5828

Are there any recent nuke plants in the US? I’d be happy to know so, feels like we’ve stalled on that for decades but I’m sure a few have come on line. My understanding is you rub the nasty stuff together and it gets really hot in the water and the water turns a turbine, so ultimately it’s a question of can you blow up the very small area where the stuff rubs together such that the nasty stuff escapes. Could be it’s in a building on the surface, could be it’s in a bunker three stories down, but there’s a big difference between making a nuke plant stop working versus making a nuke plant blow up or otherwise release radioactive material. Much like our sanctions against Russia regarding commercial flight, the rules around what should be done means that those planes will go offline very quickly because the world aviation community demands incredibly high standards. The reality is probably that they could run for months and still work, with the slightly increased danger of a crash.

5829

that-doesnt-sound-right-but-i-dont-know-enough-about-nuclear-energy-to-dispute-it

5830

Me either bud, me either.

5831

Couldn’t they just … not attack the nuclear power plant? What is wrong with these people.

I think getting shelled might well cause a similar loss of coolant accident to Fukushima. Cheronobyl was indeed its own special fuckup.

My understanding is that even after you shut it down it keeps generating heat while subcritical, as there are byproducts with short half-lives that keep fissioning.

If you don’t keep cooling it for a while things melt and then flow downwards. Hence the phrase “meltdown”.

Also explosive gases get produced.

The more modern the reactor the better the safeguards against all this.

I think it’s very unlikely that there’s any kind of scenario where massive quantities of radioactive material get spewed out a la Cheronbyl. But it’s very plausible that something goes very wrong and a reactor core gets into a very bad but still mostly contained state and quite a lot of radiation spreads over the local area.

5832

Caveat to the above, I don’t actually know, but my assumption is that any fail state in a nuclear plant will SCRAM (one of my favorite acronyms, Safety Control Rod Axe Man) the reaction mass into the control rods, which should control the reaction even without water buffering. I.E. the heat shouldn’t be able to run away even in a dry state, provided the fuel rods are contained in the control rods.

Edit: As always, check your priors: Putting the Axe to the ‘Scram’ Myth – U.S. NRC Blog

5833

Provides 25% of the country’s power so it’s significant.

5834

Fukushima had been SCRAMMed. It experienced increasing reactor vessel pressure, explosions, and meltdowns across multiple reactors.

God knows what the failure mode of a late-era soviet reactor is.

There are several posters on QT3 who are much more expert on this and I am sure they will be along to correct both of us anyway :)

5835

Putin’s reputation takes another hit

5836

This guy seems legit, 17,000 followers

image

5837

And dammit you quoted me before I fixed it from Reactor to Rod, but all is fair in forums and war! @wisefool 's links make me much more uncertain, I really thought that the whole fail state was stronger now.

5838

There will be more instability from the knock-on effects from this. A lot of folks in the poorest parts of the world will be the ones to go the hungriest.

5839

Good news everyone! Fires are under control, and it seems that Russia’s active assault / firing on a nuclear power plant has NOT resulted in a nuclear catastrophe.

THIS TIME.

5840

I have to wonder if the cause of the poor state of the russian military may be found in the superyachts and foreign property of oligarchs/ex-kgb/putin. Crazy wealth possibilities lead to corruption of a scale that trump was dreaming of (likely still is), and who cares if the military has 6 year old rations. Would love for that greed to bite them all in the ass here, and also to put a stop to the same thinking in the rest of the world.

5841

So I think I have a good idea for the US/EU to do more for Ukraine without increasing the chance of WW3 notably…

Announce that in 2 days, at the request of the democratically elected Zelensky Government, NATO troops will set up a perimeter in Lviv and to its west up till the polish border. No NATO planes will fly over the airspace of Lviv (so NATO doesn’t have to think about anti-air in Russia or Ukraine-controlled Russia from killing them) but air defence systems will be active on any hostile planes flying over Lviv.

Why does this not incite WW3? Unlike a no-fly zone, NATO will not be telling Russia that they have to de-escalate or withdraw without direct conflict with NATO. No Russian troops have gotten near Lviv (yet), so all NATO is doing is occupying their own slice of Ukraine. Without NATO planes in the air it also reduces the chance of a mistake or a rogue SAM-operator in Russia from being trigger-happy. All Russia has to do is accept they can’t conquer 100% of Ukraine without direct conflict with NATO.

The benefits this will have for Ukraine:

  • It will make it much easier for NATO to resupply and arm the Ukranian army.
  • It will help refugees and give them a safe corridor to flee at least in part of the country. It will also allow refugees who want to stay in their country but flee Russian forces to do so.
  • There will be a place for Zelensky (or his second) to set up a permanent HQ in Ukraine that isn’t going anywhere. This signals to Russia that no matter how well his army does in the next week or two, the best he can hope to accomplish is for Ukraine to become a permanentely disputed territory with two governments (the democratic one and his puppet one), and that Russia will have to occupy Ukraine forever to stop his puppet from collapsing.
5842

warning: use of “no-fly zone” detected in post

35% chance of policy violation

5843

So… the cost of every future nuclear power plant just went up by 25% for safeguards against active combat in the area? Good for Russian gas. Only half joking here…

5844

Thanks for the laugh

5845

Lindsay on the offensive?

5846

This is probably the best case scenario, everything can be blamed on Putin, Russia licks its wounds but would be forgiven eventually (except by Ukraine)

5847

Unfortunately, Putin was only surrounded by Lindsey Grahams.