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leonidasrup

1,336 karmajoined il y a 4 mois
Ex-nuclear power plant engineer

Submissions

Ferrari et BMW rejoignent Tesla et la Chine pour passer du cuivre à l'aluminium moins cher

reuters.com
1 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 9 jours·0 comments

Volkswagen's Crisis in Five Charts

reuters.com
6 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 11 jours·1 comments

Trump threatens 100% tariff on European countries that impose digital tax

apnews.com
9 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 13 jours·1 comments

Is Germany looking again at coal-powered electricity?

bbc.com
3 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 14 jours·0 comments

Pakistan: The solar revolution nobody planned

janrosenow.substack.com
5 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 20 jours·0 comments

Britain Learned and Unlearned Nuclear

worksinprogress.co
9 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 21 jours·0 comments

Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

bluewin.ch
814 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 23 jours·1,031 comments

Renewables shield Spanish consumers from elevated gas prices [pdf]

ember-energy.org
4 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 24 jours·1 comments

Steel and chemicals giants demand freeze to EU's flagship climate policy

politico.eu
4 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 25 jours·0 comments

Mining And refining: uranium and plutonium (2024)

hackaday.com
3 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 27 jours·0 comments

Mineral requirements for clean energy transitions

iea.org
4 points·by leonidasrup·il y a 29 jours·3 comments

Unmasking the Energy Transition Myth [video]

youtube.com
1 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·1 comments

What if Germany had invested in nuclear power? (2024)

doi.org
5 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·5 comments

China is killing Europe's chemicals industry. Brussels wants to intervene

politico.eu
5 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·3 comments

China builds an economic fortress as global tensions rise

nytimes.com
7 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·0 comments

Japan proposes rebuilding ageing nuclear plants to meet power demand

reuters.com
4 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·0 comments

Trump directs hundreds of millions of dollars to support coal

reuters.com
7 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·4 comments

Russia, Uzbekistan start construction of nuclear power plant

reuters.com
4 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·0 comments

Ultra-highly efficient enrichment of uranium from seawater via studtite nanodots (2024)

nature.com
4 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·0 comments

China's joint venture policy and the international transfer of technology (2019)

voxchina.org
2 points·by leonidasrup·le mois dernier·0 comments

comments

leonidasrup
·hier·discuss
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was just the beginning. At the time of bombing of Nagasaki already a third nuclear weapon was been assembled.

There were plans to increase the A-bomb production rate. After November 1945 U.S. would produce a atomic bomb every 10 days. The production rate for year 1946 was planned to be 6 bombs every month.

https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/1...

So after 1946 there would be not much of Japan left to invade.

The bombing of Iran is nowhere the scale of bombing of Japan, see for example the fire bombing of Tokyo.
leonidasrup
·avant-hier·discuss
Most of the solar panels are pretty non-dangerous waste (cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar panels are dangerous waste, but are currently only small part of installed solar panels).

Silicon tetrachloride used for silicon production is toxic and has to handled carefully.

The main point is that, if Europe wants to invest more in solar power, it should also do the manufacturing in Europe and waste disposal in Europe.
leonidasrup
·avant-hier·discuss
There were some crazy ideas for nuclear powered cars, but there are hard physical limits how small you can make a nuclear reactor.

1. Smaller the nuclear reactor is more neutron leakage you get. Each neutron which escapes a nuclear reactor is a neutron which can not be used to sustain the chain reactor. To compensate this you have to put more fissionable U-235 isotope into the reactor and as a result you need higher enriched nuclear fuel. A nuclear reactor in nuclear submarine can have the size of a dining table but it's running on nuclear fuel enriched to a weapon grade enrichment.

2. Even a small nuclear reactor with few kW thermal output needs a thick and heavy radiation shielding. This is not problem for power plant, or nuclear powered submarine, or nuclear powered ship. But the shielding requirement were problem for nuclear powered airplanes or trains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_aircraft

In case of the mobile ML-1 experimental nuclear reactor, built as part of the US Army Nuclear Power Program, extensive shielding was omitted in favor of a personnel exclusion zone of 500 feet (150 m) while in operation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML-1

Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1), the first artificial nuclear reactor, didn't have shielding. But, to keep the dose of ionizing radiation for the staff within reasonable limits, it operated only for very short time periods and the total output of CP-1 was only few Watts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1
leonidasrup
·avant-hier·discuss
The environmental damage caused by "clean" power sources is done mostly in countries which are far from Europe, so it's not much discussed in Europe.

Like:

Copper. "As the world shifts to wind energy and electric cars, demand for the conductive metal has increased. But mining copper brings its own environmental hazards"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-minin...

Impacts of lithium mining on water stressed regions in Chile

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/01/c...

Impacts of rare earth refining in China.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/business/china-rare-earth...

silicon tetrachloride from solar production

https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=831

Europe should not outsource it's ecological impact to developing countries.
leonidasrup
·avant-hier·discuss
The most important sentences of the article are:

"Discussions about expanding electricity supply to power the future often become debates about which source is most suitable: gas, nuclear, solar, or something else. But these are a distraction. Far more fundamental is ensuring power can be efficiently delivered where needed."

This is the reason why data centers are not run only on cheap solar power.
leonidasrup
·il y a 4 jours·discuss
In the past NSA has weakened encryption standards, for example NSA madified DES standard. The NSA pushed backdoored design of Dual_EC_DRBG was standardized in NIST SP 800-90A.

