Ultradave
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Posts posted by Ultradave
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Just now, Rokko said:
Out of curiosity, I looked it up. There are still 8 operational, in Smolensk, Kursk and St Petersburg. According to wikipedia, there were modifications after Chernobyl to prevent further similarly catastrophic incidents.
Thanks., I didn't know this. I'll have to look and see what the modification are. #1 on my list would be to train operators better. Much better. But i guess they must have made physical changes too.
Dave -
I think I'll stop here. I could talk about this stuff all day
Bottom line is that it sounds like the reactor plant is safe for the foreseeable future, as long as no one damages that on-site cooling pond/lake. I'd get concerned if fighting happens around the plant. Previously, Russian commanders locally have shown a dangerous disregard for the hazards of munitions and reactor plants.
Dave
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20 minutes ago, Butschi said:
Thanks, cool to have a real expert on the topic. As a physicist I had reactor design as a small part of a university lecture, so orders of magnitude less expertise.
I does have to do with steam, though, as far as I remember. As you say, steam is transparent to neutrons. So when you use water as moderator, you get (steam) bubbles as the temperature increases, which are no longer moderating the neutrons. Unmoderated neutrons can't cause a chain reaction, so the reaction rate decreases. That's why you get that negative coefficient. RBMK reactors use graphite as moderator, right? Obviously there's no steam, and so the word steam bubble coefficient would be misleading here, I guess.
This is kind of going down the rabbit hole, but for best heat transfer you DO want tiny steam bubbles (nucleate boiling). They form on the surface of the fuel, detach, and collapse in the bulk water coolant - VERY efficient heat transfer as the tiny bubbles give up their latent heat of vaporization. But there is a term called DNB (departure from nucleate boiling). This is where large steam voids form on the fuel because it is too hot, and they essentially blanket the fuel surface with steam. Less heat transfer, fuel overheats.
Yes, RBMK (were, I believe none are operating anymore?) are graphite moderated, water cooled. A PWR or BWR is water moderated, water cooled. So steam or no, the graphite moderator is there, creating plenty of thermal neutrons for continued fission. If you get a core full of steam in a PWR, you lose the moderating effect. Also, even just hot water being less dense, (without steam), will slow the nuclear reaction rate. Denser water = more slowing down of neutrons. (Neutrons must be slowed to "thermal" energies, meaning not energetic, penetrating, to cause fission).
What happened at Chernobyl was a steam expansion (very rapid, explosion, if you will), followed by dissociation of water into H2 and O2 due to the intense heat, followed immediately by a large H2 detonation. All of that happened in a fraction of a second as reactor power spiked to about 1000% and back down. It came back down essentially because the core had blown itself apart so much a chain reaction could no longer be sustained. Then the graphite fire that lofted millions of Curies of activity (fission products) up into the atmosphere.
Operators not understanding what was happening, compounded the problem and pretty much directly CAUSED the steam explosion through their actions. Several of the actions they took would not even be physically possible on a "western" PWR reactor. The reactor would have automatically shutdown in response.
Dave -
I think you quoted the wrong person
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5 minutes ago, _Morpheus_ said:
Amazing analytical skillset..... i could bet you have the same opinion related to the Holodomor.
What happen this is disaster for the Ukraine, Ukrainian people, Ukrainian nature!
Only russians don't give a ..... about anything as they proof it already many times.Russia also seems to be determined to test the robustness of the nuclear power plant, in several different ways. Odd, since any release would head toward them. But then, it's the Russians. Those on the ground there either don't think that deeply about consequences or don't care.
Do not recommend.
Dave
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29 minutes ago, Butschi said:
True. Although lack of cooling can lead to a nuclear meltdown. It's been 20 years since I last studied Soviet style reactors but I seem to remember that the (direct translation from German) steam bubble coefficient is an issue here. Depending on this coefficient, the reaction rate either increases or decreases with temperature where Soviet style reactors being to the former type. Oh well, I guess someone here knows/remembers better.
