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Comment by bugtodiffer | Hacker News Reader

decentralization

That sounds really good, but is actually surprisingly ineffective, because you can't effectively protect the decentralized parts. You can put some Gepards or a missile battery around a nuclear plant. Good luck protecting 1000s of wind turbines or solar panel installations.

And this isn't just theory: the nuclear power plants are the pretty much the only thing still running in Ukraine.

Also, if you are thinking of renewables, those tend to have more centralized points of failure than you think, see:

The Gigantic Unregulated Power Plants in the Cloud

https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/the-gigantic-unregulated-p...

Discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41292018

Devil in the details, as always. If every home has its own PV system, that's almost as hard to damage as the population itself.

But also yes, making the PV into an IoT system… as the saying goes, the "S" in "IoT" stands for "security".

The amount of missiles needed to circumvent even a quatuor of anti-missile equipment placed nearby a nuclear plant which produces at the very least 2% of your gridpower (France) and maybe up to 33% (Ukraine) is way, way lower than the amount of missiles needed to blast unprotected wind turbines or sonar panels producing a similar fraction of your gridpower.

Then your ability to repair various wind/solar sites also is very probably way better because few want to work on a damaged nuclear plant (especially with all local population running away as far as possible), spare parts (nuclear-grade) are less commonly available in other industries, the site may once more become a target because it isn't one-among-hundreds...

The amount of missiles you need to penetrate the defenses and actually get through the extremely hardened/resilient shell of a nuclear power plant is invariably more usefully spent elsewhere.

A group of terrorists once attacked a French nuclear plant. Admittedly only with an anti-tank missile, so smaller warhead, but apparently they had a hard time finding the scorch marks. The containment of modern reactors is designed to withstand an airplane strike, which is at least an order of magnitude more powerful than the warheads of cruise missiles or tactical ballistic missiles.

Whereas you can probably take out solar panels with a hand-grenade, which you can lob directly or carry via drones. Don't even need to expend a suicide drone, just have it drop the grenade.

And once again: apart from actually not being well supported logically, your theory is also contradicted by the real world evidence on the ground.

> is invariably more usefully spent elsewhere

Doubt so. There are cases (for example when triggering a panic/exodus or condemning an area is useful) were attacking a nuclear plant is an adequate option.

> group of terrorists once attacked

It was a joke, it was done while the plant (Superphénix) was a work-in-progress, and didn't even scratch the concrete.

> The containment of modern reactors is designed to withstand an airplane strike, which is at least an order of magnitude more powerful than the warheads of cruise missiles or tactical ballistic missiles

Nope, the containment cannot withstand any airplane strike, and many missiles (even without any nuclear warhead) have a way better concrete-penetration capabilities than a plane.

> take out solar panels with a hand-grenade

Indeed, however wherever solar provides a large fraction of power you will need hundred of thousands of grenades/drones. The efficiency (effects/cost) will be abyssal, especially new panels will quickly be deployed.

> your theory is also contradicted by the real world evidence

This is your mere opinion. The facts are well-known. Here is a sample: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-89-iaea... Quote: "Director General Grossi reiterated his grave concern about the situation at the ZNPP and that any military action jeopardizing nuclear safety and security must stop." Many other similar documents were published by this UN Agency in charge of nuclear civilian applications.

> didn't even scratch the concrete.

Exactly my point. Thanks for confirming. In general, attacking nuclear infrastructure with missiles is not considered funny.

But hey: give it a try! See how "funny" whatever anti-terror forces you nave in your country find it.

> The facts are well-known. [goes on to list an opinion of someone expressing "grave concern"]

My kind of humor!

Once again: nuclear is the pretty much the only power generation left in Ukraine, apart from Diesel generators. That is actual evidence.

Oh, and Ukraine is building new nuclear power plants.

> attacking nuclear infrastructure with missiles

Do you really consider a little rocket (RPG) as equivalent to a missile, or it a joke?

> See how "funny" whatever anti-terror forces

Not sure anyone considers them sufficient since quite a while (9/11, anyone?)

> list an opinion of someone expressing "grave concern"

He is the boss of the UN Agency in charge of nuclear civilian applications and the communiqué clearly describes the causes of his concerns.

> nuclear is the pretty much the only power generation left in Ukraine

Because they don't have any other industrial electricity-equipment, and therefore no other option (bar a nearly-permanent nearly-complete-blackout), as they didn't start their energy transition yet (for various reasons).

> Ukraine is building new nuclear power plants

Those now are bare approved projects. My point is about the risk, not about choosing nuclear (balancing the pros and cons, risk included, and doing so objectively) nor building then exploiting it as planned.

Nuclear plants have generally not been attacked. NATO and China have both strongly implied if there is nuclear anything attacked used they will jump in and force end this war in Ukraine's favor. We don't know for sure but it seems likely that would happen.

Have everyone take a chunk of nuclear fuel to keep in their home? That’s technically decentralization.

I got a SMR on my roof: Small Modular Receiver, for fusion energy.

Can be done up to some level, but you still need a stable source of ~50Hz frequency to keep everything synced.

50Hz is so low that peaks can be synchronized via atomic/GPS-sourced clocks if it were ever necessary to decentralize.

You only need to synchronize when you are connecting two different generators. If you house is getting 51 hz, or 50hz but out of phase you won't care because everything works anyway (some clocks will run too fast but otherwise you won't even notice). Only when you want to connect two grids (because one can't make enough power and the other is making more than they need) do you need to synchronize. Even then they only need to synchronize to each other, not the rest of the world.

Yes - but the point is, rather than tracking and synchronizing against an existing power sinusoid, you can track and synchronize against a global clock source and never deviate.

Which isn't hard. Many people in the US own something that could be used and we are not even under attack. While most home depot generators deliver dirty power the better ones can provide stable 60hz (US uses 60hz not 50) - those could be used to provide the 60hz to the grid (it wouldn't be worth everything needed to actually do this, but in theory could). there are a lot of "solar generators" that also can provide stable frequency. Many houses are off grid completely and have their own stable source of frequency when they want it (those most often those run on DC, they have the ability to provide AC for things they can't get a DC version of)

But: where do you start with those after a blackout (which I assume is pretty possible in a scenario where the grid is under attack). How do you sync them all in that case?

Can maybe be done via GPS timing, but hard to get that coordination going after you've needed it.

It's called a "black start" and it's difficult at the best of times when everything is in a known state and generally good repair.

and diplomacy

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