Ukraine's Chernobyl 2.0 Concern: Inside the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Crisis

[@LowVoltage_FPV]

The plant operators that have been coping with all the trouble and still keeping the plant safe deserve praise. Their dedication has been instrumental to prevent any radiation leakage. Once this is all over, they deserve recognition and praise.

[@MrLekorrigan]

also a butt load of cash and a nice vacation

[@anteeko]

Yes it must be incredibly challenging to work in those condition. they are heroes

[@JohnnyD-u7]

Fact

[@jado96]

😅

[@kingace6186]

They also deserve a raise!

[@drakejohnson5386]

"Never tell the same lie twice" an amazing piece of wisdom from Garak

[@BWEEOOP]

And it's a skill, unlike any other, which requires constant practice

[@aresjerry]

Sick DS9 reference

[@LaGrandeBayou]

Puppetskyy telling comedian lies.but no one laughing

[@john38825]

The only logical answer is to pick up the plant and move it to Poland. The soil is similar and it's in summer so it will have plenty on energy to help repair the roots that were cut.

[@ObIitus]

Summer is a bad time to transplant. Late fall or early spring are optimal.

[@Alexsejovojoskilovski]

Pov: Polands god given right to whip russia's ass back to vladivostok

[@DauthEldrvaria]

I thought you were Fucking about but I guess you can quite literally pick up an entire nuclear power plant and move it else where? Fuck lol

[@cliveengel5744]

How are you going to move the Containment Structure which is 800 mm post tensioned concrete with a steel liner?

[@stargazer-elite]

“We should take Bikini Bottom and push it somewhere else” - Patrick Star

[@comraderedcomando]

I love how a serious geopolitical information and analysis almost always ends with a “Where’s Waldo” hunt. Definitely brings the mood up

[@KR4FTW3RK]

The medias' ignorance of how nuclear works is SO tiring. Here in germany it's so bad that funding was cut to research on nuclear power and all the plants were shut down. We had built a LOT of plants in the 80s and 90s, some getting torn down without reaching full power ONCE. Now we're up shit creek without a paddle. We've been dependent on russian gas, now we gotta buy the nuclear power from our neighbors.

[@MayaPosch]

There's this 1970s book in Germany called 'The Cloud' in English which is essentially anti-nuclear propaganda, yet it is very popular and seems to have made generations of Germans believe that every nuclear plant is a nuclear bomb, just ready to go off, along with radiation leaking out of the spent fuel... and now Germany is burning lots of coal and lignite that will absolutely kill thousands of people each year and cause more COPD. Just swell.

[@gfrewqpoiu]

Also, in Germany at least, the media LOVES to run fear campaigns to influence public opinion into the negative even though when knowing all the details you would know that it is not a big deal. This is also why Germany is pretty much the only european country without google street view. There was a massive media campaign against it and about half of people asked for their houses to be not visible on Street view so that Google decided to not bother anymore. Even though Bing and Apple totally did the same thing by now on their mapping services.

[@dagda1180]

It's so stupid (Austrian speaking). Nuclear power may create waste that needs perpetual cooling or must be stored in a shielded manner, but it's generally better than coal.

[@DauthEldrvaria]

It’s honestly so Fucking annoying. “No nuclear Power Plants! It may blow up and kill us all. The entire world!”

[@JohnDoe-vy5hh]

That is a travesty.

[@ashkebora7262]

The funny thing about Chornobyl is... It ALSO wasn't a nuclear explosion. Yes, the energy source was nuclear, but the thing that shoved the core apart was steam, and possibly a hydrogen explosion. Nuclear power plants _literally cannot_ explode like a bomb _in any way_ on their own. They don't explode as if the nuclear material itself has suddenly gone far beyond super-critical like in a bomb. They just get HOT, and weird and powerful stuff can happen as a result.

[@MayaPosch]

Indeed, the reactivity surge from the graphite moderator on the tip of the control rods, plus the positive void coefficient was enough to instantly turn the remaining water in the cooling channels into superheated steam. Fun thing about ChNPP's #4 reactor is also that it was essentially in shutdown mode when the disaster happened, which is another fact that gets glossed over not only this video and countless others...

[@MostlyPennyCat]

Isn't that how every explosive works? It just gets very hot, very fast.

[@MayaPosch]

@@MostlyPennyCat No, explosives work by making molecules move away from each other very, very quickly. Not necessarily because of temperature, though steam explosions are a notable example of that.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

@@MayaPosch But temperature and pressure are two sides of the same coin. Yes, chemical explosives fall down the entropy ladder with each molecule (usually) turning into lots of nitrogen gas in a small space over a short time. But atomic weapons don't do that, they get very hot, very fast. Reactor Number 4 ran away, positive void coefficient, until the vessel gave way. Then the reaction fizzled due to explosive deconstruction. So only tons of explosives instead of kilotons. I remember there was a paper analysing the fission products which showed that at the time of the explosion, heat wasn't just coming from the, er, damn it I forget the proper terms. Not just fissions from "delayed" neutrons was it? "Fresh" neurons or something, not from decay products. Something like that, I think they put a sample through a spectrograph and looked at the citation product ratios. But this was so long ago I read this so I probably have that all wrong.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

@@MayaPosch But temperature and pressure are two sides of the same coin. Yes, chemical explosives fall down the entropy ladder with each molecule (usually) turning into lots of nitrogen gas in a small space over a short time. But atomic weapons don't do that, they get very hot, very fast. Reactor Number 4 ran away, positive void coefficient, until the vessel gave way. Then the reaction fizzled due to explosive deconstruction. So only tons of explosives instead of kilotons. I remember there was a paper analysing the fission products which showed that at the time of the explosion, heat wasn't just coming from the, er, damn it I forget the proper terms. Not just fissions from "delayed" neutrons was it? "Fresh" neurons or something, not from decay products. Something like that, I think they put a sample through a spectrograph and looked at the fission product ratios. But this was so long ago I read this so I probably have that all wrong.