Sure I remember. That was the RBMK reactors like at Chernobyl. They had a "positive temperature coefficient" or "positive reactivity coefficient" (those mean the same thing) meaning that as temperatures in the coolant increase, the nuclear reaction rate increases, which increases temperature, which increases nuclear reaction rate..... you can see where that leads. HOWEVER, this is not the design of these reactors. These are more "typical" reactors that have a "negative temperature coefficient". Reaction rate decreases as water temperature increases. Should be obvious that that is beneficial and is how most reactors are designed. I believe RBMK reactors were the way they were for weapons materials production, for one thing. They also had no containment, which the Russians justified by their strict operating procedures preventing accidents. Ironically, Chernobyl's root cause was a) the violation of multiple operating procedures and parameters, b) running an unapproved test procedure, c) lack of understanding by the operators of the physics of the plant and the indications they were receiving (those are related).
It's nothing to do with steam by the way. (probably the translation or lack of accurate knowledge by the original writer). It's water. Steam is transparent to neutrons so really has no effect on reaction rate, other than if you've got steam in the core you've got NO cooling, which is of course, very bad. Steam flow is an incredibly poor heat transfer mechanism. Steam is the RESULT of efficient heat transfer.
In my qualification training (18 months) to be licensed for start up testing of US Navy reactor plants one things was drilled into us (well, many things, but) That was "Believe your indications and act on them". If you have an indication of something going wrong and you take all the steps to shutdown and "put the plant is a safe condition" (that's the key words), you can't go wrong. You may waste time if it turns out to be faulty indicators, but you won't break the plant or kill someone. Our motto in the shipyard nuclear test organization - "When in doubt, shut it down" An operating sub doesn't necessarily have that option, but many times they do, and that's the reason why we build and test them so well, so that it doesn't come up.
I have had to argue that point a few times with my upper management. "I was there. I had the watch. My decision." I mean, it's the entire reason they spend 18 months and who knows how many $$ to license us!
Dave
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8 hours ago, kluge said:
The plant has been more or less shut down for some time now, so I imagine the risk of a full scale disaster is off the table in the immediate future.
However, the plant will eventually need a water supply to keep its reactor and fuel cooled, as a shut down reactor still generates heat that requires active cooling. Previous reports suggested that the plant will be unable to source water if the reservoir drops another 1-2 meters, and judging from the early footage of the breach, that threshold will be crossed very soon.
So while there will be no immediate disaster, the clock has started ticking.
Something will need to be done to get water to the plant. And the obvious backup options- such as trucking in water, or building additional infrastructure to draw water from the river itself- are made much more complicated by the fact that the plant sits directly on the frontline* of an active war.
* Sidenote: The plant is located at a relatively narrow part of the reservoir, which just so happens to be more or less adjacent to the Nikopol bridgehead used during WW2.
The head of the IAEA said that the cooling water in the separate pond/lake, which is pumped from the reservoir, is sufficient for many months at least, since all the reactors are in cold shutdown. They have the ability to pump more water from the river until the river level gets TO ~12.7m. That's much more than dropping 2m.
The media can stop their breathless reporting of imminent nuclear disaster, another Fukushima, etc. Might have been a good idea for the various media to actually ask some experts first, specifically the IAEA which has been keeping a very close eye on the power plant status since the beginning of the conflict.
Not sure how many people know the intricate workings of a nuclear plant but that pond water does not go in and out of the reactor. In 2 sentences, it's used for the secondary side of heat exchangers that cool the water that is in a closed circuit circulating through the core. It's "clean" water, and not exposed to radioactive contamination.
Dave[edited] I listened to his statement and thought he said 2.7m. The written statement says 12.7m. In any case, that refers to directly pumping water for cooling, and the cooling pond is still there and good for months of cooling.
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15 hours ago, kevinkin said:
I think Carter also deserves credit. In their old age, members of the Reagan administration acknowledged this. Projects that were in pure research moved into serious development. If I recall, the M1, modernized Tomahawks, and HARMs fall into that category. Another reason was the science and engineering in the US developed consumer and aspirational (Apollo) products that better served the economy. I remember being told never to trust a paper coming out of the USSR. The results could not be replicated. They did have good scientists and engineers, but the US had many more and they were far less affected by the state. Feeding from this is the the net revenue from refining oil into value added petrochemical products. For example polymers and structural plastics. So while the US was a net importer of oil for years, the chemical business produced more revenue down stream than the USSR could even dream. The US made money off of oil anyway. The US economy was less sensitive to fluctuations in oil prices despite all the hand wringing. So it's not so much about the price of oil as it is being dependent on it. Maybe one in the same.
