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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

#591

Post by pksebben »

fomine3 wrote: post #47
doener wrote: post #15

"BREAKING: Ukraine's energy ministry claims firefighters have been fired at while trying to put out fire at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant" https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/149954992461016678...

I misunderstood "fired".

yeah my brain removed the "at" for a couple of passes and I was wondering, what could they have done to get fired?

In some other universe there's a title from a complementary newspaper; "Russian soldiers fired for firing on firefighters fighting fire at nuclear plant".

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

#592

Post by teekert »

seanhandley wrote: post #559
gambiting wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You have never heard anyone ever describe regular citizens surrendering to the invader? I feel like you are arguing a technicality here - if you are faced with people with guns of course you'd say "I surrender" even if technically that's not what you're doing.

Welcome to HN. The home of "Well, technically".

Yeah, it’s why I feels so at home here and the primary source of my relationship issues.

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

#593

Post by Johnny555 »

ericd wrote: post #586
Johnny555 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, I definitely think NATO has ample justification to join the battle, and if the adversary were not Russia (or China), I think they already would have.

But I also think it would be a horrible idea to get into a direct war with Russia.

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

#594

Post by ericd »

twaw wrote: post #553
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.

It looks like you are using salami tactics. Salami tactics works in both ways. You say that nobody will went crazy when a tactic nuke will be used against RF army. Right? Can you draw the line, please? When this war between two nuclear states will be nuclear, if even use of tactical nuke is not enough for you?

I’m just saying that the US isn’t going to engage in a massive species-ending strike over the Russians using a tactical nuke in a conflict with a non-NATO country.

No idea what salami tactics means.

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

#595

Post by twaw »

vkou wrote: post #313
dustintrex wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, as long as the tin pot dictator is attacking some country we don't really care about.

Bingo. Unfortunately NATO made it very clear to everyone over the past eight years that it's not going to spill blood over Ukraine. ... But now that the opportunity to trap Putin in a quagmire has presented itself, it does seem to be ready to flood the region with weapons. Had it done so at any point in the preceding eight years, war might well have been avoided. Which leads me to think that avoiding war was never th…

No post body was provided.

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

#596

Post by adastra22 »

mulmen wrote: post #200
maxerickson wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certainly no expert, but I read a little bit about it before I commented. The reactors here do have a building intended to serve as containment. I didn't really see much assessment of how robust it is. This is from last week and discusses the practical impacts of war around the plant being a major issue even if the plant isn't involved: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/02/24/most-immediate-nucl... That article…

> Russia doesn't need to control the immediate areas around nuclear plants in the initial phases of their invasion, it's lunacy that they aren't carefully avoiding them. We are over a week in, I think this is beyond the initial invasion timeframe. Russia has faced fierce resistance so I can understand a desire to weaken that defense. It’s a lot harder to stage a defense when you have no electricity. Strategically it…

Why not just cut the transmission lines?

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

#597

Post by coryrc »

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.

What do you think is the worse-case outcome here? It's the release of small amounts of radioactive gasses of only concern to the local area. It has a containment dome and is already shutting down. Another Chernobyl is not possible.

If Putin wants radiation everywhere, he has thousands of nuclear warheads which can do that.

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

#598

Post by yazaddaruvala »

newby wrote: post #552
Merad wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're easy to shut down, but when the reactor is first turned off the core is full of unstable isotopes that are byproducts of the fission reaction. Those isotopes continue decaying even with the reactor "off" until the become stable, and they put out enough heat to cause a meltdown on their own. This means the reactor needs active cooling for a couple of weeks until it reaches a safe state. That's what happened at…

I did not know about that aspect of nuclear plants and in my non-expert view it would be a major point against nuclear plants in the discussion how to solve climate change (at least until we learn how to secure them in case of a war). Am I wrong? EDIT: I would also like to ask if you can recommend some source where curious layman with no knowledge of physics could learn a bit more about this.

You’re right about old nuclear design.

The new designs are built with the expectation that power can be cut off. The new design shut themselves off passively without any damage (that we know of) when the power is gone.

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

#599

Post by bluecalm »

ericd wrote: post #483
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

You realize that instituting a no fly zone means the US shooting down Russian aircraft, right? Which means a hot war between US/NATO and Russia. That is something that the US should absolutely not engage in, because the stakes at that point are the survival of the species, rather than just Ukraine. We need to not normalize the idea of a no fly zone, no matter how gut wrenching watching this war gets.

You're operating under an assumption that Putin will only use nuclear power if we cross some imaginary line. We analyze agreements, fine print, war conventions. Those things don't matter to him. If he feels he is losing this war he will threaten nuclear weapons anyway. He may threaten it if he doesn't get exactly what he wants. We need to stop normalizing the idea that there is some holy line which is we just stay away from bad things won't happen.

Putin just moves the line wherever he wants and you will keep dancing around it. This naive thinking really needs to die already.

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

#600

Post by supergirl »

sidibe wrote: post #331
armada651 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't surprise me if they believe that considering the ridiculous stream of fantasy being spewed out of Russian leader and media.

anything is possible in war. if Ukraine was on the brink of losing everything and they had nuclear weapons, would they not use them against Russia? that's the whole point. if your state is about to cease to exist, you are desperate. for now, the war has not reached this point. if Ukraine where to try to use nuclear material now they would lose allies. but you don't know what the war will look like in 2 weeks. so I don't think it's fantasy.
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