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Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

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Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#301

Post by pzo »

tim333 wrote: post #246
hoseja wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has the US ever honored their word when it mattered? You do business with them because otherwise they roll up with warships.

In normal business the US is usually pretty good. A lot of the reason people trade with US dollars is the system normally works. Also in matters of security they did a good job between 1945 and 2014 of keeping peace in Europe and stopping Russia running amok which was not that easy in Stalin's day.

I think the mess we have right now is because of many bad choices by US and allies since WW2:

1) They could reduce and rate limit lend lease to Soviet similar like they rate limited to Ukraine so buy themself more time until nuke is ready and then drop one on Dresden or Berlin (Berlin capitulated in May and they had first nuke in July so just few months later). After that probably didn't had nuke Japan. Also Poland and other eastern countries maybe wouldn't be a puppet state because Stalin lied to them and they would be under influence of US and Soviet Union would be weaker.

2) If they didn't have russian spy in their manhattan project then maybe russia wouldn't have nukes or had much much later.

3) If their didn't listen to british and US didn't overturn Mossadegh (instead of negotiating oil deal) then they wouldn't have maybe such a big mess in Iran and middle east now.

4) If the put some leash on Wall Street and their corporations then maybe they wouldn't let China to outcompete them so easily and now wouldn't have to worry about their own economical dominance.

5) If they would upfront told russian they will return nuke to Ukraine in case invasion because of broken contract commitment then they wouldn't have to worry about current mess in Europe.

6) Not much familiar with the whole history of Afganistan but still wondering what and how badly they US screwed that Afghans that were fighting with Soviet Union with aid of US turned agains them.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#302

Post by pzo »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #283
pzo wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats kind of lawyer speak, not much different when insurance company don't wanna cover you because of some tiny font paragraph or different interpretation in the contract. USA could before this war started (because they publicly on camera warned about invasion days before) tell Putin that in case of invasion they believe they cannot fullfill contract commitment so in this situation the contract would be void and the…

There is no part of the agreement that US didn't uphold. That is not lawyer speak, that is reality. If you think I am wrong cite the part they are not upholding.

By the lawyer speak I mean for the same reason insurance put some misleading wording that other party don't understand so that you can interpret it differently. I think the intent should more important.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#303

Post by tim333 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #233
tim333 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno. "Clinton and Yeltsin did promise Ukraine “full guarantees of security" is from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/ukraine-nuclear-...

It was Yeltsin that said that, not Clinton: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/30921-document-9-memorand... Also, that was not any form of an agreement, it was just words in a meeting. Nobody signed, it was not ratified with US congress as a treaty. If you take that as binding then all the verbal commitments made to Russia that NATO won't expand eastwards should also have been binding, and they were broken first. I k…

Well, I did say not legally binding. But you can see how someone might interpret "Russia and the U.S. will give full guarantees of security" to mean "Russia and the U.S. will give full guarantees of security" if they weren't really paying attention?

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#304

Post by Salgat »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #287
Salgat wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The agreement has no explicit terms for whether or not nations must enforce it, that's left up to the nations to decide on their own. It was intentionally written this way, otherwise Russia would have never agreed to it.

What discretionary action suggested by the memo does the US not uphold. All I am asking for is specifics here.

You keep misunderstanding. As I have already stated, the agreement lacks formal enforcement mechanisms, how it is upheld is up to the agreeing nations to figure out. In 2014 that was economic sanctions. In 2022 that was military aid. This is how political agreements work.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#305

Post by libertine »

trhway wrote: post #163
libertine wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully this is already underway, and Ukraine has also the know how to build stuff that can deliver these payloads. They need to develop bunker busters though.

I think the MAD would be enough. Russia has such a vast space (not possible to effectively cover with air defense), even if just European part, with so many legitimate targets without any need for bunker busters/etc., that just a test underground explosion showing that Ukraine got it would be enough for Russia to hit the brakes screeching. Btw, according to the Russian nuclear doctrine nukes can be used when the coun…

The bunker busters is more in line with the old "US doctrine" that was developed against terrorist leaders: a decapitation strike to the leader.

Let's not forget these folks have their self preservation in first order, the population is just a means for their survival.

That's why it's imperative for Ukraine to have bunker busters, like gravity bombs, because the first strike would need to be where the leadership is.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#306

Post by Paradigma11 »

ben_w wrote: post #36
mg wrote: post #3

Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? I wonder what hinders us to replace the roofs of all houses with solar panels and put batteries in all cellars? It might still be useful to build out nuclear power plants. But the solar+battery approach seems like an easier first step to increase the available power, doesn't it?

> Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? Solar with battery backup is about that, globally, on average. But: the averages have sufficiently broad variance that there's places where one wins, and places where the other wins. PV+battery is between 75-140 USD/MWh; whereas new nuclear is, depending on who I ask, any of 81-82, 65, or 141–221 USD/MWh.

What kind of battery backup are we talking about?

