Massive Electrical Failures in Ukraine

[1srelluc]

Ukraine's power grid sustains record damage in Russian strikes, utility says

KYIV, Ukraine — Over 1.4 million Ukrainian households have lost electricity after a morning of repeated Russian air raids, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office says.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that 40 cruise missiles and 16 allegedly Iranian-made drones hit Ukraine throughout the day.

Ukraine's power utility, Ukrenergo, says the extent of the damage has set a new record, eclipsing the attacks the country sustained earlier in October. The earlier airstrikes marked the biggest escalation in the war since Russia invaded.

The Ukrainian government has repeated calls for citizens to ration their electricity consumption, announcing a schedule of rolling blackouts if the grid reaches capacity. Ukrenergo warns that power outages may last from 8-10 hours per day where power lines are still intact. Areas that sustained more damage may go without electricity for much longer.

The mayor of the western city of Lutsk, Ihor Polishchuk, says the damage inflicted by three Russian rockets "is not compatible with repair." He asked for patience as engineers rebuild electrical infrastructure and restore water pressure.

Police also said most air raid sirens don't have the electricity to warn of other potential airstrikes. They encouraged citizens to keep the mobile phones charged to receive emergency alerts, and said they would turn on their vehicle sirens in case of an incoming attack.
The Ukrainian government has also advised citizens that in addition to missiles and drones, the Russians are deploying Russian Dugong Squads with specific orders to target power generation facilities in the Odessa area.

Looks like the Ukes are going to have a hard time withdrawing cash from the US taxpayer if the Electronic Funds Transfer system is down.

Jokes aside it seems that Putin thought the Ukes would roll over and they wanted their systems intact.....Now that the west and the US has prolonged the war I guess they are saying fuck all that and are going to start taking them out before Winter.

Psychologically, losing electricity going into spring is a little bit different than losing electricity going into winter in that part of the world.

All involved needed to be at the peace table yesterday.

 

[Batcat]

Nuclear power plants need electricity to pump cooling water.

Ukraine has a number of nuclear power plants.

Analysis: Nuclear Disaster in Ukraine Could Make Swaths of Europe 'Uninhabitable for Decades'

"So long as this war continues, the military threat to Ukraine's nuclear plants will remain."

www.commondreams.org

***snip***


Greenpeace's report raises the ominous possibility that catastrophe may not be averted if the Zaporizhzhia facility is damaged in the course of Russia's assault on Ukraine, either from an accident or an intentional bombing:

The amount of spent fuel in each of the pools at the six Zaporizhzhia reactors ranges from 132 to 157 tons as of 2017, and in total 855 tons of spent fuel are in the six pools. This is the latest publicly available data we have access to. It is not possible without precise data to say what the radiological inventory is of this spent fuel, however, in our review of the scientific and technical literature of the past two decades it appears that the average fuel burn-up of the nuclear fuel used over the last 20 years at Zaporizhzhia is 44-49GWd/tHM. This is comparable, and perhaps higher, than the nuclear fuel in the pools at Fukushima Daiichi.
In the event of a loss of cooling and resultant fire in any of the spent fuel pools at Zaporizhzhia, the potential for a very large release of radioactivity would have a devastating effect not only on Ukraine but also its neighboring countries, including Russia, and potentially, depending on the weather conditions and wind directions, on a large part of Europe. Again, it should be stressed that in the event of such a catastrophic incident, the entire power plant might have to be evacuated and a cascade of similar accidents at the other five pools as well as the six reactors might take place.

To prevent such a nightmare scenario from becoming reality, Greenpeace said Russia must end its war on Ukraine.

 

[Donald H]

Would Russia be taking precautions to ensure that the enemy has sufficient power to keep nuclear installations safe?

Russia has declared that all of Ukraine's power will be destroyed but they may not have been speaking literally 'all'.

Maybe we should all be looking at the possibility of America declaring that this action by Russia is 'out of bounds' for this war. Russia may be able to agree to trade it off for some concession granted by America?

Otherwise these continuing escalations could lead to saturation bombing of the sort that London and Dresden suffered!