Ukraine Part 5: war...it never changes

[Kalbear]

Might be easier. Can you guarantee you can tell 19 year old conscripts what wires to cut across a power plant which supplies like 10% of all the energy of a country and do so in all directions and make sure that it continues to not work?

And that presumes that the transmission lines are aboveground which is likely not the case. So uou have to identify these things without blueprints, engineers or operators while being shot at.

Or you can just take the plant and press the well labeled scram button. 

[Pebble thats Stubby]

2 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

That and like, I don't know, making sure motherfuckers like this lose their jobs along with everyones' respect. 

 

 

 

I think that clip might have been out of context.  IIRC he was talking about the difference between using a VB in the desert on military targets well away from civilians to using one in a population centre.   - one is certainly worse than the other and I have no idea if VB where only used and only effected Taliban / Al Qaeda forces when the US used them in Afghanistan and even then I don't think its justified.  but i don't think the clip is quiet as bad as it sounds as I don't think he is actually saying its ok to kill Arabs, but killing white people is wrong.

[karaddin]

3 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

Might be easier. Can you guarantee you can tell 19 year old conscripts what wires to cut across a power plant which supplies like 10% of all the energy of a country and do so in all directions and make sure that it continues to not work?

And that presumes that the transmission lines are aboveground which is likely not the case. So uou have to identify these things without blueprints, engineers or operators while being shot at.

Or you can just take the plant and press the well labeled scram button. 

I'm certainly making an assumption they're above ground with that question, and I realised after asking it that it wasn't a reasonable assumption. If they are though, you can just cut all lines around it in a ring, if you can't get your 19 year old conscripts to execute things as simple as that, you're...going to have an invasion that goes about as well as this one is going. So checks out.

[Martell Spy]

Analysis: China can't do much to help Russia's sanction-hit economy

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/economy/china-cant-help-russia-sanctions-fallout-intl-hnk/index.html

Quote

 

But for China, Russia matters a lot less: Trade between the two countries made up just 2% of China's total trade volume. The European Union and the United States have much larger shares.

Chinese banks and companies also fear secondary sanctions if they deal with Russian counterparts.

"Most Chinese banks cannot afford to lose access to US dollars and many Chinese industries cannot afford to lose access to US technology," said Thomas.

According to Singleton, these Chinese entities "could very quickly find themselves subject to increased Western scrutiny if they are perceived in any meaningful way as aiding Russian attempts to evade U.S.-led sanctions."

"Recognizing that China's economy and industrial output have been under enormous pressure in recent months, Chinese policymakers will likely attempt to strike a delicate balance between supporting Russia rhetorically but without antagonizing Western regulators," he added.

There have been reports this week that two of China's largest banks — ICBC and Bank of China — have restricted financing for purchases of Russian commodities, in fear of violating potential sanctions.

 

 

[JGP]

@Pebble thats Stubby

MOAB is a VB and it was definitely used in Afghanistan. And yeah, you could be right, but jesus christ, that's not how Afghans may interpret it. There's nothing but clips of western journalists hanging their asses out like this lately. They need to knock it off. 

[karaddin]

5 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I'm certainly making an assumption they're above ground with that question, and I realised after asking it that it wasn't a reasonable assumption. If they are though, you can just cut all lines around it in a ring, if you can't get your 19 year old conscripts to execute things as simple as that, you're...going to have an invasion that goes about as well as this one is going. So checks out.

@Kalibuster decided to see if a quick look could turn it up and an article on power-technology.com states 

Quote

In 2021, the fourth 750kV overhead line from the NPP to the Kakhovska substation was commissioned

So they are above ground, but my brief look at google maps makes the geography nothing like what I was picturing and certainly doesn't look like there would be a nice clear target anywhere close to the plant itself.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

3 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

@Pebble thats Stubby

MOAB is a VB and it was definitely used in Afghanistan. And yeah, you could be right, but jesus christ, that's not how Afghans may interpret it. There's nothing but clips of western journalists hanging their asses out like this lately. They need to knock it off. 

