Ukraine invasion

[Dannyalcatraz]

Update on high-profile efforts to feed the refugees:

'Chopped' judge Marc Murphy on cooking for Ukrainian refugees in Poland: 'Giving people a little bit of dignity and a warm bowl of food'

After watching the conflict between Russia and Ukraine unfold from home, "Chopped" judge Marc Murphy decided to join José Andrés in Poland to cook for World Central Kitchen. Now, he's sharing his efforts on social media to raise money to feed Ukrainian refugees.

www.yahoo.com

 

[GreyLord]

I'm not a big fan of Nuclear. I'd rather go solar. Solar has ways to store the energy (practically all solar based systems store the energy for later usage at night) and can be easily (though not cheaply) installed anywhere there is a roof, or land if one wants to use the land (roofs are easier though, many walmarts have transferred to using solar if you look at their roofs in recent years).

You still have the battery problem with wastes with solar (but you also have that problem with electric vehicles that are becoming all the rage these days) which isn't really cleaner than gas and oil, just destroys the environment in a different way (not really global warming, but destroying the environment in a different manner).

If Ukraine has shown us anything, Nuclear Energy is too easily used as a weapon if one is at war. We've already had the threat (and the threat isn't over) of Russia blowing up a nuclear plant and sending radioactive clouds everywhere.

That becomes a much easier and viable option the more nuclear plants there are.

 

[Horwath]

What does Croatia use?

we have around 17% nuclear power in total, and NOW many people are hoping for more. A poll 10 years ago was 42% for new nuclear power plants, 44% against.

about 30% in hydro, rest is fossil fuel :/, minor from wind and solar

 

[Horwath]

I'm not a big fan of Nuclear. I'd rather go solar. Solar has ways to store the energy (practically all solar based systems store the energy for later usage at night) and can be easily (though not cheaply) installed anywhere there is a roof, or land if one wants to use the land (roofs are easier though, many walmarts have transferred to using solar if you look at their roofs in recent years).

You still have the battery problem with wastes with solar (but you also have that problem with electric vehicles that are becoming all the rage these days) which isn't really cleaner than gas and oil, just destroys the environment in a different way (not really global warming, but destroying the environment in a different manner).

If Ukraine has shown us anything, Nuclear Energy is too easily used as a weapon if one is at war. We've already had the threat (and the threat isn't over) of Russia blowing up a nuclear plant and sending radioactive clouds everywhere.

That becomes a much easier and viable option the more nuclear plants there are.

solar is great for houses and if your area is mostly non usable wasteland. If it's not farmlands or forest or parks, sure, make a solar plant.

If you have, like in most cities, lots of residential high rises, there is simply not enough building area to have power production for people that live on that area. But every bit helps so solar should go on every building if possible.

pump hydro is ideal for energy storage, but that also requires unique terrain features, and also there is environmental issues with flooding for artificial lakes, and also displacement of people from the area.

 

[Morrus]

solar is great for houses and if your area is mostly non usable wasteland. If it's not farmlands or forest or parks, sure, make a solar plant.

If you have, like in most cities, lots of residential high rises, there is simply not enough building area to have power production for people that live on that area. But every bit helps so solar should go on every building if possible.

pump hydro is ideal for energy storage, but that also requires unique terrain features, and also there is environmental issues with flooding for artificial lakes, and also displacement of people from the area.

Also, of course, constant bright sunlight isn't abundant everywhere. It's great if you live in California, not so much in Scotland!

 

[Horwath]

Also, of course, constant bright sunlight isn't abundant everywhere. It's great if you live in California, not so much in Scotland!

that is another downfall of solar unfortunately.

 

[Umbran]

that is true.

But we could say that Canada and Australia are far safer options than Russia, Venezuela or Saudis.

Yes. I already did say.

also, you can stock up uranium reserves for 30 years in reasonable amount of space. Imagine if you have to storage oil and/or gas for 30 years of consumption.

If you want the radiation hazard and security risk of having a large stockpile of fissionable material, sure, you could, if someone produced fast enough for you to do so.

But, we should also note: Known world Uranium reserves, as of a few years ago, was about 7.5 million tons. But, by that time, the world had already produced/used about 2.8 million tons. Now, a lot of that prior use was for weapons, but if everyone starts chewing the stuff for power, you'll run into supply problems fairly quickly. Uranium is not a renewable resource, and so probably shouldn't be a mainstay of power generation.

today average time for building nuclear power plant is around 83 months with record being 39 month for a reactor in Japan.

When did this Ukraine #$"% started? Ah, yes... in 2014. So with average of 7 years, we could have had first new reactors in EU last year.

That's just the construction time. Add in the planning and licensing, and the time is more like a decade.

Now, overall, this time can be reduced - at the moment every single reactor in the US is a one-off, individual design. If you standardize plant design (and thus you standardize parts manufacture, planning, and the like) you can get that time down. You also get the benefit that a plant worker trained in a plant in Arizna would be able to move to work in a plant in Michigan without a lot of retraining, which makes staffing a touch easier.

pump hydro is ideal for energy storage, but that also requires unique terrain features, and also there is environmental issues with flooding for artificial lakes, and also displacement of people from the area.

So, let us be abundantly clear - At scale, every single method to generate power has side effects we don't want. So, poiting out, "well this has drawback X" is not really an argument against it.

No method of generation is perfect - fossil fuels release CO2. Nuclear has radioactive and heat waste. Solar needs sun, has the rare earths you use in the panels, and having to deal with the panels when they are past lifetime. Wind needs wind, and has bird deaths and ocean ecology issues when built offshore. There is no energy source we can turn to that won't have problems.

The smart thing to do is to stop saying, "No," and start thinking "where, how, and how much."

At this point, I'd have to sway - if folks want to talk energy, let us have a separate thread. This should be about Ukraine.

 

[Horwath]

We're in talks of maybe trying to evacuate our Ukrainian colleague to the Netherlands. Stay tuned and fingers crossed.

good news from today, is that russians might give up on Odessa in total

 

[Umbran]

good news from today, is that russians might give up on Odessa in total

And possibly Kyiv as well. They may be rolling back to, "all we really wanted was in the Donbas region, and to make clear that we won't have you joining NATO."

 

[Ryujin]

good news from today, is that russians might give up on Odessa in total

There seems to be a fair bit of, "I meant to do that!" coming out of Russia, these days, now that they're being largely stymied from getting the completely overwhelming win that they expected in mere days.