Ukraine's Largest Nuclear Plant is Cut Off Energy Grid (washingtonpost.com) 138
Ukraine's largest nuclear power plant was cut off from the country's electricity grid, setting off a mass power outage in the adjacent area after fires damaged its last functioning transmission line, Ukraine's nuclear power company said Thursday. From a report: The incident renewed fears about safety at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which is also the largest atomic energy plant in Europe and is located in an area now occupied by invading Russian forces. Fighting in the vicinity of the plant has led to acute worries of a potential catastrophe and to calls from many world leaders for U.N. nuclear experts to be allowed to visit the site.
Russian and Ukrainian officials traded blame for shelling at the plant, which they said had resulted in the disconnection from the power grid -- the first time it has ever been cut off. Officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, have warned that such a disconnection itself could lead to an extremely dangerous situation by disrupting the plant's normal operation and potentially making it difficult to cool the reactors. "The actions of the invaders caused a complete disconnection of the ZNPP from the power grid -- for the first time in the history of the plant," Ukraine's nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said in a statement.
UPDATE: Friday the New York Times reported the plant had been reconnected to the grid.
Russian and Ukrainian officials traded blame for shelling at the plant, which they said had resulted in the disconnection from the power grid -- the first time it has ever been cut off. Officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, have warned that such a disconnection itself could lead to an extremely dangerous situation by disrupting the plant's normal operation and potentially making it difficult to cool the reactors. "The actions of the invaders caused a complete disconnection of the ZNPP from the power grid -- for the first time in the history of the plant," Ukraine's nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said in a statement.
UPDATE: Friday the New York Times reported the plant had been reconnected to the grid.
It's back on. (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot really shouldn't be posting quickly developing stories. The plant is back on the grid.
Re:It's back on. (Score:5, Informative)
On Thursday, the plant was cut off from the grid for the first time after fires damaged a transmission line, according to Ukraine's nuclear power operator. The damaged line apparently carried outgoing electricity - and thus the region lost power, according to Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russia-installed governor. As a result of the damage, the two reactors still in use went offline, he said, but one was quickly restored, as was electricity to the area.
The line that was apparently affected is different from the one that carries power to run cooling systems essential for the safe operation of the reactors. A loss of power in those supply lines is a major concern of experts warily watching the fighting.
Currently only one of the four lines supplying the plant with power from outside is operational, the U.N. atomic agency said. External power is essential not just to cool the two reactors still in operation but also the spent radioactive fuel stored in special facilities onsite.
"If we lose the last one, we are at the total mercy of emergency power generators," said Najmedin Meshkati, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California.
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Because the fallout from that plant going nuclear could fall over here. Spend more time learning about nuclear risks and maybe you'd understand.
Re: It's back on. (Score:2)
But just in case not, he is a professor AT the University of Southern California. He is NOT discussing the University of Southern California.
Re: It's back on. (Score:2)
I'll ask what's probably a dumb question: is external power/onsite generator the only way to power the site if something bad happens? I assume the goal in that case would be to get the rods into a safe state and then safely shut things down. As I recall, the diesel generators were the weak point for Fukushima (correct?), but are there other power sources that could work? I'm thinking large battery units or some other stored energy. I guess I'm just wondering if, after Fukushima, there aren't secondary po
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Your link and comment make for a far better and more correct story than the one being run here.
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That the connection was restored relatively quickly doesn't change that this is a good story for slashdot discussion.
Indeed. Then the correct story is "Ukraine's Largest Nuclear Plant was briefly Cut Off Energy Grid". If you use present tense it needs to give a view of the actual current situation.
It is now 1 day later and the story was not updated by the Editor for correctness. Report on the correct news or don't report at all.
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The nuclear power plant is under Russia's control and they are keeping it operational. You can fuck off now.
Thanks, I feel much better that the nuclear plant seized by an invading army is back in operation.
Re:It's back on. [Be a shame if it goes off again! (Score:4, Interesting)
The trollism is too deep around this topic, but maybe it's inevitable given that a big chunk of the battle is in the so-called disinformation space formerly known as the Internet. Not sure what it should be called now, but the Web sure isn't as "self-healing" as they billed it way back when.
