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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

#671

Post by nl »

leeoniya wrote: post #457
nl wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Molten salt reactors are designed to avoid meltdowns. But most of the harm at Chernobyl was from the explosion. There is nothing in a molten salt reactor that makes them any safer than Chernobyl if the reactor containment is breached. Massive amounts of highly radioactive particles will be ejected into the atmosphere in exactly the same way as happened at Chernobyl. Molten salt advocates will say "yes, but what could…

> A steam explosion is what happened to the Chernobyl reactor in 1986. Although this lead to a serious disaster, it is much less destructive than an actual nuclear explosion (Wilkins, 2011). Due to the nature of molten salt reactors, the risk of either a steam explosion, a hydrogen explosion or a meltdown is effectively eliminated. https://www.thmsr.com/en/safe/

> Due to the nature of molten salt reactors, the risk of either a steam explosion, a hydrogen explosion or a meltdown is effectively eliminated.

Do they somehow stop the risk of artillery? Because to be absolutely clear: that's what the risk here was.

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

#672

Post by KronisLV »

mcv wrote: post #643
ericd wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A no-fly zone is no justification for nuclear escalation. Internationally, the only justification for a nuclear attack is in retaliation to another nuclear attack. That is it. Putin has made it clear that he will also launch a nuclear attack in case of an "existential war", which means a war where Russia itself is being attacked with the purpose of conquering or destroying it. A no-fly zone is not that. There is no r…

> Putin has made it clear that he will also launch a nuclear attack in case of an "existential war", which means a war where Russia itself is being attacked with the purpose of conquering or destroying it.

Are you sure about that, to the point of risking the continuity of the species and all of our modern civilizations upon that? If one can claim that the Jewish population in Ukraine is actually Nazis and have many of their citizens believe it even as the economy is collapsing, i doubt that justifying even greater crimes against humanity or other horrible actions is out of the question.

It breaks my heart to see that bullies like Putin are allowed to largely get away with what's going on (apart from support for Ukraine by the international community, though that's essentially funding a proxy war and civilians and the culture at large will still suffer immensely), but you also have to understand the reluctance of other countries to escalate.

And to prevent anyone dismissing the above arguments due to my biases towards the western perspective, i've seen people on /r/russia attempt to justify their military's actions by recalling past actions of western regimes. Just to be clear, i condemn all actions like this, regardless by whom they're perpetuated: two wrongs don't make a right. Humanity should learn to talk, though i fear that there are irreconcilable differences as well.

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

#673

Post by mopsi »

symlinkk wrote: post #402
chasd00 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No offense but this is pretty far fetched. First of all, if Putin wanted to level Kiev he could do it with conventional bombs and artillery. Nuclear weapons are not needed. But second of all, *why* would he want to flatten Kiev? Why don’t you read his goals in his own words? https://web.archive.org/web/20220224024154/http://en.kremlin... He says he sees Russians and Ukrainians as one people and wants to unify them. N…

Now that the Ukrainian people are resisting "unification" and he has failed to achieve goals, he's ordered revenge attacks on Ukrainian cities to level them like Grozny or like Nazis destroyed Warsaw block by block after the uprising. This follows his own words too: he does not think that Ukraine has a right to exist. It's a textbook example of genocide and it's as rational as Hitler's desire to murder all Jews.

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

#675

Post by locallost »

zhdc1 wrote: post #660
locallost wrote: post #658

Remember this situation the next time you hear somebody say that nuclear plants could be built cheaper if not for too much safety regulation.

I don't think I've ever heard this argument. I have, however, heard the opposite argument: nuclear power plants are now extremely safe because of safety regulations, so we should build more of them.

It's actually quite common, I've experienced it personally many times because I am interested in the topic. Their price is basically uneconomical, and the argument in the end always boils down that the danger aspect is overblown, thus making them safe to an unnecessary degree. Example, first sentence in the article:

> Should any discussion of nuclear power go on for long enough, it becomes inevitable that someone will rant that the only reason it has become unaffordable is a proliferation of safety regulations.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plan...

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

#676

Post by ytpete »

mcv wrote: post #643
ericd wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A no-fly zone is no justification for nuclear escalation. Internationally, the only justification for a nuclear attack is in retaliation to another nuclear attack. That is it. Putin has made it clear that he will also launch a nuclear attack in case of an "existential war", which means a war where Russia itself is being attacked with the purpose of conquering or destroying it. A no-fly zone is not that. There is no r…

> A no-fly zone is no justification for nuclear escalation.

Not directly, no - but by induction, probably.

NATO fighter jets attacking Russian aircraft & SAM sites would likely be used by Russia to justify strikes against the airfields those NATO planes operate from. So then you have Russia attacking airfields in NATO countries. Already that's terrifying because you have missiles launched by Russia flying at, say, Germany - and you don't know until they hit if they're nuclear, chemical, conventional, or what. Next step you probably have NATO counterstrikes on Russian land. That puts you right on the edge of nuclear scenarios very fast. No world leaders should even remotely be considering going there.

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

#677

Post by locallost »

keymone wrote: post #662
locallost wrote: post #658

Remember this situation the next time you hear somebody say that nuclear plants could be built cheaper if not for too much safety regulation.

This wouldn’t have happened if the world stopped buying oil and gas from Russia and used more energy from nuclear power plants.

Right, if only the world would have thousands of nuclear plants more, the danger of one blowing up in a war would decrease substantially.

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

#678

Post by ed_balls »

sabas123 wrote: post #644
throwaway9278 wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you so sure you're not yourself trapped in an irrational thinking loop? Global warming is not a civilization-ending threat. Even nuclear war is not a civilization-ending threat, outside a few places in the Northern hemisphere. I could be wrong about both of these claims. But you could be as well, and you're taking an extremely pessimistic view based on what you know, which is not the whole picture.

How are these things not a civilization ending threat? Nukes can literally kill everything and global warming, if unchecked, will probably do the same long term.

Even if all nukes would go off (spread evenly) they would not kill everybody.

The worst case scenario of global worming would not kill everybody. People living north of 40o will survive.

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

#679

Post by amcoastal »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #436
d23 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the downvotes too. We had a president who idolized Putin and still praises him to this day. If we think this sort of thing can't happen here, or aren't clear eyed about the threat he and his enablers still pose, we are in even more danger.

Yes, propaganda and political lies is certainly not confined to Russia or backwater dictatorships. In America you also had that president's opponents concocting lies and peddling insane and baseless conspiracy theories for years about him colluding with Putin to hack the election and other such nonsense. That was even more infantile and simple than the propaganda that comes out of Russia.

No post body was provided.

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

#680

Post by ed_balls »

mulmen wrote: post #422
adventured wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect if the invasion is protracted, Putin will at a minimum detonate a demonstration nuke. The downside consequences for Russia are modest at this point, and it'll be very terrifying to the people of Ukraine (and the world generally).

There is no “demonstration nuke”. If Putin sets off a nuke it’s doomsday. The time between Russia being the second country to use nuclear weapons and our current concept of countries becoming totally irrelevant would be measured in minutes. Having said this he might still do it.

demonstration nuke - it's called tactical nuke, which is different to strategic nuke. Imagine Ukrainian army winning and move towards Russia and Belarus. Putin may decide to fire a tactical nuke to "escalate to de-escalate"
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