Oh agree with you there,  they and we all need to be very careful with what we say and how we say it.  especially as its very easy to take a few second clip of a longer statement to make it say something in a way you did not mean.  and there are plenty of people who will do just that to spread the intolerance message.  

 

I remember yesterday seeing a journalist saying when and where the US used them in Afghanistan and the difference between why its different to the use in Ukraine.  It may have been the same Journalist.   They also mentioned they where used in Vietnam in a very wrong and unacceptable way.  So I am willing to give people with only a few second clips some benefit of the doubt.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

8 minutes ago, karaddin said:

@Kalibuster decided to see if a quick look could turn it up and an article on power-technology.com states 

So they are above ground, but my brief look at google maps makes the geography nothing like what I was picturing and certainly doesn't look like there would be a nice clear target anywhere close to the plant itself.

you need something a bit better than wire cutters for that though.  or your 19 year old conscript is not gonna survive cutting the line.

[Toth]

I take back my previous demand of spelling out the obvious: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750071

It already is a war crime to attack nuclear power plants, even if they are military targets! Shooting that rocket at the dam near Kyiv also was, I see.

[JGP]

Yeah. I laughed.

 

x

 

 

*edited the embedded joke out because i went through his timeline and didn't like it

[3CityApache]

Zelensky apparently survived at least three confirmed assassination attempts on his life. Fuckers.

[rotting sea cow]

14 hours ago, Gorn said:

Something major has caused EU (especially Germany) to do a 180-turn from their initial lukewarm reaction. I'm guessing that the US shared some scary intelligence reports with them during the first days of war.

I saw a discussion elsewhere:

All the weirdness people have been pointing out regarding this invasion is a deliberate message. For better or worse, Russia chose to fight with the right hand tied to back, meaning they are reserving it for a bigger fight, if it's comes to it.

For example, during the Iraq war in 2003, it was reported that US was running out of cruise missiles and other supplies. If another war would have broken out at the same time, they would have had a hard time to properly react. This was because the wanted to minimize their casualties fighting the main objective. This might not be the case here.

Guys, I think it's past time I buy my ticket back to S. America.

 

 

[rotting sea cow]

 

[Loge]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

I saw a discussion elsewhere:

All the weirdness people have been pointing out regarding this invasion is a deliberate message. For better or worse, Russia chose to fight with the right hand tied to back, meaning they are reserving it for a bigger fight, if it's comes to it.

For example, during the Iraq war in 2003, it was reported that US was running out of cruise missiles and other supplies. If another war would have broken out at the same time, they would have had a hard time to properly react. This was because the wanted to minimize their casualties fighting the main objective. This might not be the case here.

Guys, I think it's past time I buy my ticket back to S. America.

 

 

What they have deployed on the Ukrainian border was only 1/5th of the Russian army but it was already more than they could meaningfully commit with their abysmal logistics. What happened to that 60 km long column north of Kyiv? Are they still sitting there freezing their asses off?

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, Loge said:

What they have deployed on the Ukrainian border was only 1/5th of the Russian army but it was already more than they could meaningfully commit with their abysmal logistics. What happened to that 60 km long column north of Kyiv? Are they still sitting there freezing their asses off?

Pretty much stalled. Ukraine claiming they’ve been attacking it

[IheartIheartTesla]

9 hours ago, IFR said:

With spent fuel, there is considerably less decay heat, and so providing coolant is less of a pressing issue relative to a reactor core.

Yes, I know. The risk (however minor) was/is of the water in the spent fuel pools boiling off or whatever. After that the chance of reaching criticality is minor  too; but some people may gone through scenarios for that and increased radiation leaks into the atmosphere.

Anyway I also saw last night that the fire itself was in a training building, so everything is fine for now.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I hope the Russians are smart enough the keep their hands of the operators running those plants. Experienced operators are difficult to replace even in peacetime. Otherwise your only option is to push the emergency shutdown buttons and hope that shit works.

[IheartIheartTesla]

I know @A Horse Named Stranger had talked about Karjakin and his shameless support of the invasion (even though he was born in Ukraine). On the flip side, 30 Russian chess players have signed a letter opposing the war, including Nepo and Peter Svidler (who I greatly admire, he's weirdly a cricket fan too). Of course, Kasparov has been anti-Putin for quite a while and even spent some time in jail because of it. On a side note, the Chess Olympiad will move from Russia to a different country, most likely India.