[@edwardblair4096]

I was expecting a more thorough analysis of the "crying wolf" problem. Yes the lesson most people hear is "don't say the same lie twice". But the other one is "if you set up a warning system, you must be prepared to respond every time it is activated". You can analyze false alarms and make adjustments to the system, but if you don't respond, then eventually the warning will not be acted on when it is most needed. It doesn't matter whether or not the threat is self-aware and attempts to manipulate the situation to its advantage or the person giving the warning is acting in bad faith, the lesson still holds.

[@XIIchiron78]

"normalization of deviance"

[@Destroyer_V0]

Thank you.

[@josephcaouette]

As a former nuclear operator, we spent tons of time speculating about how to "best" cause accidents. It's a pretty good way to discuss the theory of operation and what NOT to do. This is a decent summary so far but I feel as though a short discussion on decay heat could have added something here.

[@XIIchiron78]

It's probably genuinely difficult to do a better job than Chernobyl tbh, they did everything right/wrong. Both the design and the careless and near suicidal test procedures...

[@josephcaouette]

@XIIchiron78 I totally agree. However, cold water casualties in a pressurized water reactor with a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity can be pretty nasty. This would normally be pretty difficult to pull off, but with sufficient tampering with safety interlocks, it could be pretty devastating.

[@clancyjames585]

@@josephcaouette What do you mean by "cold water casualties"?

[@josephcaouette]

@clancyjames585 If the reactor produces more power as the water temperature drops, the sudden addition of much colder water than expected can cause the reactor to become prompt critical, causing a sudden massive increase in power generation. This can be very bad, think pressure cooker.

[@davidschaftenaar6530]

​@@josephcaouette Isn't prompt criticality runaway fissioning that happens, because the Uranium is confined in a small enough volume for the neutrons from each fissioning atom to hit another and trigger 1> further fissioning event? Like what made the bomb they dropped on Hiroshima go boom? Uranium has become vastly more terrifying to me, since I learned that all you need to have it go off is to have enough of it concentrated in one place.

[@lacklustermathie]

Hot shutdown means that they keep the reactor pressurised and the water at a higher temperature (I think ~250C instead of less than 100C). The fuel in the reactor still generates the same amount of heat, because there are no new fission events, they just let it get hotter before cooling. In addition to being easier to start the reactor, hot shutdown lets them generate steam for district heating. That explains the winter. Maybe they still need steam for hot water, or there is some other industrial process nearby? I think most of this is just a Russian information operation. Spread fear and panic by putting suspicious parcels on the turbine hall (not even the reactor containment structure) to be seen by satellites, and show dominance over the IAEA by not letting them go everywhere they want to. The western press freaks out, but governments being advised by nuclear engineers know that nothing has really changed.

[@MayaPosch]

ZNPP provides heat for the Enerhodar's district heating system. Without it the city essentially has a problem with hot water and more.

[@13thbiosphere]

So you're saying the probability of a meltdown is 0%? If the coolant stops flowing what happens?

[@MayaPosch]

@@13thbiosphere The passive coolant flow in a VVER-1000 is sufficient to cool a reactor core for a certain amount of time, even if all coolant pumps stop working. If the core is in shutdown mode (operating in low or zero power mode), this passive cooling capacity can possibly sustain the cooling indefinitely.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

​​@@MayaPoschSo once in Cold Shutdown a VVER-1000 doesn't need the cooling water to be pumped? Just convection does the job? Assuming they condense the water vapour that forms inside the core and route it back out to the storage pond, what's the consumption rate of cooling water like, do we know? Now that there is no fresh water supply to refill the cooling pond, how long can that amount of water keep the spent fuel ponds and 6 Cold Shutdown Cores cool enough to prevent fuel rod heat damage?

[@cpt_nordbart]

I remember what happened in Fukushima. The reactors were shut down mostly. but still hot and cooling collapsed. That's why three of four reactors exploded. It was hydrogen gas not the uranium or plutonium ( dunno what they used)

[@MadMax11060]

Thanks!

[@lukebeich]

To be fair, the "crying wolf problem problem" might be less severe given that Russia has already sabotaged one infrastructure, so maybe a few shepherds will still show up.

[@DavidRGD]

But do it for a lot of times, that would create serious doubts of Ukrainian's warnings that Russia will attack.

[@johna.zoidberg3049]

​@@DavidRGDIts Russia we talk about. Nobody will gives second thoughts especially with the dam incident thing. They will still end up doing exactly as predicted.

[@lukebeich]

@@DavidRGD ok, but it won't be a "lot of times", will it? If they keep warning about a sabotage to the power plant and that doesn't happen, that would be "one" time that they cried wolf.

[@theMPrints]

Why would russia sabotage a damn dam that was in their hands?

[@amandablake8365]

It is not crying wolf, it is not knowing the timing. After the dam how can anyone have any doubt. It is this doubt that achieves Russia’s goal of the Wests inaction. Russia wants to destroy as much of Ukraine as possible, replace the Ukrainians with Russians and divide up the territory. Or if I can’t have it then you can not have it either. The IAEA was not allowed on the rooftops. The ZNPP needs to be secured by an international force. Period. The west needs to react asap instead of sitting on their hands. Let’s not wait until an environmental disaster occurs.

