three words for lying, two for truth.

I looked into this, and found this blog post [1]. The comments are quite interesting, but the main post points out this isn't much different from English. In English we use synonyms for truth/true (e.g. authentic, factual, legitimate, etc) and lie (e.g. fabrication, falsehood, misrepresentation, disinformation) with different meanings too.

Maybe we shouldn't use vocabulary of a language to draw/imply further conclusions about a culture.

[1] https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=29814

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

#527

Post by harles »

oddmiral wrote: post #504
Comevius wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anything can go wrong AFTER takeover. Russians can convert power plant into nuclear landmine and blow up it on retreat. This is war between two nuclear states, so nuclear weapon will be used eventually.

I wouldn’t count having nuclear power plants as being a nuclear state. There’s a world of difference between power plants and weapons. A war between two countries with nuclear weapons would be on a whole other level.

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

#528

Post by twaw »

gambiting wrote: post #511
oddmiral wrote: post #496

Nope. We are not surrendered and have no plan to do that. Tell that to your Russian friends.

I'm pretty sure he means the Ukrainians inside the nuclear plant, not Ukrainians in general.

Operators of nuclear plant are civilians. They are not part of force. Civilians can be captured, they cannot surrender, because nobody asks them to do that. I never heard that police or army asks somebody unarmed to surrender.

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

#529

Post by Helmut10001 »

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.

Yes. Where are all those who claim nuclear is a sustainable, safe energy source? With humans in the game, it is not and will never be.

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

#530

Post by beebeepka »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #320
Aeolun wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn, maybe one of the sides should consider fixing that before they proceed with shooting at each other.

I can’t speak to why you’ve been downvoted, but it might be worth considering the incentives to fight aren’t the same between the “sides”. One is fighting to survive an attack by the other. It’s difficult to maintain safety measures while people are trying to kill you.

What's there to understand? Cuba is still under embargo 50 years after the Russians tried to put weapons there.
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