About 350 Russian mathematicians and 370 scientists have written open letters as well, criticizing the invasion. Unfortunately, this may be a case where the 'elites' of a country are against something, but maybe not in sync with the vast majority of the public. We've seen this happen in numerous other cases in history.

[sologdin]

Chernobyl was an accident.  Bombing nuclear plants is not.  and can't be claimed as accidental in any way

even if were an accident, we impute the fault to the invader, per IMT nuremberg:

Quote

To  initiate  a  war  of  aggression,  therefore,  is  not  only  an  international  crime;  it  is  the supreme  international  crime  differing  only  from  other  war  crimes  in  that  it  contains within  itself  the  accumulated  evil  of  the  whole. 

 

Why is ukraine THE defining war, in which we have to risk it? Why not for palestine, or yemen, iraq, afghanistan.

i think this response, though absolutely correct in principle, is a tactical error to the extent it raises a disincentive, however minor, for those new to agitation against violations of UNC art. 2(4). we should welcome those for whom the ukraine invasion is a tripwire and seek to extend their zeal retroactively into other conflicts, which may implicate their own cultural and national prejudices. it is thus not a large step for the new antiwar principle to merge arrow and target, as it were. 

[IFR]

6 hours ago, Toth said:

I think we should start with adding to the Geneva conventions that civilian nuclear power plants should be considered a demilitarized zone where neither sides are allowed to shoot around like idiots. You'd think common fucking sense would be enough for soldiers to realize that blowing themselves and half of Europe up is a baaaad idea, but apparently it is not and you have spell out the fucking obvious.

A common misunderstanding about nuclear power plants is if something goes wrong they can produce a nuclear explosion. This is not the case.

It's especially not the case with the fuel this plant is using (low enriched uranium, so less than 20% enrichment). The kind of reaction that is produced from a nuclear weapon requires a very specific geometry, very high enrichment (the lowest enrichment of a bomb used, to my knowledge, was in WW2 at over 80% enrichment), and a good deal of compression of fissile material. The compression is the result of cleverly designed explosions.

None of this applies here.

Steam and hydrogen explosions are possible, and they can be significant (although containment buildings are designed to withstand them). Some of the radioactive inventory is in gas phase, so if the fuel is ruptured and there is no vessel or building to contain it, a leak is possible.

But a nuclear explosion is not possible.

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Yes, I know. The risk (however minor) was/is of the water in the spent fuel pools boiling off or whatever. After that the chance of reaching criticality is minor  too; but some people may gone through scenarios for that and increased radiation leaks into the atmosphere.

Sorry, I don't make assumptions about what others know, so my mistake if you are already familiar with the process!

The gallons of water per minute required for cooling active fuel vs spent fuel is significantly different. In the core of a large reactor, upon scramming you are dealing with potentially several hundred megawatts of thermal power. With spent fuel, you need enough water circulating in a pool to cool a few kilowatts of thermal power being generated by the spent nuclear fuel. It is still possible for the water to boil away if there's no circulation, but it is far less of a problem to deal with than active fuel.

And you are certainly correct that a criticality event is less likely with the water boiled away, as the moderator is now gone. 

Criticality events while the fuel is in the pool would also be relatively contained, too, since water does a fantastic job of attenuating radiation. And usually what happens when there's a criticality event is that the fuel heats up rapidly, the metal expands, and due to the Doppler broadening caused by the heat and reduced fissioning due to thermal expansion, a sharp negative reactivity occurs and the fuel goes subcritical. This can cycle a few times (critical to subcritical to critical to subcritical), but the fuel will ultimately end up in a subcritical state.

Through a series of unlikely scenarios a heavy fallout is possible, though, and those who model criticality safety are bound to acknowledge this. There are reactor technologies where this outcome is completely avoidable, but alas, the world has chosen to be all in with pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors, for the most part.

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Anyway I also saw last night that the fire itself was in a training building, so everything is fine for now.

Yes, thankfully.