Russia has reportedly made a sinister threat to the West by suggesting it could attack nuclear power plants in retaliation for any strike on its own sites

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    How many times have I seen some smug neocon post pictures of the Three Gorges Damn with a bomber flying over it?

    This appears to be how fascists communicate. Just an endless series of genocidal threats.

  • Insekticus@aussie.zone
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    4 days ago

    Reason #74 as to why it was never a good idea to install nuclear fission plants.

    Can’t set off a nuclear explosion by bombing a solar farm, wind turbine, or geothermal plant.

    • Zron@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Well it’s a good thing that you can’t set off a nuclear explosion by bombing a nuclear power plant either.

      A nuclear explosion requires either nanosecond timing that detonates a sphere of explosives that compress a highly enriched nuclear core until it goes critical, or you need two parts of a critical core that come together when you want the big boom. It is impossible for a nuclear reactor to cause a nuclear detonation. There simply isn’t enough highly enriched material in a reactor.

      You could cause a nuclear meltdown, but you’d need to damage the fuel rods, which are typically buried rather deep for obvious reasons.

      Nuclear power is the most energy dense and efficient electrical energy source that we have as a species.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Nuclear power is the most energy dense and efficient

        It’s certainly dense, in terms of output relative to geographic footprint. I’m not sure how you’re measuring efficiency.

        In terms of capital costs and build times, I would not describe the Vogtle 3 & 4 as efficient. The promise of SMRs is, similarly, far more focused on density than cost or reliability.

        If your goal is a large scale rapid to expansion of production and you aren’t worried about physical space, you can stand up wind turbines in months and solar farms in a couple years. Then you’ll generate ROI that pays off the hardware investment in 2-5 years, pretty consistently.

        By contrast, nuclear plants take decades to come online and generations to pay themselves back. They’re very slow and expensive per MWh.

        But if you’re space constrained because your are - say - a massive naval floating fortress or orbital space station or arctic research base? There’s a value in a physically compact system

      • Insekticus@aussie.zone
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        4 days ago

        Okay, I’ll admit I was being a facetious when I said nuclear explosion.

        That being said, it’s still a non-renewable energy source that produces incredibly toxic waste that lasts tens of thousands of years that nobody wants to keep or store nor has any way of effectively making safe except storing it in bunkers underground for tens of thousands of years, which is stupid, impractical, short-sighted at best and incredibly dangerous at worst.

        Also, Absolutely nobody wants to live near a nuclear power plant. Why bother having them take up room if you can’t live or farm near them.

        Why leave the means of production in the hands of capitalist scum that will ask for billions to keep the plants maintained on top of the energy tarrifs we pay, only keep the money, and still let the facilities crumble, when I can just install solar panels in my own house and not pay for any electricity? Sounds kinda dumb to go for nuclear at that point.

        I can’t confirm if it’s the most energy dense, but even if that’s true, it can still trigger meltdowns that leave kilometer-wide radii of uninhabitable radioactivity dead-zones like around Chernobyl.

        As far as I’m concerned, anybody still promoting this technology is so deeply entrenched in their own self- aggrandizement because nuclear energy sounds cool that they can’t grow up and realise other technologies outcompeted nuclear on a number of metrics, decades ago.

        Also, I know that this will continue to get downvoted because there are so so so many people who have made nuclear energy part of their personality and absolutely cannot critically self-reflect on the topic.

        Nuclear fusion or no nuclear at all.

        • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Okay, I’ll admit I was being a facetious when I said nuclear explosion.

          You don’t have to act like you didn’t mean what you said. It’s okay to admit you were wrong.

          • Insekticus@aussie.zone
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            3 days ago

            It’s so telling that this is the only part you responded to.

            Can’t fault any of my other claims for the failure of nuclear, so you have to resort ad hominems - you nukecels are laughable.

            • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              Do you know what an ad hominem actually is? Telling someone that it’s okay to admit you are wrong is not an attack on you as a person.

              • Insekticus@aussie.zone
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                3 days ago

                It is when you’re on your high horse telling me that I’m allowed to admit that I’m wrong when I wasn’t wrong and being facetious.

                You’ve made assumptions about my intentions and intelligence and tried to negate discussion without addressing any of my claims.

                It is an attack on my intelligence rather than my argument, so it’s an ad hominem.

      • Rusticus@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        efficient electrical energy source

        Not even close after you factor in the cost of decommissioning and storage of forever radiation. And before you reply with “next gen” don’t forget that you replied to the comment about “nuclear fission plants”.

        • Zron@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Wouldn’t be nearly so expensive if anti-nuclear idiots like yourself wouldn’t keep voting to block long term nuclear waste storage facilities from being built in the first place.

          There’s a half built one in Arizona that can’t be used because idiots are afraid of a tectonically stable underground silo somehow releasing dry nuclear waste.

          Do actual research. Fear mongering about nuclear reactors is exactly why they’re so expensive.

      • gankouskhan@piefed.zip
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        4 days ago

        it amazes me how many people drink the Kool aid of conservative propaganda, and misleading research done by parties with conflict of interest.

        • Zron@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          There’s no kool aid or propaganda here.

          It is legitimately impossible to cause a nuclear explosion by bombing reactors. This is objective fact: go ask a nuclear physicist.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      That’s Total War for you. Everyone should be terrified of the end game of this war. It’s the folks that aren’t who are dumb as shit.

      • homes@piefed.world
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        3 days ago

        Uhhh… I don’t know where you’ve been for the last five years, but Putin is fucked. Ukraine is winning this war. And whoever you think is “dumb ass shit”… well… You’re about to find out…

        Let me know when you’re done cooking your dinner with the fuel of your dead brothers. Oh you’re dead North Korean brothers,

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      I think he’s trying to imply he’d retaliate against the EU if Ukraine strikes any of its nuclear power facilities, which is deeply stupid because

      • Ukraine isn’t targeting and hasn’t targeted those
      • that’d be a great way to start WW3 and get all of Russia glassed
        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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          3 days ago

          If you limit the definition to only include Moscovia, it shouldn’t be too difficult to pull off.

          Most of the rest of the so-called “Russian Federation” are just oppressed ethnoregions strewn with military installations and gulags, I’m sure they’ll be happy when the kremlin finally gets vaporized…