This is true. Almost everything that Reagan is credited with the so-called Reagan military buildup, was started in the Carter administration, a lot of it under the direction of Bill Perry who was then UnderSecDef for R&D. He realized the US needed quality over quantity, and Carter realized the military needed a drastic rebuilding after being wrung out by Vietnam. As a young officer then I appreciated the 2 huge pay raises that Carter gave us. In 6 months I got something like a 13% and then an 8% pay raise, plus I went over 2, and got promoted to 1LT. Man, I was rich suddenly after having lived on $600/mo for 2 years!
Reagan had the good sense to continue all those programs and buy them.
As a sidelight, if you want some good reading, William Perry's book "My Journey at the Nuclear Brink" details a good bit of this and also his later time as SecDef and even later, and current, efforts at nuclear disarmament/arms reduction. It's interesting reading and if you can find any videos of interviews with him, he's great in person. Soft spoken, brilliant, and by all accounts a really nice guy. He and former Sen. Sam Nunn on a panel discussion together is a treat (seen in person). Two men who do not need a single note card to hold forth at length and detail about anything to do with defense, nuclear weapons, deterrence, and arms control treaties and actions.
Quick search and there are several interviews here:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=william+perry+secretary+of+defense
Dave
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1 hour ago, sburke said:
Russia will intervene if a popular armed uprising begins in Belarus in order to overthrow the regime of self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, said Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary.
The cynic/sarcastic wit in me might ask, "With what, exactly?"
Dave -
2) would be great. I'd love it. The function that was tested just didn't cut it. Too many oddities happening that made it just as frustrating to correct things as having to deal with each vehicle individually. Too bad because there are a number of situations where it would really help, especially at the very beginning of scenarios where your force comes in a road march. Ian has it - don't see it happening. I know Charles spent lots of time on it, and there was a lot of time spent testing it.
4) While this would be a nice to have, I'm actually ok with things the way they are. I figure, I'm the Company Commander, and I tell a platoon (or Platoon Leader telling a squad), "go around those woods and cross the stream until you get to the small ridge and set up a base of fire." If said PL or SL screws that up and ends up waste deep in mud, or out in the open under fire, well, sucks to be them, but it's pretty realistic
At least that's how I feel. Maybe a hotkey for "accurate pathing" vs "show plotted paths" to have it either way? I don't know this for sure, but I'd guess the path choices don't happen when you plot the path, but happen on the fly as units encounter the next tile, which would make this more difficult to implement. I'm guessing here.
Dave
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You might be too far from your wireless router (I think from the post the router is downstairs, computer upstairs?). If so a wireless repeater you can get from your cable company (or whoever is your internet provider) should do the trick. Our router is in the sunroom because that's where the cable (Verizon FIOS) comes through the wall from outside and our TV is there. In my home office, upstairs at the back of the house, we put in a wireless extension router and it's great. Super reception because I'm basically sitting next t it and it also covers the back yard. I can't remember how much it cost but I'm thinking about $70? It's been a few years. Without the second router reception in my office was off and on.
One other thing that might help is if it's a dual band router ("regular" and 5G), connect to the regular and not the 5G. 5G is supposedly faster, however "regular" has a little better range. Both may be faster than your computer's wifi input anyway - I don't notice any difference at all.
A couple of ideas for you.
Dave
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There is definitely one Sherman with a setup that covers the main street for a good distance. I moved the one on my left to cover the Rue de Rosas(?) (the long street across the front of town by the farms). Looong field of fire right down to where the Germans have to cross the street to get to town. My stuck Sherman got stuck in a lucky spot and had good shots in a couple directions.
Dave -
Ah, too bad. I thought I saw come Cold War in the future!
Dave
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On 2/15/2022 at 2:51 PM, Vacillator said:
As I understand it, Steam drops items you already have, so in my basket up there, it has dropped the SF2 and BS base games from the first two bundles as I had them in the Super Bundle already. So no duplication.
So does this mean we can lock horns in some modern battles soon? Or did you just do this for an example?
