How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[Keith&Co.]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I thought US was a net exporter of oil and gass.

Yeah, if they pipe oil a short ways and sell it, they can't charge too much as a shipping charge. This is why most of the potatoes sold in Idaho are grown in Oregon. So they can justify higher prices due to their overhead in shipping costs.

The oil pumped out of the ground in, say, Alaska is sold overseas for a big markup due to the difficulty in piping and shipping and piping some more. Then we turn around and pay big money for imported oil from smoewhere else.
Do you know NOTHING of basic physics?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Potemkin military

Oh. I first read that as Pokemon military... Which sounds like something Trump would promise. After four engagements, your APC evolves into a tank...

 

[pood]

Britain joining U.S. in banning Russia energy.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia.

It's always a crap shoot. Putin the Pig has stated that if his oil income goes away he will cut off gas to Europe. So the long term solution is for Europe to free itself from dependency on Russian gas. A smarter move would be for Europe to demand the removal of Putin or it will begin plans to do just that, remove its dependency on Russian gas.

 

[Elixir]

It's always a crap shoot. Putin the Pig has stated that if his oil income goes away he will cut off gas to Europe his nose to spite his face.

FIFY That's what's scary; pootey is entering the suicidal phase of his "career". Nothing is off limits including nukes, and as we have already seen, genocidal bombing of civilians. He doesn't even need to keep up the propaganda facade about his "Nazi hunting". Why bother, when nobody is buying it other than people he can already control, or silence if need be?

 

[bilby]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR. And fusion power plants may be impossible, and if possible are certainly both a long way from being achieved, and vastly expensive to develop. Fission power plants are here now, and have had almost seventy years to work out all the bugs.

We have had a technology that achieves your stated objectives for almost the entire duration of the Cold War; But only a few places have implemented it.

There's a reason why Germany is hesitant to stop buying Russian gas, while France is not.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR. And fusion power plants may be impossible, and if possible are certainly both a long way from being achieved, and vastly expensive to develop. Fission power plants are here now, and have had almost seventy years to work out all the bugs.

We have had a technology that achieves your stated objectives for almost the entire duration of the Cold War; But only a few places have implemented it.

Someone just had to bring up fusion.

There's a reason why Germany is hesitant to stop buying Russian gas, while France is not.

Because they import it from the Netherlands and Norway? France imports about a third of the gas Germany does.

 

[skepticalbip]

The question that keeps cumming up in the news is thwhy is Putin not fully using his air force? Russia jets have been shot down. Russia shoud have total uncontested air superiority.

Apparently Ukraine flying older MIGs are holding their own.

Is he worried about loosing top line jets?

I've wondered that myself. I've Googled it a bit and have only found more questions than answers - and speculation. I have very weak knowledge on the subject of advanced fighter jets and the infrastructure needed to maintain them but I wonder if, given the decrepit state of his ground forces, if he lacks the technology infrastructure and trained service expertise needed to maintain his best technology.

I suspect that the entire Russian military has been hollowed out by corruption and graft.

Every unit has kept just enough working equipment to pass inspection by senior officers who have been bribed not to notice anything wrong; The rest has been exchanged for vodka on the black market, and is currently in Tehran under a hastily applied Iranian Revolutionary Guard paint job.

And/or the senior officers like everyone else in their chain of command pencil-whips reports on combat readiness. As long as everything looks good on paper, all's well. No one wants to report up the chain of command that there's problems in their division, that they can't manage within budgetary constraints.

For sure.

If you're in a business, you can only get away with lying to the boss about your unit's capabilities for maybe a quarter, perhaps a full year, before it becomes obvious that you are seriously underperforming.

But in the military, you can hide problems behind positive and flattering reports for as long as nobody wants you to actually fight a war. Long periods of peace are an excellent opportunity for a culture to develop of writing glowing reports that bear little resemblance to reality.

And at least the U.S. military has honed the glowing praises to a fine art. Reading the citations for the medals I received left me wondering what the fuck actions they were describing. Plus any unit that didn't receive a rating of "outstanding" had to be completely dysfunctional.

 

[skepticalbip]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR. And fusion power plants may be impossible, and if possible are certainly both a long way from being achieved, and vastly expensive to develop. Fission power plants are here now, and have had almost seventy years to work out all the bugs.

We have had a technology that achieves your stated objectives for almost the entire duration of the Cold War; But only a few places have implemented it.

Someone just had to bring up fusion.

There's a reason why Germany is hesitant to stop buying Russian gas, while France is not.

Because they import it from the Netherlands and Norway? France imports about a third of the gas Germany does.

And then France has 56 nuclear power plants to supply their electrical grid while Germany is scheduled to close their last three nuclear power plants this year.

 

[pood]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR.

