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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

#581

Post by denton-scratch »

colechristensen wrote: post #350
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.

Humanity is fine, just some parts are quite far ahead of others. We just have to get rid of autocrats and authoritarianism. There will be some slides backwards as people in difficult situations value their opinions and risk aversion more than others’ freedoms, and there are plenty of places where people are just fine with their autocrats continuing to rule. Progress, for the most part, can’t be given. It is hopeful t…

> We just have to get rid of autocrats and authoritarianism.

Nothing to it - piece of cake. Forget about millennia of human history.

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

#582

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

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.

I can relate. I've been pro nuclear my entire adult life, but in more recent years have added a lot more hesitations and conditions to that. Fukushima put me onto a similar thread of thinking. If there were any society and government you'd expect to have sober thinking and solid engineering around nuclear, it'd be Japan, let the way TEPCO and the Abe administration behaved in the opening stages of the emergency was quite shady.

That gave me pause for thought that our governments and institutions just might be up to the task of running something like nuclear. If you understand the physics and engineering, then nuclear done right is a no brainer. I have less faith in us doing it right that I did in the past.

Add to that the huge capital costs, and the trendlines in renewables + storage capital costs... it's hard to be enthusiastic about anything nuclear that doesn't fundamentally change the economics. And so far every attempt at that (eg SMR) has failed rather definitively.

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

#583

Post by ssijak »

chasd00 wrote: post #334
kilroy123 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if Russia resorted to using nuclear weapons against Ukraine we would intervene.

I’ve been wondering if that convoy outside of Kyiv is really stopped because serious thought is being given to the idea of a nuclear attack to save a long bloody insurgency. I don’t know if NATO would respond to a nuclear attack on Kyiv. Would NATO attack knowing the destruction of London/Paris/NYC/etc would be almost guaranteed?

The things I can read here..

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

#584

Post by veganhouseDJ »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #178
01100011 wrote: post #26

God damn, is the Russian army really this stupid? Is this an act of desperation, ignorance or spite?

My best mental model for the leadership of Russia's Ukraine invasion is an abusive parent who can't get his kid to bend to his will. Repeated failed attempts cause the parent to become more emotional, destructive, and out of control of himself, so we've gone from just an unprovoked invasion with airport attacks, attacks on radar sites, and occupation of the exclusion zone; to trying to assassinate Zelenskyy and start…

This is exactly the logic of 1st strike lunacy that we avoided in the 60s by not listening to some military brass that wanted nuclear war.

You summed it up perfectly. If we had listened to these idiots in the 60s none of us would be here.

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

#585

Post by eru »

numlock86 wrote: post #561
akvadrako wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at a dangerous level, say more than eating a banana. The dam breaks killed and hurt magnitudes more people.

> Fallout from Chernobyl went around the world several times, poisoning most of the humans alive or being made at the time [...] > Not at a dangerous level, say more than eating a banana. Born 1986 in Germany and I got a rare metabolism illness that only ~2000 more people have, all born around June/July/August in 1986 in Western and Middle Europe with some exceptions distributed around as late as born in September an…

Yes, I brought up the dam since hydropower is something that's typically seen as good; but still has the potential for big disasters. (I totally think hydropower is good on balance.)

Fossil fuels, and especially coal, have worse impact in total but they are typically more diffuse. So I left them out of the discussion.

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

#586

Post by ericd »

Johnny555 wrote: post #544
ericd wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I don’t understand, how is air support not direct NATO involvement? The reason has gotten stronger because if we let Ukraine into NATO now, that obligates NATO to defend them, which makes this into WW3. That would be extremely bad for humanity on a much, much larger scale than Ukraine represents. NATO is not a tool for humanitarian aid.

It is direct NATO involvement, I never advocated for it -- Ukraine did. Obviously we wouldn't let Ukraine into NATO now during a conflict, but if this conflict somehow ends and Putin withdraws then I think there's a strong case for giving them NATO membership. Letting Ukraine join NATO later is a deterrent from another invastion, letting them join NATO today is just the start of WWIII

Ah ok, I agree. Sorry, I must’ve misunderstood what you meant by “the basic facts of this unprovoked invasion are more than enough to justify NATO intervention” in your original post.

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

#587

Post by eru »

oddmiral wrote: post #506
kulikalov wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So, USA used nukes 2 times, while USSR blow up 1 nuclear reactor. 2:1

If you want to count it like that:

Both USA and USSR nuked themselves a whole lot more when testing nuclear weapons. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests

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

#588

Post by alex_sf »

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #361
colechristensen wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity is fine, just some parts are quite far ahead of others. We just have to get rid of autocrats and authoritarianism. There will be some slides backwards as people in difficult situations value their opinions and risk aversion more than others’ freedoms, and there are plenty of places where people are just fine with their autocrats continuing to rule. Progress, for the most part, can’t be given. It is hopeful t…

> We just have to get rid of autocrats and authoritarianism As if it were so easy!

It's not easy, but we've made massive progress throughout human history.

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

#589

Post by ericd »

mulmen wrote: post #543
ericd wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of the world isn’t going to say “whelp, I guess it’s time to kick off the extinction of our species” and do a full set of city strikes over a tactical nuke being used. That would be absurd.

That opinion is contrary to over 70 years of geopolitical and military strategic thinking.

I’m no expert, but my understanding is that thinking was based around a tactical nuke being used on US or Russian forces, leading to escalation and eventual use of strategic weapons, not against a non-nuclear power like Ukraine.

AFAICT, the person you were responding to wasn’t talking about a nuke being used against NATO forces.

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

#590

Post by mise_en_place »

hans_castorp wrote: post #498
waffleiron wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No he isn’t, then he’d be at war with at least 3 other nuclear powers. You know Poland is both EU and NATO right? He has a difficult time winning the war already, he’d never be able to win if he pulls in more countries.

In the meantime I fear he is indeed that crazy. He repeatedly stated that his goal is to wipe out Ukraine at any costs. He is a like a little child that doesn't get his way and then blindly hits at everything in his reach.

What does crazy mean? Irrational? I don’t think so. He is currently following the Nash equilibrium strategy for fighting a war with a non-nuclear power.

Edit: by your terminology I would consider Ukrainians to be crazy. This a good thing and the reason why I’m rooting for them. They’re the underdog. The rational thing for them to do was to capitulate as soon as the invasions started. It takes a “crazy” level of conviction to the do the irrational thing here.

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