So I'll go ahead and repeat my summary of the situation, but maybe you have a better one?
Ukraine never posed an existential threat to Russia. But the threat of a massive Russian defeat in Ukraine has become an existential threat to Vladimir Putin.
The losses of Putin's Ukraine war have already exceeded any possible profits. War is no longer profitable in any of the traditional senses. That should be a good thing, but some people don't seem to understand, or they define "profit" in insane ways. According to some of Putin's critics, the biggest profit would be the extermination and extinction of anything "Ukrainian", and they are criticizing Putin because he isn't using enough violence.
I still can't decide if Putin has gone nuts or if he just got carried away believing what he wanted to believe. But anyone who believes that paying off a blackmailer will satisfy him is definitely nuts. (But in the case of Slashdot, I still suspect some of them are paid to fake it.)
Re: It's back on. [Be a shame if it goes off again (Score:2)
Re: It's back on. [Be a shame if it goes off agai (Score:2)
There are a few more states that control the Black Sea.
The shell gas is in fact under Romania's and Bulgaria's waters
And Turkey's fleet would wipe out anyone if need be...
BTW, ErdoÄYan latest statement was that Russia must give back Crimea to Ukraine.
Putin is running out of friends...
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No. The external costs won't go away even if Putin is one of the world's best externalizers. I would agree to the extent that the falling value of fossil fuels did force the timing. Rather like the way the Japanese military calculated that their "need" for more steel "forced" them to attack America at that particular time.
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You do understand the immense strategic advantage Russia now possesses by controlling that station, not merely because it can turn off the lights at a whim, but that it can basically use it as an effective and basically impenetrable defensive point; a fortress where if Ukraine tries to destroy troops and equipment, it could irradiate the countryside. Not only that, it's a literal "nuclear option" for Russia, in the event that they are losing badly, they can create a disaster with the same result. We've seen
Re:It's back on[ for how long?] (Score:2)
Mod parent up, but no, he does not understand or he's paid to pretend that he believes his own BS.
One of my theories of the case is that some of the old identities on Slashdot have been hacked. But the problem with that theory is "Why would professional hackers care enough about the discussions on Slashdot to waste the time hacking accounts and posting comments here?" Even Putin's lowest goons must have better uses for their time. Not even useful as a "training exercise for the reader" given the primitive s
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Re:It's back on. (Score:5, Insightful)
And by operational, you mean parking Russian military trucks inside to the turbine hall [cnn.com] and parking other military vehicles next to the reactors [yahoo.com].
Meanwhile, Russian troops have been holding the workers at the plant hostage [euroweeklynews.com] and have been firing artillery [yahoo.com] from the plant premises onto civilians in nearby Ukrainian towns.
So yeah, much comfort having Russia occupy the nuclear plant.
Re:It's back on. (Score:4, Insightful)
people are blind by their leaders, news and "faction". Both sides are lying and both side are playing a dangerous game and both are to blame! (talking about this situation, not the war, that is WAY more complex, spreading many years and many countries)
So the known facts are:
Russia is using the nuclear plan to store ammo and equipment, arty the Ukrainian and basically shield them against counter attacks because they know that Ukraine have to very careful in attacking back.
Ukraine is being attacked and knows where the Russian equipment is and how dangerous is to counter attack... but do it anyway.
Russia say that Ukraine is causing a nuclear problem, but of course fails to report they have lot of equipment there and use it to bomb the other side.
Ukraine say that Russia is bombing the central (that Russia controls) to cause a nuclear disaster, but fail to report they are counter attacking enemy artillery and destroying Russian equipment placed in the central ( and knowing how dangerous that is)
Neither side want to really cause a nuclear incident but both sides are playing with fire and taking risks based on the other side not being stupid (but they are) ... and trashing everyone with fake info to try to gain support for their cause
So yes, war is stupid and stupid leaders can make it even worse
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So the known facts are: Russia is using the nuclear plan to store ammo and equipment, arty the Ukrainian and basically shield them against counter attacks because they know that Ukraine have to very careful in attacking back.