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

Containment buildings are thick enough that it should be basically impossible to breach them by accident, and even with military weapons it will require some careful planning. Light artillery for example, probably won't do much, and you will need a *lot* of explosives. At Three Mile Island, a large quantity of hydrogen exploded inside the containment building, and the operators assumed the pressure sensor had just glitched, because it was fully contained, due to the whole meter-thick reinforced concrete thing. It just doesn't seem possible for Russia to convince anyone internationally that damage was the result of anything but deliberate action.

[@Hayman1969]

Thank for the reporting, I am forever done with professional media as they made me less knowledgeable about this issue over the last week. We just want knowledge and understanding of events to make educated decisions on. Honest writers seem to make the best reporters and I am fine waiting a week to get accurate reporting. Love your books and reports, I hope you make a media empire that rivals all others with your honest style of reporting.

[@earthflash]

GREAT GRAPHICS! You make a complex subject --- easy to grasp. Thank you.

[@clayongunzelle9555]

I appreciate how you give information with very little opinion just straight information as your see it

[@andrewhart6200]

Your videos don't rush to come out(often when information is still very fluid) and you get the facts straight...Truth is not found much if, at all, these days. I sincerely appreciate your efforts my friend!

[@SnnapShorts]

i am so happy you get the pronunciation right

[@jochenkirn9468]

What a smooth segue to promoting your book. Well done!!

[@josephmassaro]

"Never tell the same lie twice" - Garak, a simple tailor

[@anthonyoch8285]

Spaniel must be in with the Obsidian Order. It's all a conspiracy to control the Alpha Quadrant.

[@techsilver7761]

Haha I'd wondered if someone else had picked up on that :D

[@thefalseking4815]

@@techsilver7761 I'd like to think so, but one can never say. We live in uncertain times.

[@joshua24601]

Fantastic scene! kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZ2ZZ5yihqh2hNU

[@williamcostigan91]

The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination - Garak, occasional gardener

[@sdrhawaii9129]

William, you hit the nail on the head, so to speak...I have worked in and on and all over Nuclear power Plants. . All on the east coast of the United States. I've worked as a pipe fitter welder on the stainless piping which takes almost forever to weld due to numerous inspections and x-rays as we move down the line... I also welded on the huge stainless steel wall surrounding the reactor... The best job I ever had....It took me more than a month to take all the weld tests necessary of which, I passed all. The first Nuke plant I worked on was approximately 25 miles north of new York city which is Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. The next is in New Jersey, the Salem Nuclear Power Plant... Last but not least, Three Mile island, Nuff said...Not my fault

[@awgates85]

The DS9 reference caught me off guard 😂 I've always liked Garak's take on that parable

[@RidingWithDave]

Man, your videos are always so well researched, informative and well presented. Always an insta-click for me.

[@lydiazafra3476]

Ty William , as usual it’s excellent analysis take care

[@AdvancedGT]

Chernobyl's problem with graphite wasn't really about that it's flammable. More precisely the problem was it doesn't boil away like water in pressurized water reactor. Meaning when the reaction went off the rails, the graphite stayed there, kept moderating and allowing a run away reaction. In a PWR the water would turn to steam and stop the reaction. Mess would still be there. Hydrogen explosions possible. But not a total positive feedback runaway reaction Otherwise great video as always

[@KarmaKitten01]

🙏 thank you for doing this!!!!! It has answered sooooo many of my questions. I pray daily that it is not damaged… it should never have even entered into Russian military hands… but hopefully intl policy makers are taking note and we will soon see clarity about the governance of nuclear facilities in times of war. Which I believe falls squarely in the lap of Political Analysts to figure out. While I know there would be countries that oppose atleast it would perhaps dissuade future such antics…?

[@endoflevelboss]

Spaniel outdoes himself. Switching N and U in Nuclear on-screen to form Unclear. Almost makes up for the absence of the word materiel in this episode.

[@Covert_Arrangements]

I know I’m just someone on the internet, but I really enjoy your content. 😊

[@stargazer-elite]

I love your channel you give unbiased and accurate information on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and your comment section as a sanctuary away from the Putin and Prigozhin Bots

[@WraithMagus]

16:06 Prigozhin on the far left, Surovikin a bit to his right at the edge of the curtains behind a chair, and Gerasimov on the right of Putin's head, just behind a chair and under the painting.

[@paulk.dicostanzo2279]

22:23 Thank you, Mr. Garak.

[@Aaron-tc5gq]

I'm reading your book and it's really good, didn't know you wrote it until I saw the lines on maps 😂

[@polizei16]

Yes! I asked about this! Thank you!❤

[@Gametheory101]

If you are the one who I exchanged comments with on the last video, then yeah, I 100% was not going to do this until that conversation.

[@polizei16]

@@Gametheory101 wasn't me but I had posted in your what video next post

[@lymphe]

I'm always looking forward to your next video; thanks for your content, I appreciate it a lot

[@joshuamunoz3310]

excellent video, clear and objective.

[@Justan669]

I do like how the ZNPP has inadvertently shown how incredibly strong and safe these buildings are and how stupid Germany is for shutting their reactors

[@FriedrichHerschel]

Germany isn't shuting down their nuclear power plants because it fears they may get damaged in a war, but because of the unsolved waste problem.