Enough for a long cold winter night in northern Europe?

Enough for a longer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute ?

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#307

Post by echoangle »

mpweiher wrote: post #295
echoangle wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be pedantic, propaganda doesn't have to be false.

"The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause." Citing a correct fact about the world is not propaganda, as facts are neither doctrine nor "reflect views".

You can cite facts to provoke an emotional response and make people sympathetic to your ideology. That's propaganda.

> Citing a correct fact about the world is not propaganda, as facts are neither doctrine nor "reflect views".

It says "propagation of doctrine" and facts can be used to propagate a doctrine.

Edit:

Here's a definition from Wikipedia:

> NATO's 2011 guidance for military public affairs defines propaganda as "information, ideas, doctrines, or special appeals disseminated to influence the opinion, emotions, attitudes, or behaviour of any specified group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#Definitions

Does that sound like the information has to be false to be propaganda?

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#308

Post by stodor89 »

lovegrenoble wrote: post #131
snowwrestler wrote: post #99

Maybe not well known, but during the 20th century a number of nations started a nuclear weapons program, but then were convinced to halt the work by security guarantees by the U.S. You better believe that every single one of those nations is now revisiting that decision. For those wondering if Italy can afford to build nuclear: their economy is larger than Russia’s. As is Brazil’s, another nation that put nuclear wea…

Can We Please Stop Comparing Russia’s Economy to Italy’s? Who's comparing Russia's economy to Italy's? Apparently Lindsay Graham did in 2014. CNN in 2022. I like this article because it made me think about Russia and it's economy in a way that I didn't fully appreciate before. The article calls out an argument that compares Russia's economy to Italy's economy, using nominal GDP as a measurement. This is supposed to b…

If I didn't know how incompetent and delusional our "leaders" are, there would probably be a sense of betrayal. But now it's just... void. Well, at least I got to grow up during the best time this world has ever seen, so I'm thankful for that.

Putin, Trump, Russians, Americans... are just doing their thing. Can't really be mad about that. I always thought there will never be another war in Europe, because (1) nobody's dumb enough to die for a bunch of crooks and (2) cannon fodder is not a great use of people anyway. Oh well, turns out propaganda is one hell of a drug (on both ends of the political spectrum).

Meanwhile... my hotel room in Shenzhen could change window tint with a voice command and automatically detect the language. My Indian colleague's 12yo kid wants to be an astronaut and has a better investment portfolio than me. It is so over.. people have no idea. Like, not tomorrow, not in five years, but certainly by the end of the century. Vivek Ramaswamy tried to give MAGA a hint, but got cancelled for it. (Cancel culture was supposed to be a left-wing postmodern thing btw. Oopsie! Let's pretend we're surprised, ok?)

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#309

Post by flanked-evergl »

tim333 wrote: post #303
flanked-evergl wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was Yeltsin that said that, not Clinton: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/30921-document-9-memorand... Also, that was not any form of an agreement, it was just words in a meeting. Nobody signed, it was not ratified with US congress as a treaty. If you take that as binding then all the verbal commitments made to Russia that NATO won't expand eastwards should also have been binding, and they were broken first. I k…

Well, I did say not legally binding. But you can see how someone might interpret "Russia and the U.S. will give full guarantees of security" to mean "Russia and the U.S. will give full guarantees of security" if they weren't really paying attention?

It was not even an agreement at all, nevermind binding. It was words said by the Russian president. Not a contract, not a memorandum, just words in a meeting. If Ukraine took one sentence said by the Russian president in a meeting as security guarantees from US (emphasis on the word guarantees) then they are the problem.

Security guarantees would at minimum require a treaty ratified by congress in US, something which I don't think is on the table any more at all.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#310

Post by pfdietz »

mpweiher wrote: post #299
pfdietz wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These more modern designs don't solve the primary problem of nuclear, which is cost.

That is not really the case. Nuclear power is extremely cost effective, even with the current plants. The individual plants are currently expensive, because they are large and produce huge amounts of power. Since that means you only have a fairly small number of plants, that means the risk is higher than preferable. However, even with existing designs, building a common design multiple times and overlapping the build…

Nuclear is being vastly outcompeted globally for new installations of power capacity by renewables. It's not even close. The only inference that can be drawn from this is that renewables beat nuclear in the market, that nuclear is the loser technology economically.

Even in China, two orders of magnitude more PV comes online each year compared to nuclear (nameplate power, adjust by a factor of maybe 4 for levelized power).

Nuclear advocates defending the fantasy you are espousing here have to resort to universal conspiracy theories to explain away this unpleasant reality. But how are supposedly omnipotent greens and public fear supposed to be hindering nuclear's rollout in China?

Nuclear may benefit from experience, but that means that as rollouts are scaled back, experience decays away and nuclear gets more expensive. Below a certain (and probably pretty large) rate of installs, nuclear just regresses. It's not clear even China can avoid this at the current install rate.

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