Ukraine is being attacked and knows where the Russian equipment is and how dangerous is to counter attack... but do it anyway.
Based on that, it's really simple to assign blame. Russia is knowingly putting everyone in danger by storing dangerous explosives in a nuclear facility. They are knowingly committing war crimes by placing troops and equipment in a civilian area of an occupied country. Ukraine is defending its country.
The false equivalence game is starting to get annoying.
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i don't want to say one side is to blame, because that points that the other side is innocent... NEITHER side is innocent in this case, both sides are playing a dangerous game by making war around a nuclear plan. Defending a country is not a valid excuse for that, a nuclear incident will kill what they should be protecting, their own families and future in the region
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The plant is being run by Ukrainians who are not allowed to leave. What gives you the idea that the Great Putini gives a flying rat's ass about human life? The opposition he had murdered? The terrorist missile strikes on Ukrainian cities? The way the Russian army is treating their conscripts as cannon fodder? The mounds of dead they left in Chechnya? The mounds of dead the Russians are leaving in Syria?
Even his "brain" is calling for Ukrainian blood after his sprog was out there also calling for Ukrainian b
Re: It's back on. (Score:4, Informative)
Honestly, I trust the anything the CIA openly admits is propaganda over ANYTHING that the Russian government says at all. The Russian government is nothing more than a kleptocracy that spends every second of every day trying to figure out what it can do to benefit Putin with zero concern about whoever it has to kill just to make him even a single penny/ruble wealthier or even slightly more popular, even if it it has to kill one of its own.
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Well, Russia controls the plant now, and has controlled it since early March very early in the "war". Before then there was certainly fog of war and confusion, it seemed like Russia would stop with it's so-called independent republics instead of rushing down south, and probably a lot of people didn't realize Russia would be so clumsy and ham-fisted with it's handling of Chernobl or Zaphorizhzhia.
Not a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
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For the most part I agree with you, but am not sure what our options are when Putin, possibly demented, possibly insane, possibly dying of liver cancer, certainly quite old has nuclear weapons and essentially nothing to lose.
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Plus bear in mind that their nuclear forces aren't really part of another branch like they are in the US, so we don't really have any operational data on how they would perform. That unknown coupled with the terrible consequences of being wrong are really all that keeps Russia in its position.
Re:Not a surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
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It only takes one nuclear missile to ruin your day.
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They are ready to sacrifice the West, while we are not that much after something else, than russia responsible and contemporary. This is their beneficial position (on our expense). Terrorism at its clearest.
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Maybe not the worst, as there is hardly true way to sacrifice our development. This might be only about proper timing.
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There are no good options and there never were.
Option
A) Let Russia do what it wants in Ukraine - It sounds cruel and uncaring but the reality without our interference it would probably already be over. Arguable at of the acute suffering by the non-combatant population would have been avoided. A lot of world wide suffering from energy market and food market disruptions would have or would be avoided.
B) Flood the place with weapons from the US and EU as we have done. Its prolonged the conflict. Its kept Ukra
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I think the civilian population would still be decimated. Russian soldiers have already been executing even minor officials and also shipping off civilians to "reeducation" camps within Russia. These deaths aren't from bombings or shellings or collateral damage.
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" It sounds cruel and uncaring but the reality without our interference it would probably already be over. A"
Why would it be over? If 'let them have it' is our response, then why would they ever stop taking more? If the world chooses Option A, then Russia doesn't stop with Ukraine.
And then on the heels of that China takes Taiwan, Japan, and the Phillipines, Vietnam, maybe even Australia... because if we didn't stop Russia...
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Isn't that what we did when Russia invaded Ukraine and took territory in 2014? Look at where that got us.
You win the Neville Chamberlain award of wisdom, for presenting the option of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states for achieving peace.
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I am not endorsing option A - I said they were all bad options - duh Russia would not have stopped in Eastern Ukraine, Putin would one weak former soviet frozen state at a time reassemble the USSR.
All I am saying is that might not be altogether worse for many of people involved. Its still very bad..