[@AdvancedGT]

True. Furthermore new reactors don't even require active cooling in an emergency and can survive flooding. Silly decision to phase out nuclear

[@AdvancedGT]

@@FriedrichHerschel and the waste isn't really a big deal. There is very little of it. You can just put it in dry cask. Longterm solution is just burry it somewhere. It's not green liquid goo

[@casual_speedrunner1482]

​@@arnoldwatcher"A totally unacceptable risk." -Someone who has no fucking clue what they're talking about. Nuclear energy is some of the absolute safest, cleanest, most efficient energy in the entire world. Coal, gas, hell, even water are all vastly less efficient and more harmful to the environment. Wind and solar are both far, far less efficient. I would say that 3 notable incidents over an 70 year period, one of which had to be hammered by the most powerful earthquake in Japan's history and a tsunami to happen, and another which was mismanaged by a failing superpower that cut corners at every avenue, is a pretty fucking good track record.

[@chrisjackson1215]

@@AdvancedGT You don't just "bury" it somewhere. Nuclear waste continues to heat up even when not in use, and if it isn't kept cool it *will* explode.

[@alex_zetsu]

12:58 I think a caveat here. If just the concrete structure has a sudden hole in it, then yes literally nothing happens. This structure is not an integral part of the plant's power generation and cooling. But how would you breach it? Probably with an explosive on the roof no one can inspect. And rather than just creating a hole in the structure, such an explosion might destroy a power cable. Given how many times there were issues with the diesel generators even before the liberation of Kherson, it's not too hard to imagine that the plant might lose power at the same time its backup is failing.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

How to beach it? HEAT explosives I guess?

[@alex_zetsu]

@@MostlyPennyCat A normal explosive wouldn't do much unless it was forced in one direction like a HEAT and it's hard for me to imagine that a HEAT round "only" breaches the concrete structure and doesn't hit any of the wires.

[@MostlyPennyCat]

@@alex_zetsu Or there's cutting charges, which are just shaped charges, no copper liner like you get in HEAT. But yeah, we have the explosive technology to chop through steel and concrete. However, with the reactor cores in cold shutdown, there's no pressure to suddenly release, no Chernobyl. Just a wrecked reactor with an expensive cleanup bill.

[@nvelsen1975]

@@alex_zetsu Uhm, that's all a perspective thing. If you put a stick of dynamite inside the containment vessel, all you get is interesting modern art patterns on the walls. Now carry a few thousand kilograms of explosives in there (presumably after murdering anyone present and claiming they were totally Ukrainian soldiers and they did it) blowing it up should go fine. It all depends on how crazy Russia is.

[@Flight_of_Icarus]

Still blows my mind that we only get power from a nuclear power plant by using the damn thing to boil water and run a steam engine.

[@jackthorton10]

Never thought of it like that, cool way of thinking about it in a way

[@General12th]

Hi William! I like these videos.

[@XIIchiron78]

The other thing about the VVER design as compared to the RBMK is that it has a negative void coefficient, meaning the reaction slows down if it starts overheating, instead of Chernobyl's design, where boiling water in the core accelerated the reaction well above 10x the maximum design power, flash vaporizing a lot of the core, leading to the massive explosion and allowing much more radioactive material to be dispersed.

[@scotthazelton519]

Thanks for sharing

[@BrandonOrtizCasas]

Ok... I am done... Im gonna by the book

[@noahclendenon5809]

The video I’ve been waiting for🤩

[@FrankTheUnknown]

Before watching: If i hear 1 bit of sensationalism i’m leaving. After watching: I learned something and 100% recommend people watch. Thank you for the video and good job🙏🏻

[@ivanmileta1886]

You watched a 25min video in 12min that it’s been out?

[@PabloB-KMP]

​@@ivanmileta18862x speed.

[@VisboerAnton]

Welcome to this channel, first time viewer

[@Shilling_Larping_Services_LLC]

@ivanmileta1886 plebs gonna pleb

[@FrankTheUnknown]

@@ivanmileta1886 you’ve wasted your life looking into things. Touch grass

[@christiankrueger8048]

Thank you!

[@jacob_90s]

I never gave it that name, but I remember thinking about the Cry Wolf Paradox when the lockdowns first started, how if the government was really on it's game and really locked down the country when they detected a new and possibly deadly illness, how almost no one would get infected by it, and people would have a hard time taking the government seriously next time.

[@lilithdvs13]

It’s the government. They’re never to be taken seriously by definition. It’s just not the government’s job to protect its people. They’re there to fight wars. Why would you even listen to the government in a pandemic? Is the government run by doctors?

[@diogorodrigues747]

I mean, in many countries it was actually many people that joined the lockdowns first, and not only by imposition of governments. And, I mean, the reason was quite obvious: it was a new thing and people were scared. Lots of people died or had serious illnesses. I personally know many that suffered from it - thankfuly I didn't. Of course, as time went by and things evolved, people started to adapt and from the Middle of 2021 to the begining of this yesr things went back to normal.

[@theslavbeing335]

almost nobody? Hundreds of millions did, and plenty of people had their loved ones die because of it.

[@robomonkey1018]

​@theslavbeing335 I think you misunderstood OP. He said if governments responded promptly enough. They did not and the pandemic wasn't blunted to the point of ineffectual.

[@duncanlutz3698]

Yeah, I got really depressed when I thought that through. Government takes effective measures and prevents a disaster? People, at least a sizable majority, won't accept that a legitimate threat existed that required emergency powers and spending to combat. Government slacks off? They are pilloried for failing their people. Either way, the government is going to be hated. The cynic in me is thinking that leaders will need to do some really macabre calculations on just how much suffering they should allow before stepping in... if only to make sure the population understands this was a real threat that required government action. But not TOO much death or the people turn against the government for negligence. Human nature is just so fucked. We always have to complain about something: it's why we can't have nice things!