Dave
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36 minutes ago, chrisl said:
it's mostly a contract between you and the government that you won't reveal it.
It's mostly a lengthy set of rules and procedures.
As far as revealing it, you know you can't. And in some respects, the government trusts that those who know classified info won't reveal it, because they've been vetted, and the consequences of being caught are severe. In the vast majority of cases this works. They trusted me - and yet, I could walk out of work and write down reams and reams of classified info and hand it to someone - stuff that's just even today rattling around in my head. I never would of course. Know what my security out brief was when I retired "You know what you can and can't talk about. So just DON'T"
I had a (now) humorous security infraction years ago. Issued a letter proposing we look into a noise abatement technique. Came out of college textbooks, but we applied it to a submarine (in theory). So we issued it as straight NOFORN, not classified. Naval Reactors gets the letter. I get a call "You know this letter you sent out is CONFIDENTIAL-NOFORN, right?" "Uhhhhhhhh, nooooo?" Explained the textbook part. Nope: a noise abatement technique with name or class of sub in the same letter classifies it. No gunpoint, no yelling - "You know what to do, right?" "Yes, sir, we'll take care of it"
"Good" he said and we never heard more about it. Paper letter issue - just had to retrieve or verify destroyed the 13 issued copies. Probably might have been more of an issue if it was supposed to be SECRET, but still, mistakes do happen.
Dave -
2 hours ago, womble said:
As has repeatedly been said, a network tech shouldn't have blanket access to all documents of their clearance level or lower.
Agreed. That's the rules. Just because you have the clearance level does NOT mean you get to have access to everything at that clearance level. You must have the need-to-know the information in order to perform your job responsibilities, and you the individual do not get to decide that. That need-to-know request is required to be very specific as to what is to be granted access to and has to be submitted by the user's management.
I had to do that a few times - one in particular I remember was that I was assigned to the inter-agency technical review team for a new nuclear propulsion plant radiation shielding design, which was not what I was working on at the time, and therefore was locked out of any information regarding it (being a cold body reviewer with the years of experience I had). My dept. manager had to certify I needed access and include the letter (e-mail) appointing me to the review team. Legitimate need for access, and I had more than enough security clearance, just until then, did not have the need-to-know.
This is how it's SUPPOSED to work. IMO something at that ANG organization is quite lax and I would guess that's being looked into. We aren't the only ones realizing this.
In the Naval Reactors world, we used to joke that their reaction to problems is always:
1. How many other things could this have affected/happened to? Please review everything and report.
2. How do we prevent this from ever happening again?
They are tight and it's a reason that the Navy Nuclear Program has had such success and a good reputation.
Dave
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32 minutes ago, sburke said:
Steve did you get a deal on a used Russian tank?
Probably an effort to make sure that frontal armor bug is truly quashed. Research on the actual thing
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"just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on"
I've seen this a couple times and it seems to be put forward as almost an excuse. What a crock.
It's been 2 years, but I'd say this is not just on him. There is something in the overall classified info handling of the organization that is not working, and lax. Where I was there were so many controls:
a. The entire floor I worked on was a classified repository. No phones, no cameras, no recording devices, no smartwatches, no iPods - nothing with ANY memory of any kind allowed past the combo lock door. There were small lockers outside in the elevator lobby. Everyone had their own assigned to lock up their stuff and there were a bunch for visitors - drop your stuff, take the key.
b. Inside that Closed Area (that's what it's called), classified computers are in a separate room you have to have access to.
1. It's physically impossible to write anything to CD/DVD or USB.
2. There is a printer, and you can print out things, and you have to log into the printer and it logs the files that are printed, which is routinely audited.
3. The computer system is routinely (like weekly) audited and if you had tried to access something that you don't have access to, questions will be asked. Most of the time it's innocent. You actually did need to look up something but don't have access to something that you really did need. So you have to put in a request. Your department manager has sign off on it certifying you have a need to know.
4. If you for some reason DO need something written to CD/DVD there is a group of about 5 people in the company who will do that and provide it, again, requested and management approval. No one else can even physically do it, let alone by rules.
All of the above is for up to Confidential-Restricted Data (Restricted Data is nuclear information, whether propulsion or weapons).