B) has very real problems - and vary obvious parallels with history recent enough most of us should remember. The idea their won't be a long tail of carnage extending from this choice for the next two decades o
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Option B sucks for the people of Ukraine, it doesn't necessarily suck for NATO. Russia is clearly tied down in Ukraine now, Putin has just made a decree to bolster the size of the Russian army, because so much of it is committed already. That means army reserves are going to be called in, probably to free up regular troops from other areas of Russia, but in the long run it means reserves are going to end up in Ukraine. All of this is going to represent extra strain to the Russian economy, and raise the risk
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Appeasement of totalitarian states on the other hand has never brought peace. It only strengthens the hand of th
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When has option A for Appeasement ever proven to be optimal in the long run?
Let's hear some historical examples. I can't find a single one. Feel free to go all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia if you need to.
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nonsense, almost all countries that exists are based in option A, that is why you have so few big countries and most of then are historically "recent" and with big empty spaces (china and india being the specials cases, but mostly because they had centuries of wars and cultural fusion and even now they have regions and population that still resist)
you get in to a war, win and get some land. taking too much land is a problem to control, drains the main land resources and every year in a long war you make pe
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Soooooo, no examples. Got it.
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sure, lets start with the big ones:
WW2, Germany controlled most of Europe, spread the war to Russia, over extended their armies, supply lines and ended losing the war.
not attacking Russia they could have armies to control the north africa and get their oil. Still lot of rebellions in many countries, but they still had enough armies to control that. If that alone would be enough to keep everything stable is unknown, due to the huge size
WW1, long war, German Empire, Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire and Austria-
Re: Not a surprise (Score:2)
'A' wouldn't be an option at all. Russia has been executing Ukrainians for merely not adoring Putin.
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Are you absolutely sure that one of the Siloviki would be better?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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another mafia^W leader would be "elected" ... even if supported by the western 3 letters agency
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Option D) Push for a ceasefire (as immediately as can be done), and real peace negotiations. Consistently make both negotiating positions public, so the rest of the world can see who to support on what. For instance, Ukraine may want recovery of all territory but offer a more regional federalised structure, some sort of joint sovereignity [wikipedia.org] for Crimea with leasing fees, and removal of intent to join NATO from its constitution. Russia may want to incorporate new territories -- but may have second thoughts on t
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Finally someone not blind by nationalism and rhetoric (by both sides!). I could not say it better
I can only add that EU (and UK, fine they want to be "special") , USA, Russia and China should also all stop being stupid and stop the the military rearm. The more weapons one country have, the more it thinks it is a valid solution. If we have few weapons, we all try harder to maintain peace. All the power display and regional military chess should stop as soon as possible, all that only escalates any smaller l
Re:Both sides though (Score:5, Informative)
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I think Russia has indoctrinated all its soldiers that any Ukrainian they see, whether soldier, civilian, or nuclear plant operator, is likely a Nazi. This is the normalized part of war already, you convince your guys that the other guys are subhuman. Thus they execute mayors of towns they overrun, hold mock-trials of POWs, and keep the nuclear operators prisoner at gunpoint, while awaiting official orders about what to do (the command structure for Russia seems to break down more often then their tanks).
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That doesn't absolve the Russians committing these atrocities. I also distinctly fail to notice the Russian Orthodox Church calling for human treatment or an end of the war. Their priests and their faithful are complicit.
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there is ample evidence of Russia doing these things and no evidence of Ukraine doing such things.
That isn't a fair comparison because the war is happening on Ukrainian soil. You give rifles to a bunch of 18-year-olds and mix them into a civilian population they see as their enemy, and you're gonna get atrocities. That situation applies to the invaders, not the defenders.
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"That isn't a fair comparison because the war is happening on Ukrainian soil. You give rifles to a bunch of 18-year-olds and mix them into a civilian population they see as their enemy, and you're gonna get atrocities"
Yes, you're right that this is what you can expect to happen. And the decision to invade was made solely by the Russians, so the inevitable result of that the decision lays solely with them. So why is not a fair comparison? The Russians made decisions that led to their forces committing atr
Re:Both sides though [are NOT equal] (Score:2)
You seem to be looking for a rational discussion in a most unlikely venue. See my first comment on the topic for all the required details (that aren't too sordid to discuss outside of a courtroom).