[@PlanetJeroen]

You kinda missed how the type of reactor is completely different as well, making it literally impossible to explode.

[@JohnDoe-vy5hh]

It's a pressure water reactor which is similar to the boiling water reactors at Fukushima. Water surrounds the fuel rods on both designs. What makes you think the same thing that happen at Fukushima can't happen here?

[@nerdisaur]

Found the guy from Chernobyl

[@MayaPosch]

@@JohnDoe-vy5hh The 'thing' that happened at Fukushima Daiichi was the hydrogen that collected in the spent fuel pools (located there on top of the reactor) finding an ignition source and going big boom because TEPCO was too cheap to install hydrogen vents. As these spent fuel pools are located that far up, the loss of coolant pumps affected them the most, resulting in the fun steam + hot zirconium catalyst = hydrogen 'thing'. The cores themselves didn't go 'boom', they just had some sad melting events in a few cases that damaged the fuel rods. Everything that happened at Fukushima Daiichi was due to gross human negligence, courtesy of primarily TEPCO, creating a scenario that does not exist at ZNPP.

[@WOTArtyNoobs]

Exactly. Water is the moderator as well as the coolant. Take away the water and the reactor might be ruined, but the lack of a moderator would slow down the reactions and eventually shut down the reactor for good. All you'd be left with is a reactor requiring decommissioning ahead of time and pools of melted fuel rods that would have to sit in the ponds for decades before being processed. The damage to Ukraine is the loss of the generating capacity. However, Russia could be forced to compensate Ukraine with gas to make up for the lost energy.

[@killingtimeitself]

@@JohnDoe-vy5hh PWR is not similar to BWT, RBMK reactors were in fact a black sheep design but PWR and BWR are quite different. Fukushima was caused by hydrogen buildup in the containment building which couldn't be vented and thus exploded, in a PWR reactor you would need either your main or secondary to breach, and then the water inside it, (or i suppose anywhere else in the plant) to break down into hydrogen. Only a breach in the primary loop would cause radiation leakage due to its isolation, that plus the fact that its almost certainly built to help deal with hydrogen buildup, as opposed to fukushima, I would argue a fukushima event is unlikely. Here its possible the same thing happens with spent fuel but its a separate building entirely and would be unrelated to the reactor type.

[@neotradeneokanobi7913]

Great analysis and thanks for clearing the noise of false assumptions. Keep up the good job

[@napalmholocaust9093]

I have graphite molds and crucibles. Never managed to burn one even with acetylene. They get the slightest ash on the surface when they're glowing white in atmosphere and that's about it. A directed flame will erode it but it has never caught as far a I've seen. Alumina is a shield for it as outer liners in gas furnaces. That holds for a while till you use the hotter exotic gasses.

[@AdvancedGT]

Yup. It's difficult the burn it. The problem rather was it doesn't evaporate. So the moderator stays there accelerating the reaction. In a PWR the water is your moderator. So when it boils away->no more moderator - > chain reaction stops. In chernobyl the graphite stayed there and kept the reaction alive

[@houcky7777]

Confirmed: William Spaniel is Garak's burner KZbin account.

[@saintfelician4life]

Love the ds9 Ilum Garek reference. On a side note about the story I use it to explain bias as it is told by the other shepherds/villagers (what if the wolf was there since day 1?) and to explain concepts such as conditioning.

[@idleishde6124]

It took too much scrolling to see someone else get the DS9 reference.

[@aclearlight]

Thoughtful and interesting as always, thank you!

[@boonedockjourneyman7979]

Thank you.

[@beepboop9848]

FOUND THE BOYS YOU PUT IN THE VIDEO (spoilers) 16:06 prigozhin on the left, surovikin slightly right of him, and gerasimov on the top right ("top" relative to where the people are). it took me like 30 seconds to find them because autism :>

[@Spectacurl]

I’m a physicist and I do know a lot about how to make nuclear disasters… we study it to avoid them, so they know how to fuck the reactor

[@Jondiceful]

There is one facet of the debate we glossed over here. That is the issue of rogue actors. The Russian military and its partners has displayed poor discipline, lack of training and resources, poor coordination, bad morale, and more recently mutiny. As with the destruction of the dam, I contend that there is the possibility of a rogue element, even amomg loyalists, to take matters into their own hands to achieve whatever personal goals they feel compelled to pursue. Whether those goals are based on sound science, good tactics, or even common sense instead of ignorance, fear, or hatred is a matter that becomes increasingly uncertain the farther we stray from a disciplined well-coordinated and loyaly force. There are reasons for concern here. The more rational the decision-makers at the top are, the safer we would like to think we are, but when those rational actors are themselves unmasked as incompetent, unscrupulous, and perhaps even mutinous and the entire top brass undergoes a shakeup/purge, the conditions are ripe for ambitious field commanders to take the initiative and trust their gut over their orders. And that assumes internal rivals don't further complicate matters by staging an attack on or sabotage of the power plant in the hopes of pinning the actions on a rival. Honestly, the situation is probably worse than it seems. It's a lucky thing we can trust the physics of a nuclear reactor, because it is pure chaos trying to predict the actions or motivations that might precipitate an attack on or attempt at sabotage of the plant.

[@jackthorton10]

On this we agree

[@bdz_4206]

22:21 Ahhh a man of my own heart, or perhaps a fan of a certain Cardassian tailor.