For Secret and Top Secret, there is a separate Closed Area INSIDE the Closed Area. There is a two man rule. Again, NOTHING with any memory allowed inside. Nothing can leave. If you take something out of a file, it either has to be returned and logged back in, or destroyed. You cannot take anything inside to make notes with. There is marked papers inside to make notes and it stays inside.
For disposal, there are burn bags for media, and bins for shredding. The shredding is by an outside contractor, but the locked bins (Like curbside trash bins) are brought to the back door and security watches as they are loaded into the truck sized shredder.
At the door/gate, you can bring in a lunchbox and on the way home it will be checked (randomly).
I'll stop here, but as you can see, there has to be a significant breakdown in the implementation of procedures for someone to create a security breach like this. I thought a little context on how it's SUPPOSED to be done might be useful. Everyone where I worked took security very seriously.
I'd wager there is more to come after a thorough review of the organization's security procedures. We may or may not hear much about that, unless it's discovered he had active accomplices.
One caveat - this is all where I worked or visited (national labs). The problems at the White House are different. It's obvious from what has happened these last several years that security procedures are "different" there. Rules for thee and not for me.
Dave -
1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:
For sure. The ones I know of personally, the ones who put Black Lives Matter support signs on their lawns and fly Rainbow flags despite being outnumbered 3:1 by conservative neighbors, also fly Ukrainian flags. In fact, I have met absolutely nobody on that side of the spectrum that thinks the US should be doing less to support Ukraine. Not a single one. Yet I'm pretty sure 100% of them were against the Iraq War and dragging out Afghanistan. And don't even get the over 60 group talking about Vietnam
Sounds just like me and my wife (age 66 and 68 respectively), although no signs. The thoughts are there though.
Dave
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1 hour ago, sonar said:
Hi.
Thanks for you reply, unfortunately no luck. After four or five attempts at launching it will appear in the activity monitor for about 10 secs then off.
Anyone have any suggestions ?
Is this ONLY with RT? Other CM titles work ok?
Not sure I'll have anything better knowing this answer, but it's good to know.
Dave
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15 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
OK, so if I'm understanding this correctly... Hersh claims that Biden and Scholz had a Top Secret, off the books, no records kept meeting to jointly plant disinformation in the media to cover up the fact that the US blew up Nordstream 2. And that Hersh had access to someone with access to the records that did not get kept from the Top Secret, off the books, no records kept meeting.
Er, did I get that right?
Steve
You forgot the massive eyeroll!
Dave
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CM titles don't play nice with OSX updates sometimes. A couple things to try if you haven't already:
1. Right click and select "Open" instead of just clicking on the icon. This may work because it bypasses the Apple signed check. It may still ask you are you sure or something similar - read the buttons carefully because the default is to stop/cancel.
2. Along with 1., you may have to do this 2 or 3 times before it takes.
3. When it does work, it can take a LOOOOOONGGGG time for it to start up, so make sure you wait it out. And if you've done anything else on your computer while waiting, it could be minimized and you can wake it up by clicking on dock icon and voila. My advice, click, go get a cup of coffee, (or a stiff drink if you are on the 5th try), and come back to see if it started.
For an unknown reason, RT seems more susceptible than the rest to this issue. I think when I upgraded to Ventura it took about 5 times to get it to start and it still took a while. But the good news is once you get past this hump, it will start very quickly like normal (1-2 seconds).
I hope this helps and you get it running.
Dave
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mostly. [sigh] Ok, whatever you say.
I'm done with this.
Dave -
Only if it's somewhere off the CM battlefield. Otherwise, if you detonated a nuclear weapon in the middle of a typical CM battlefield the immediate incapacitating and lethal effects would cover the map. Of course, so would the blast effects, both heat and pressure. Not to mention the fact that the CMCW battlefields in the game aren't big enough for those effects to be confined only to the enemy.
It's really pointless to even think about including it. During the CW period, the consensus was that use of tactical/battlefield nuclear weapons would almost immediately lead to a general exchange of strategic nuclear weapons, so the CMCW battle becomes moot, regardless of what happened in that little battlefield.
This subject has been pretty much covered to death in various threads.
Dave
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
No, not at all. We're good.
I didn't take it in any wrong way.
Dave