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That isn't a fair comparison because the war is happening on Ukrainian soil. You give rifles to a bunch of 18-year-olds and mix them into a civilian population they see as their enemy, and you're gonna get atrocities. That situation applies to the invaders, not the defenders.
I'm not really getting where the concept of fairness comes into this. Either a crime was committed or it wasn't. If there was a crime then, ideally, the guilty should be prosecuted. The guilty are the soldiers that committed the crime, but likely also those that created a situation where it was likely.
Soldiers are supposed to get training into the laws of war and how to avoid committing crimes. If they didn't get that or, more, if they get training in how to torture then that makes both them and the people
Re:Both sides though (Score:5, Insightful)
Except of course that there is ample evidence of Russia doing these things and no evidence of Ukraine doing such things.
There is some evidence, although on a much smaller scale. You have to be realistic - no war ever has one side that never, ever breaks the rules on this stuff and pretending that one side is purer than the driven snow just gives the other side ammo for their propaganda at home.
The important question is what is done to the people who are caught breaking the rules?
Re:Both sides though (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Both sides though (Score:5, Insightful)
"The only difference"...
Not the only:
1. Story unfolds on the soil of the sovereign Ukraine, no matter your sympathies to the clear aggressor
2. How come, sovereign state in XXI century was deprived from control of the object of such a high care and accountability
Would you mind Ukrainians taking control over nuclear weaponry or just similar nuclear stations on russian soil? Where is this bringing humanity? To learn Dostoevsky hardest ways possible, vodka-topor-style?
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Rape...Murder...It's just a shot away, It's just a shot away... [youtube.com]
(at 2:59...whooo, one of the great moments in Rock)
Re:Both sides though (Score:5, Insightful)
Son of a bitch, you fucking nimrod, piece of shit, a pile of garbage. Ukrainians are unfortunately civilized people, so they don't do to the russian mad dogs what they deserve, instead they treat them better than they have ever seen in their miserable lives, all this in hope to exchange them for the captured Ukrainians.
russians are not just murdering and raping, they are also kidnapping people, they moved over a million and a half Ukrainians into russian concentration camps and such.
putin and his mad dogs are terrorists and this event at the nuclear power plant is just another indicator of how *weak* the so called 'civilized' world is, when there is clearly an existential threat more than even to Ukraine, but to the rest of Europe (and possibly the world), the rest of the world should really get off its ass and so just a little more before there is an actual nuclear disaster. A thousand tanks, a thousand howitzers and maybe 20-30 fighter jets and bombers could really help to clear this parasites out from Ukraine and away from the rest of its nuclear reactors.
The existential threat to Vladimir Putin (Score:2)
Basically concurrence, but why did you propagate the nihilist's Subject? Also, you can't expect to get your goat back.
But I think you should have been moderated "Interesting" or "Informative" rather than "Insightful".
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A thousand tanks, a thousand howitzers and maybe 20-30 fighter jets and bombers could really help to clear this parasites out from Ukraine
Ukraine needs to build up their military. It's not just a matter of sending equipment, you need to send equipment they can use.
You could send 30 F-16s, but they would just sit on the runway because no one knows how to fly them.
You could send a thousand howitzers, but the problem is the Ukrainians have weak supply lines, so they would not be able to get ammo to those howitzers.
There are a LOT of new volunteers in the Ukrainian army, but they all need training so they don't die their first week in the field.
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Is Ukraine still winning?
Yes.
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I suppose when Russia reaches the Dnieper and stops you'll say Ukraine fought them to a stalemate and declare victory.
Russia is about to be pushed back across the Dnieper at Kherson.
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What is your point? That the US is bad at propaganda? We already knew that.
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Is Ukraine still winning? We were told Ukraine was winning.
Zelensky is winning so yugely, Ukraine will change its national anthem to Yackety Sax after it becomes land-locked.