[@sbeast64]

I have no idea about this war, but the new James Bond movie looks great!

[@dougm2174]

Nice little deep space nine shout out there. 🤟

[@armyfirefighter]

I have some training in dealing with the potential of these sorts of things (retired military firefighter trained in radiological types of disaster). First, thank you for being a voice of reason. In these click bait times for the news, I sometimes wonder if they’re actually cheering on an incident. Russian-designed reactor systems have never been known to be exactly safe. Compared to Western designs that least. That said, this reactor design is MUCH CLOSER to Western Light Water Reactor designs. Compared to something like the RBMK design at Chernobyl, the difference is night and day as far as safety design features sabotage would need to get around. It is not impossible to be sure, an environmental disaster could be engineered quite effectively as the Russians have the exact blueprints of each reactor and access. (Even with a “standardized” reactor design every single reactor ever built is a slightly unique piece of engineering.). And as you pointed out, a full bore release of material depending on wind direction could easily irradiate Crimea and Rostov. Not exactly desirable if you’re a Russian leader who has just faced down a rebellion. A much more likely sabotage scenario IMO would be to disable the cold side of the units generating systems. Without getting too far into the weeds, disabling the generators that are used to put electricity on the grid after the reactors make heat. As I understand this design, the radioactive steam components are separate from each the non-radioactive steam components (like in a western plant as this design). So, you could set small charges or other forms of sabotage to the grid generators themselves. Taking them out takes the units off line to any electric generation until the end of the war and large electric generators could be manufactured and installed. But, done properly, that would leave the hot sides of the plant intact. As the Russians do have the exact plans and built these reactors in 1980s, with the time they have had they certainly could do such a thing with minimal, but not zero, risk of hot side unit damage. It isn’t zero risk. No sabotage if a nuclear reactor is ever that. But it would allow the Russian to take blame but to also say they took out the generating capacity “safely.”

[@killingtimeitself]

afaik this is a PWR reactor which means there shouldnt be any radioactive steam in the system, just the water in the primary loop, the secondary loop is isolated so inert in comparison, if the primary is breached however you will have a fun time.

[@armyfirefighter]

@@killingtimeitself I just briefly looked at the outline in a news article. It didn’t specify if it was a PWR or a BWR. As I said no need to get too into the weeds. And yes - as long as any sabotage stays to the cold side components it is at least theoretically safer.

[@killingtimeitself]

@@armyfirefighter yeah, you did say that it was isolated, so you weren't wrong, just pointing out that if its a PWR there is no radioactive steam in the system, or atleast they're shouldnt be lol.

[@armyfirefighter]

@killingtimeitself True. The focus of my training was what happened when things are not exactly operating to spec, haha.

[@killingtimeitself]

@@armyfirefighter yep, no fault there but it doesnt hurt to learn new things every now and then.

[@masamune2984]

Yet another absolutely brilliant breakdown and video. I don’t know you how you keep up this quality, but thank you.

[@Scorv2112]

22:22 lmao! I wasn't the only one thinking about Garak's version!

[@justincronkright5025]

Not every nuclear reactour requires enrichment by the way. Although, now that it is quite cheap relative to the past it is usually a fairly desired reactour-type.

[@AndrewNakas]

Thanks for breaking down the nuclear power plant details. I knew because most reactors were cold the risk was not as huge as the media portrayed but huge thanks for quantifying the risks.

[@paperandmedals8316]

No drone photos of the rooftop? I saw the satellite, but drone is needed.

[@tomblaise]

A friend of my father had a job where he would deliberately attempt to overload or cause nuclear disasters across the US. The government paid him to do so in order to test their own safety systems around nuclear plants. There were both theoretical drills where they would walk through the steps to overload the reactor, and practical drills where they would actually go and attempt to take control of a nuclear power plant. At the end of it all, he would always say he has absolute confidence that nobody could pull off a terrorist attack on a U.S. nuclear power plant. The number of people and planning required would be barrier enough, but even if the dozens of people involved in the operation could pull it off, they could not maintain control of the plant long enough to cause a meltdown. If one had complete access to the plant for a long period of time though, without outside interference, a specialist could definitely cause a meltdown if they wanted to. Nuclear security must know how a meltdown can deliberately be caused so as to create safeguards to prevent it from happening. A nuclear meltdown, combined with a large amount of explosive, could cause a disaster for sure, but the benefits of doing so are very unclear.

[@MayaPosch]

The lessons from the 'operator error' at TMI have been well-studies and many fixes implemented to prevent them from ever happening. Such 'don't even trust the operator' policies became even more stringent after the ChNPP disaster, which was effectively due to operator error as well (who got to happily disable safeties at will and run the system far outside its design specifications).

[@ILaunchNukes]

Ukraine's power plants are Soviet built

[@alexanderscourtney]

Dr. Bashir : But the point is, if you lie all the time, nobody's going to believe you, even when you're telling the truth. Garak : Are you sure that's the point, Doctor? Dr. Bashir : Of course. What else could it be? Garak : That you should never tell the same lie twice.

