The War in the Ukraine

FriedButter said:

Looks like it’s lights out. Power infrastructure being knocked out also means water supplies are basically shutting down.

And reportedly 2 Ukrainian nuclear reactors are disconnecting themselves from the grid

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my power grid theory is a bit rusty since last time I read it was over a decade ago at a conference. I am not a SME but do know a little.

basically the power grid of any region is always in perfect dynamic balance between supply (generation) and demand (load). Generation comes from, in almost all cases, rotating turbines (water, steam, gas). These turbines generate electromotive force (EMF) through a rotating magnetic field creating current as well known in the Maxwell's equations. These turbines are very heavy, spin very fast and thus have substantial angular momentum stored, so small fluctations in load don't do much, because it just slows or speeds the turbine a microscopic amount. This phenomena is called "grid inertia" and is extremely important because this serves as instantaneous energy storage to balance out all the grid fluctuations.

However, if load exceeds demand, the reverse EMF of the entire grid load starts dragging back the turbines. The turbines do not like to be dragged back due to angular momentum and because the driving force like steam or water is still pushing. This causes significant mechanical stress on the turbines. If not stopped, it will distort the turbines, which leads to rotor imbalance, and destroys them. To prevent this from happening, you need to do 2 things:

1. stop the overload condition by disconnecting load from the generator.
2. stop the generator from being held back by disconnecting the generator itself.



BTW wind has the turbine inertia which is basically built in short term electricity storage (as angular momentum), solar doesn't.

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Militarily speaking, this latest development means that Russia is serious about crippling Ukraine. With say 1/3 generation decrease, it is utterly infeasible to try to keep up supply. The only option is to disconnect generators or disconnect load.

Overbom said:

Why only Kharkiv?

This should be repeated in every single city, town, village all along Ukraine. No matter the munition required, conventionally glass (mostly Western) Ukraine and send it back to stone age.

Electricity, Water Infrastructure, Ports, Bridges, dams, transmission lines, airports, fuel station. Everything and anything, except civilians themselves should be targeted without mercy

The Russian Bear is a hallow shell of what it was in the past.

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what they should've done is selectively disconnect western Ukraine from the power plants in captured regions and redirect their supply to the Russian grid, shutting down individual reactors/boilers/turbines as needed to maintain grid balance. What they should NOT have done is keep the grid operational and still supplying electricity to Ukrainian occupied zones.

I actually think they shut down Zaphorizia power plant because they needed it to be disconnected while they worked on the Ukrainian grid, otherwise it would suffer an overgeneration condition (where the turbines spin out of control due to sudden loss of reverse EMF from the load) when they started hitting the Ukrainian grid. They'll start turning reactors back on when they're done turning Ukrainian substations into scrap.

That would not have been necessary, of course, if they just disconnected it from the Ukrainian grid on day 1 and shut down proportionally as many reactors as needed to maintain supply only to Donbass and Kherson.

If the current amout of missile strikes around ukranian infrastructure aretrue, seems they finally decided to go shock and awe.

Should have done sone months ago, though and maybe then, the Kiev offensive would have probably fared better pushing Zelensky.

That's one thing NATO does have over everybody else, their skills and habilities to inflict maximum punishment upon civilians.

sheogorath said:

If the current amout of missile strikes around ukranian infrastructure aretrue, seems they finally decided to go shock and awe.

Should have done sone months ago, though and maybe then, the Kiev offensive would have probably fared better pushing Zelensky.

That's one thing NATO does have over everybody else, their skills and habilities to inflict maximum punishment upon civilians.

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Unfortunately Russia doesn't have the capability to reconstruct infrastructure in a cost effective way so they tried to keep alot of it. I understand this, it is fine. But that doesn't mean they should still be giving away electricity lmao. Their biggest mistake was not initiating a partial shutdown of Zaphorizia generating plant earlier to selectively deny electricity to Ukrainian regions and only supplying Kherson and Donbass. They kept supplying electricity to Ukraine from their own power station, what the fuck?

Another impeding Kherson offensive?


Maybe this will coincide with a potential move towards Mariupol? Apparently, there is 150 Ukrainian units build up over in the South towards Mariupol.

Appix said:

Totally agree.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1569032093992194048

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1568957441819250691

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Last time I checked, logistical trains, radio and cellphone repeating towers, refineries and even basic gas pumps require electricity to work. Unless you plan to fuel your APC's syphoning gas with your mouth out of the storage?

Also, been whining about "limited missile stocks" since March.

The power is back up in Ukraine despite the Russian strikes. These links are the proof:



-edited by: LawLeadsToPeace

lolrus said:

Wasn't one of the major issue with Crimea was that Ukraine had control of the North Crimean Canal in Kherson that supplied most of Crimea's water? Ukraine shut off the water supply, and Russia had a lot of difficulties trying to somehow bring water to Crimea. Taking Kherson meant the canal is now under Russian control thus guaranteeing water stability for Crimea.

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No - it's Nova Khakhovka on the left bank of the river.

TongHua said:

Kharkiv has never been that important to Russia anyway. The main focus has always been Kherson. Kherson is vital to Crimea's water supply via the Dnipr. In fact, it can be said the rationale for starting the war in the first place is water.

That is why there was a feint assault on Kiev to draw Ukrainian army away from Kherson.

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'Feint' assault with 60km long traffic jam. Nopes, no one is buying it, even people who are neutral.

I think by hitting the civilian infrastructure, they're probably going to push the population out and then just flatten the entire cities.

Interesting part of the article is this:

“They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions,” Kadyrov said in an audio message posted to his Telegram channel on Sunday.

“If today or tomorrow no changes in strategy are made, I will be forced to speak with the leadership of the defence ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground to them. It’s a very interesting situation. It’s astounding, I would say,”

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Even he sees at this point without full mobilization they're just wasting blood and treasure here.