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Civilized people don't plant car bombs to blow up people's children.
Why are you sending your children to invade their country?
Be glad they are only blowing up the ones you sent to invade. One day they may push back across the previous border and attack you in your home. When they do, remember that you started it.
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Ohh... that child. I thought he was referring to russian child soldiers being blown up in ukraine.
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No, Trump asked Zelenskyy to investigate, not the other way around.
And Russian *started* the war! They started in 2014, and they came back to restart in 2022. Ukraine did not start anything. Blame your own dictator here.
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"The Ukraine president asked Trump if they should investigate the dealings by Hunter?"
So now you're rewriting recorded, documented reality in your own head. Wow. Just wow.
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This is why you don't elect dictators (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how much you like a guy or how great a man you think he is, do not install him as a dictator. Sooner or later it'll bite you in the ass.
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The problem is that Putin as a relic of the Soviet system knew where the pressure points were and had no incentive to not grab for himself.
People still let him do it (Score:3)
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Yeah. Rather than a leader that tells it like it is, let's get one who makes shit up and lies about everything.
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Re:This is why you don't elect dictators (Score:5, Informative)
He was elected after series of staged blasts in communal houses. Where at some point FSB (post-KGB) staff was caught carrying exactly these explosives to the basement of another such house. Smart-ass he was.
Re:This is why you don't elect dictators (Score:5, Insightful)
And Putin catapulted to power after likely being the engineer behind the bombings of apartment buildings. The FSB was even caught red handed planting bombs by local police, but they brushed it off by claiming it was just a drill or training exercise. For all those Russian citizens who seem glad that Putin is better than Yeltsin, it's possible that Yeltsin even knew this was happening at the time.
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Also do not forget that Yeltsin had the western support... and with this support he sold most of the Russia assets either to Russia smart-ass (later mafias and oligarchs) or to western companies, greedy for the easy cash grab... while some people got VERY rich, all others started to get harder and harder life, even hunger. So Putin was also a savior, the promise to control the mafias and get everyone a decent life a excellent target... and he managed that (by being the mafia leader and by retaking several h
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it is easy to elect a dictator, in fact most western dictators were elected. grab a hot topic and make everyone slowly believe you can solve it. After in power "solve" some (usually minor) issues and do lot of marketing about them... hide all others problems or blame other people... start attacking, restricting or even arresting everyone that discord of you and promote everyone that support you. You will quickly gain a stable group of supporters to keep yourself in power for a long time and if needed, "fix
Where was the fire? (Score:3, Interesting)
Was the fire at the plant or along the travel route of the power line some distance away?
Russian could have started a controlled shutdown months ago if it wanted to, right?
All the Wapo article says is "be afraid". Not actionable.
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no, shutting a nuclear reactor takes months and even after years stopped, you still have to power it to maintain the temperature in acceptable levels.
that is one of the big problems of nuclear, it is not press a switch and it is down, it is a big and LONG operation that requires everything running, just as it was producing power. So having it totally stopped or on a lower power mode is the same, with the advantage of the low power mode you can increase the power with much less effort than starting from a "s
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forgot to say that the reason why a stop reactor keeps getting hot is because the fuel keeps breaking naturally and that generates heat. In nature, you have very small quantities all over the place, but in the reactor, their concentration is much bigger and ever time a atom decays, it will release energy... a much slower pace, but is enough to be a huge problem is not well controlled
Why do they need the grid to cool things? (Score:3)
Ive never understood this part.
Its a power plant. Why cant the power from the reactors power the cooling system? Why do they need to be connected to the grid to keep the reactor cooler system online? I can understand Chernobyl since its reactors were down and they just need to keep materials cool. But at a working site?
On the surface its like saying a gas station's generator is offline because it ran out of diesel fuel. Uh. there's 3,000 gallons in the ground tank the generator power the pumps. Just pump more into the generator tank.