Advantages of fusion over fission

 

[Jayjay]

And then France has 56 nuclear power plants to supply their electrical grid while Germany is scheduled to close their last three nuclear power plants this year.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR. And fusion power plants may be impossible, and if possible are certainly both a long way from being achieved, and vastly expensive to develop. Fission power plants are here now, and have had almost seventy years to work out all the bugs.

We have had a technology that achieves your stated objectives for almost the entire duration of the Cold War; But only a few places have implemented it.

Someone just had to bring up fusion.

There's a reason why Germany is hesitant to stop buying Russian gas, while France is not.

Because they import it from the Netherlands and Norway? France imports about a third of the gas Germany does.

And then France has 56 nuclear power plants to supply their electrical grid while Germany is scheduled to close their last three nuclear power plants this year.

France imports less gas, but still has the 10th highest import of gas in the world. The nuclear is a big reason why they aren't top five though.

 

[skepticalbip]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR.

Advantages of fusion over fission

But fission has one gigantic advantage over fusion. We can currently achieve a net positive controllable energy output with fission.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR.

Advantages of fusion over fission

STOP!!! bilby will lose his mind.

But yes, there is only one problem with fusion. It doesn't remotely exist as a viable source of energy on our planet and won't for a long time (maybe ever).

 

[pood]

Well, obviously, and I noted this earlier. Fusion is usless if it requires more energy to achieve than it ouputs, as is currently true. But IF this can be overcome then fusion has distinct advantages over fission and every other energy source.

 

[bilby]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR. And fusion power plants may be impossible, and if possible are certainly both a long way from being achieved, and vastly expensive to develop. Fission power plants are here now, and have had almost seventy years to work out all the bugs.

We have had a technology that achieves your stated objectives for almost the entire duration of the Cold War; But only a few places have implemented it.

Someone just had to bring up fusion.

There's a reason why Germany is hesitant to stop buying Russian gas, while France is not.

Because they import it from the Netherlands and Norway? France imports about a third of the gas Germany does.

France isn't dependent on gas for electricity generation.

They use it mostly for industrial processes (glass making is a huge consumer of gas; They make a very sizable fraction of Europe's glass in France).

Shutting down one industry is painful but tolerable for a government.

Exposing the population to rolling blackouts is a much more serious problem, particularly in a democracy.

 

[bilby]

Biden expected to ban Russian energy imports today.

I've been against this because it's going to dramatically hurt our economy. But at this point, don't know what more the west can do to stop Russia. I'll say this, we should have a Manhattan like project to develop fusion power. Imagine if we had a technology that could lower emissions and bankrupt the Soviet war machine. A win win for sure...

Fusion power doesn't achieve anything you can't already achieve with fission, apart from good PR.

Advantages of fusion over fission

Nice PR spin there from ITER, but none of those 'advantages' fail to also apply to fission, except in a PR sense.

Fission doesn't have a waste problem, we have been safely storing all of the waste since the beginning. We don't know what radioactive materials might need disposal from a fusion plant, but it seems likely that neutron bombardment of the walks of whatever reaction vessel they build will cause it to become radioactive waste, in need of disposal at decommissioning.

Fission doesn't have a proliferation problem, because power reactors are shit for weapons production, and anyone who wants a bomb can get one more easily by other means. Proliferation risk is a PR claim from anti-nuclear lobbyists, with no basis in reality.

Fission is just as sustainable as fusion; Both can indefinitely extract fuel from seawater.

And meltdowns are so rare as not to be a problem worth worrying about. No doubt fusion reactors will (if ever built) have rare and expensive modes of failure that don't hurt people, too.

I stand by my assertion. Fission does everything fusion might be able to do. And we don't yet know what problems commercial fusion reactors might cause, because right now they are a figment of our imaginations.

 

[lpetrich]

Getting controlled nuclear fusion to work has been VERY difficult. That's because the fuel nuclei are VERY hard to push together by ordinary standards. One needs very high temperatures and/or very high densities, and attempts to make such temperatures and/or densities require a LOT of energy input, making it doubtful whether it will ever be possible to get enough energy from the reactions to make those reactions happen. That is the case for the two main approaches: magnetic confinement and inertial confinement.

Fortunately, there is an alternative.

Renewable-energy technologies.

Like wind energy and solar energy.

 

[bilby]

Well, obviously, and I noted this earlier. Fusion is usless if it requires more energy to achieve than it ouputs, as is currently true. But IF this can be overcome then fusion has distinct advantages over fission and every other energy source.

That's highly doubtful, as most of these 'advantages' are PR spin; And we don't yet know what disadvantages will be present to offset them - because we don't have a plant, or even a design for a plant. Real engineering always has problems that imaginary engineering can afford to ignore.

 

[bilby]

STOP!!! bilby will lose his mind calmly point out that there are major errors and omissions in your reasoning.

FTFY.