[@MayaPosch]

Had to bail out at 18:53 because this 'worst case scenario' goes right in against what you just cited from the ANS, as well as from the IAEA and other experts. In order to get appreciable fallout beyond the immediate plant terrain, you'd need to somehow pulverise the fuel the way the natural uranium (not the ceramic uranium fuel at ZNPP) at ChNPP interacted with the burning graphite (4 days, at very high temperatures, because pure carbon fire). At ChNPP there was plenty of light radioactive material (dust) that could be swept up by the column of hot air from the graphite fire until it reached air currents high in the atmosphere. By the time you have a big enough explosion at ZNPP or any other non-RBMK plant, you'll also end up with a really, really big crater. Whether the VVER-1000/320 reactors at ZNPP are running at 100% or 0% doesn't matter. That just changes the amount of short-lived transuranics and actinides, such as iodine-191. But it doesn't change the fuel composition, or the effects of an accident if it does occur. You can look at the VVER operators manual that lists all of the emergency scenarios, and note that things like complete coolant loss and other disastrous scenarios are regularly being tested as part of NPP operator drills. Same is true for your claims of radioactive 'something' running into the Dnipro river, without even attempting to explain how that would work. What is the liquid material here? The corium from a meltdown solidifies as soon as the reactivity drops below a certain point, generally inside the core catcher that's the last-ditch safety feature of VVERs and other LWRs. Have to give this attempt a D-. It's not terrible, but it still gets many elementary aspects of nuclear physics and NPP operating very wrong.

[@PeterP552]

You are cool William, facts albeit adapted to your personal tendency, but most certainly educational.

[@-delilahlin-1598]

9:44 those are some tiny monitors

[@ahjussi]

excellent, thank you for the insights

[@johndoyle2347]

Excellent video. Very good perspectives.

[@AveXx]

@TheAtomicAgeCM I know you are working more on the side of Transport, not Power Plants but your opinion/a reaction would be cool

[@Crushnaut]

Didn't know you were a simple tailor Mr Spaniel.

[@Gametheory101]

Spaniel. Just plain, simple Spaniel.

[@ericbrennemann7474]

16:07... got them!

[@sovereignukraine]

@20:26. #wheresprigozhin. I'm really not sure about this one, but it does look like him in the doorway on the far side of the room.

[@marthaelenacorral3042]

I always enjoy Spaniel's no non-sense reports: just possibilities of outcomes.

[@tennentslagerman8910]

@16:09 Prigozhin, Gerasimov, and Surovikin all there

[@odw32]

Regarding the "crying wolf problem-problem": The analogy in this case would be a boy crying wolf, all the shepherds coming over, and arriving just in time to see a wolf disappear behind some trees. There is no clear evidence of the wolf's intent to eat sheep. But there is evidence of wolf activity near sheep, so the alarm was valid -- and that is how Ukraine and allied nations should keep treating these threats in my opinion.

[@lincolnlog5977]

I liked the DS9 reference lol. Garak is the best

[@dylandarnell3657]

#whereiseveryone 16:08: #whereisprigozhin on the left edge, #whereissurovikin near the curtain line, #whereisgerasimov on the other side between Greater West Falklands and Australia.

[@craigtegeler4677]

The real catastrophe that is at hand is the lack of proper cooling in the exterior cooling pools, since the rods that are partially expended and some that were also placed in the pools from the other portions of the plants that are barely expended YET all of these rods in the cooling pools are DOUBLE stacked and that is a REAL problem since these cooling pools are ONLY SUPPOSED to be X amount in each of the pools!!! And so the real and present DANGER lies with adequate amounts of water for the plants themselves AND all those rods laying in the pools!!! So, if the rods lack sufficient cooling at a high point, these rods will go into high heat and the melting down of the rods, thus releasing an unbelievable amounts of radiation because of meltdown and upon release into the atmosphere, it can and will be a major problem since a radiation release can encompass an area of 1,528 miles wide by current calculations!!! And so, this type of event can muster up 20 times the amount of damage compared to the Chernobyl, make no mistake about it and upon the release, NATO countries along with Ukraine, along with Russia AND the Baltic States will ALL be affected!!! All of the after mentioned is only PART of the problem because there are explosives placed inside the reactor buildings of at least two of the buildings and also explosives outside the plants as well!!! Furthermore the calculated amount of water cooling is in the near sum of 628,000 gallons of water PER minute because of the high evaporation rate in the rod cooling pools. How in the F do you truck that amount of water which is impossible to do??? Since it is currently Russian occupied territory, number one, Russia does NOT have tanker trucks that large, PERIOD! The headlines of the external power for the plants come out of Russia itself and NOT Ukraine, PERIOD!!! Furthermore, in all that is said, the reactor buildings 3 and 4 are set to blow if and when the Rooskies receive their orders!!! @William Spaniel, you're analogy as to the amount of con- sequential damages are by far WEAK at best!

[@jaywaii3187]

22:22 Star Trek DS9 reference? Garak was the best.

[@ismaelbetancourt9660]

shout out to the "what if scenario after invoking the wolf morale. because there is an alternate morale to that story too. The boy is dead, so it's someone else repeating that story. and because a wolf does eventually show up it means there was a wolf nearby. How do we know the boy was lying. How do we know the wolf didn't run away when the boy cried out and the town showed up. it was only when the town didn't show up that the wolf strikes. The wolf was waiting and probing for an opening as wolves do.

[@nimay13]

Didn't the nuclear commission made inspection saying there's no explosives found on the plant?

[@wwoods66]

I don't think they had unrestricted run of the plant. So, no, they didn't find anything in the places they were allowed to inspect, but....

[@deadlyarturok]

the whole situation is a mess!...;(, honestly any situation around power plant should be taken serious

[@Angry_Dinosaur]

Thank you sir. I don't comment like I did when your channel was small and got a response from you. This subject is difficult. It is a game of playing the end result.

[@GojiMet86]

11:17 Great job calling out Wikipedia. For many people looking for quick and digestible answers, Wikipedia is the first place they think off. However, Wikipedia is not the infallible, undisputed site it is imagined to be. Any person can make an account and put in (or conversely keep off) certain information.