"Weaknesses in the cryptographic security of the algorithm were known and publicly criticised well before the algorithm became part of a formal standard endorsed by the ANSI, ISO, and formerly by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). One of the weaknesses publicly identified was the potential of the algorithm to harbour a cryptographic backdoor advantageous to those who know about it—the United States government's National Security Agency (NSA)—and no one else. In 2013, The New York Times reported that documents in their possession but never released to the public "appear to confirm" that the backdoor was real, and had been deliberately inserted by the NSA as part of its Bullrun decryption program."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG

"NSA worked closely with IBM to strengthen the algorithm against all except brute-force attacks and to strengthen substitution tables, called S-boxes. Conversely, NSA tried to convince IBM to reduce the length of the key from 64 to 48 bits. Ultimately they compromised on a 56-bit key"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard

The NSA published algorithms are not used for the important US secrets. For these system the classified algorithms of NSA Suite A are used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_Suite_A_Cryptography

NSA Suite A was probably used for Space Shuttle comunication. NASA scrambled to recover classified communications gear after the Challenger shuttle disaster in 1986.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030206-comsec-s...
leonidasrup
·il y a 4 jours·discuss
In the 90s, you as a private person were not supposed to have access to encyption which could not be broken by NSA.

"The longest key size allowed for export without individual license proceedings was 40 bits, so Netscape developed two versions of its web browser. The "U.S. edition" had the full 128-bit strength. The "International Edition" had its effective key length reduced to 40 bits by revealing 88 bits of the key in the SSL protocol."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
leonidasrup
·il y a 6 jours·discuss
I can confirm that nuclear power plant software has much higher quality level than normal commercial software and extremly extensive testing. In addition, lot of nuclear safety is checked below the software level on hardware level.

Developement of nuclear power plant software is very conservative, it will use LLMs maybe in 10-15 years.
leonidasrup
·il y a 7 jours·discuss
[flagged]
leonidasrup
·il y a 7 jours·discuss
Elon Musk is quite cotroversial figure for Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk_salute_controversy

On one hand Elon Musk and JD Vance supported far-right German party AfD, a party with strong links to Russian. On the other hand Starlink helps Ukraine in the fight against Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfD_pro-Russia_movement

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2025/02/24/germany-...
leonidasrup
·il y a 8 jours·discuss
"PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies.

The documents identified several technology companies as participants in the PRISM program, including Microsoft in 2007, Yahoo! in 2008, Google in 2009, Facebook in 2009, Paltalk in 2009, YouTube in 2010, AOL in 2011, Skype in 2011 and Apple in 2012 "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
leonidasrup
·il y a 8 jours·discuss
US does spy on Five Eyes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_espionage_in_Aus...

"In December 2010, leaked US diplomatic cables indicated senior New Zealand Defence Ministry officials had been spying for the United States, secretly briefing the United States embassy on Cabinet discussions about the Iraq War."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_espionage_in_New_Zeala...
leonidasrup
·il y a 9 jours·discuss
China pushed EVs for multiple reasons:

1. Geopolitical risk of oil dependence. Domestic Chinese EVs are not dependent on imported oil. Oil imports would be at risk in case of a Taiwan conflict.

2. China already had established battery manufacturing. EVs are essentially batteries on wheels. For example the BYD Company (formerly named Shenzhen BYD Battery Company Limited) manufactured batteries long before manufacturing cars.
leonidasrup
·il y a 9 jours·discuss
I would not bet against China. All the R&D done in US and Europe could be done also in China, but R&D takes time.

Lot technological development in China in the last two decades was result of US and European companies outsourcing manufacturing to China and most importantly, sharing know-how with Chinese companies.

I recommend the book "How China Captured Apple" by Patrick McGee

https://www.thewirechina.com/2025/05/25/patrick-mcgee-on-how...

This outsourcing development path for jet engines in China is not possible because ITAR.
leonidasrup
·il y a 9 jours·discuss
Section "2. Competition Laws"

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-antitru...
leonidasrup
·il y a 9 jours·discuss
There is an old saying in the engineering world: “Regulations are written in blood.
leonidasrup
·il y a 9 jours·discuss
China's ballpoint pen quality as a reflection of manufacturing quality:

" China's inability to produce a complete, high-quality ballpoint pen came to widespread attention in 2015, when Prime Minister Li Keqiang singled out the products at a seminar in Beijing, noting that his writing was "rough" when he used Chinese-made ballpoint pens. For Li, China's failure to manufacture a complete ballpoint pen was indicative of the Chinese economy's weaknesses. "That's the real situation facing us," Li said at the time. "We cannot make ballpoint pens with a smooth writing function." "

https://www.smh.com.au/world/finally-china-manufactures-a-ba...
leonidasrup
·il y a 9 jours·discuss
Jet Engines Aren’t “Made In China” because companies are not allowed to outsource jet engines manufacturing to China. Gas turbine engines and associated equipment are seen as military technology, which is subject export controls by International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) of U.S. Department of State.

https://precisionam.com/articles/precision-machining/itar-re...

https://aircraft.zone/navigating-the-rules-a-guide-to-u-s-ex...
leonidasrup
·il y a 9 jours·discuss
> China seems to do a decent job of it. Why can't we?

Like the One-child policy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_child_policy

Or the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

Or the persecution of Uyghurs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin...

Or the 2021 Hong Kong electoral changes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Hong_Kong_electoral_chang...
leonidasrup
·il y a 9 jours·discuss
Miners underground get exposed to a lot dust particles and radioactive radon gas (even miners in non-uranium mines, like underground coal mining). There is a lot of uranium underground, which over time decays to radon gas.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9940829/

Coal dust and crystalline silica dust from underground mining causes long term damage to lungs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_lung_disease

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis

For uranium mining a lot more stricter radon monitoring and air ventilation has been implemented in recent decades.

Example of part uranium mining: https://www.bfs.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/BfS/EN/2023/0915...

Current uranium mining: https://www.orano.group/en/nuclear-expertise/orano-s-sites-a...

https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/resources/fact-sheets/radon-...