Re:Why do they need the grid to cool things? (Score:5, Informative)
Because the plant can drop off line at short notice (reactor SCRAM, coolant loop problem, turbine problem, etc...), can take hours to come back up, and the reactor will still need power to cool the core down from operating temperature. Backup generators are just that, emergency backup for the primary source, the external grid.
Fukushima failed because the earthquake cut the plant off from the grid, and the plant's backup generators were at ground level and got flooded out by the tsunami. With no power to run the core coolant loop, the core overheated and melted.
My understanding of this comes from my reading of the IEEE Three Mile Island report, ages ago as part of my dissertation research. Track it down, it's a great read.
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the reactor will still need power to cool the core down from operating temperature
What you said, but with the comment that it's not just a matter of removal of the heat that's already in the core - which would just need a big, but finite heat sink. In the fuel there will also be a bunch of short lived fission product unstable atoms. The reactor SCRAM stops the ongoing fission by blocking the neutrons, but the fission products keep on decaying for a long time. Early on after shutdown there will be quite a bit of energy still being produced from radiation. Much of that energy gets converte
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Thanks for the insight.
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"Why cant the power from the reactors power the cooling system? Why do they need to be connected to the grid to keep the reactor cooler system online?"
Because then you're totally dependent on the reactor power for your cooling system. That's a single point of failure. Having a single point of failure between you and a nuclear meltdown is Not Good.
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Because then you're totally dependent on the reactor power for your cooling system. That's a single point of failure. Having a single point of failure between you and a nuclear meltdown is Not Good.
No, thats not what I'm saying. Why cant they feed the cooling system using the power the reactor is generating when the outside power goes down? Why rely on strictly outside power to operate it? its like telling a McDonalds worker he MUST go next door to Wendy's to eat because there is no food in the building for them.
I'm no rocket surgeon, but I managed to get tertiary power into my corporate data center. A/B power plus generator. If I can figure that out, why cant nuke level electrical engineers figure ou
It's Russia's fault regardless (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't matter who's shelling the plant. Russia started the war, so whatever happens after is their fault. Finger-pointing is pointless...
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Mearsheimer has not been right about this, he wasn't right about Europe in the 90's (he predicted post-USSR multi-polarism would lead to constant war and it turned into one of the most peaceful eras in European history).
The realist philosophy of foreign policy is somethign that is worth taking into account from an academic perspective but it has shown to have less than stellar predictive power so we shouldn't really rely on it for making prescriptions about what to do or why it's happening.
Re: (Score:2)
I've spent a lot of time trying to understand Mearsheimer's view on this, but I still can't figure it out. He believes "power is all that matters," but seems to ignore that NATO is the primary strength in Europe. He somehow thinks that Ukraine should submit to Russia (I can't figure out why). He has very strong opinions, but I can't figure out the primary reasoning behind them.
Re: (Score:2)
I found this thread from Micheal McFaul who was a US ambassador to Russia pretty interesting on why he feels the realism doctrine gets things wrong. Seems like overall it's a philosophy that just has not kept up with the post cold war era.
https://twitter.com/McFaul/sta... [twitter.com]
This isn't a war anymore (Score:4)
Stupid Russian invaders (Score:4, Interesting)
This sound like the story is from a cheap thriller, but the Russians are literally playing with fire, nuclear fire.
Nuclear reactors can just stop delivering power, without a balanced load, ... long story short, they can "melt down". In good times, if you want to shut it down, you need to have knowledgeable personnel to slowly cool down reactors, remove and process fuel rods, and take them away to long term storage sites. And make sure every procedure is followed correctly.
Remember the last time Russians decided the let go of procedure? Chernobyl caused so many deaths... in 2021, when they dug trenches in irritated soil and cooked their own military personnel with radiation. (Did you think they learned a lesson from the prior Chernobyl incident? Apparently not).
Today, Russia is trying the "very delicate" option of just using explosives to blow out connections.
What could possibly go wrong?
Trust (Score:4, Interesting)
Putin and his country, no matter the name, have lost every shred of credibility they had, though they didn't have a lot.
I just can't imagine anyone in Europe, specifically, wanting to deal with "Russia" other than criminals.
It will take a half century or more for them to rebuild trust if even then.