[@NickanM]

Wikipedia is biased. I stopped donating after they got exposed being left leaning in their political articles / views.

[@lafa1432]

Seriously, where is the used fuel stored? What happens if these fuel pools are destroyed seeing they are external to the containment? What happens when this fuel goes dry and loses it's cooling water? How do you mitigate this disaster? After over exuberance apparently destroyed the dam on what was probably meant to be a much smaller destruction of the road crossing and hydro power, is there any likelihood that Russian sabotage damage will be surgical?

[@charlesransom4546]

“The morale of the story is you shouldn’t say the same lie twice” I see somebody is a Deep Space Nine fan

[@isotaan]

I see you too have attended Garak's School of Counterintelligence and Tailoring.

[@Gametheory101]

Attended? I graduated with honors! You should see me with a needle.

[@isotaan]

I didn't know you spoke Klingon.

[@trshxgod8040]

You are so quick man i applaud you

[@zeeninetynine]

This question has been bothering since I started watching this channel -- but does anyone knows if William Spaniel is a robot?

[@Gametheory101]

My programmers won't let me know whether I am...

[@zeeninetynine]

@@Gametheory101 Haha, well I absolutely love the dry robotic voice

[@ConstantineCh]

It's a very bad analogy with "wolves and a shepherd!" In international law, especially regarding human rights, it is necessary to take preventive actions. Otherwise, one has to deal with severe consequences later. In the situation with Ukraine: this pasture or the meadow has been full of wolves since February 24, 2022, but when the shepherd calls for help, other shepherds think for a very long time whether it is necessary to "send a stick" to the shepherd who is fighting the wolves ALONE and think for a long time whether this "stick" will not be "too much" to not "cross the line."

[@nihluxler1890]

In this case it’s more like two shepherds beating the shit out of each other for who gets to keep which sheep.

[@nihluxler1890]

Oh, and one shepherd has nukes. So there’s that.

[@Kristian_Jensen]

The problem for me with the story about the boy who cried wolf, has always been: what if the wolf was actually lurking around but the boy didn't know and it was scared away with the townsfolk rushed to the boy's aid and no one knew it actually also scared the wolf away. Though the boy cried wolf for a different reason, he might actually still have saved the herd that time and the other times. Now overlay that scenario onto the scenario where Zelensky cries "sabotage".

[@Michael2137.]

Great video, just couple things: Reactor containment units have core catchers under the cores which are designed to literally catch the melted fuel and contain it. So a slow meltdown caused by cutting water supply wouldn't contaminate the river unless as you said, russia deliberately places tons of explosives to blow the casks open. And last mention. Due to passive safety features it's extremally hard to overload a shutdown reactor. If you go overboard, the primary cooling loop boils off. Nuclear reaction stops because PWRs have a negative void coefficient which means that if there are voids (like coolant boiling) the reaction slows down to a halt.

[@Gametheory101]

The melt traps appear to be missing from ZNPP's designs. See page 26: network.bellona.org/content/uploads/sites/3/2023/06/The-Radiation-Risks-of-Seizing-the-Zaporizhzhia-Nuclear-Power-Plant.pdf

[@MayaPosch]

There's also the emergency coolant system that floods the core in case of coolant loss, and the SCRAM systems. VVER-1000/320 PWRs like at ZNPP are maybe a bit older (1980s design), but they got the walk-away safeties that we'd expect from modern-day reactors. Even disabling the active safeties leaves so many passive redundancies in place that you'd need to spend months simply disabling and disassembling those. If Russia wanted to make a big accident, they'd be much better off just digging a big burn pit, hurl lots of ground up spent fuel into it along with a few tons of graphite and lighting it on fire. Presto, Chernobyl 2.0, and doesn't require any explosives.

[@Michael2137.]

@@Gametheory101 Wait seriously? That sucks if it that's the case. I don't understand why it wasn't installed.

[@richardtabor8686]

Thank you for this. Super valuable for my understanding. Dunno how I wasn't before, but I'm subbed now!

[@eudaenomic]

Thank you so much forvthe insight. however, nova kahkovka is farther north, i believe you designated the Antonivka bridge - macht nichts really. Remember the song Russians by Sting? I don't think Putin loves his or Russian children.

[@YouuuuuuTosserrrr]

2:57 sounds like someone would make a good Cardassian 🤔

[@Gametheory101]

Me? I am just a simple tailor.

[@anthonyoch8285]

That DS9 Elim Garak quote wont get past me! Well quoted!

[@soulrobotics]

Prick-gozhin left. Near him on the right is Surovikin, and on the far right is Gerasimov, @ 16:06.#wheressurovikin The formula you mentioned, "P(A|B) = P(A∩B)/P(B)," represents the conditional probability formula. It is utilized to calculate the probability of event A occurring given that event B has already taken place. In my view, the event B encompasses the detonation of the Dam, also, the bombing of civilians with 9M22c bombs. Additionally, event B encompasses Putin's compulsive lying and his Russian doctrine of achieving goals by any means necessary, including lying and manipulating opposition forces. Exploiting and deceiving his own conscripts, using them as cannon fodder, is also part of event B. The list of such actions is extensive. Regardless of which side one supports, it appears that there are inherent limitations in mathematical models when it comes to describing the level of malevolence with which Putin is exerting control over a territory that does not rightfully belong to him. It seems there are numerous equations missing to adequately depict the extent of this evil, which emanates from his own intentions.