Russia/Ukraine conflict

nativewolf · May 1, 2022

DayTrippin said:
Interesting viewing. Russia could easily cut off the Baltic countries from the rest of NATO. Makes a lot of sense if you look where Kalingrad is. Many people may not realize that Russia is not really a contiguous country (similar to the US with Alaska and Hawaii.)

That little bit sticking out there is the old East Prussia, actually that's Prussia. This is where you nordic blond haired blue eyed aryan came from. After WWII Russia death marched all the Germans from Poland and East Prussia to the area that would become East Germany and in the settlement agreement ending the war they took ownership of some of east prussia (poland got the rest in exchange for eastern poland going to USSR). It's cut off, an isolated ignored backwater. The people that settled there had no connections to the area, they knew nothing about farming there, etc. Typical soviet hubris ( I actually thought it was beyond well deserved but that's another story and you need to read the history of the baltics and Poland to really understand). Incidentally they did the same thing in Western Poland and the Czech areas with German speakers.

There is a reason NATO stationed tripwire troops in the baltics several years ago.

nativewolf · May 1, 2022

petit_bateau said:
It has been on quite a lot of sites. These Kilos haven't been going into port for tea and stickies.

There are some rumours that UK tranche 1 Typhoon might get released to Ukraine. There are enough of them to be viable in logistics terns, and they are not comparable with the latest tranches (3+) so it doesn't risk too much technology. Certainly somebody is doing some rather unusual aviation training on the UK ranges. Just as with F16 that would give access to nato weapons which is important from a sustainment perspective.

Interesting. There's rumors of Ukrainians training here but not aircraft yet (that i have read about).

petit_bateau · May 1, 2022

The fancy shells one of you were describing are called "base bleed" munitions. They give extended range.

Dangerous Fish · May 1, 2022

More carelessly discarded cigarettes at a military site near Belgorod

https://twitter.com/x/status/1520745032982179841

CatB · May 1, 2022

JRP3 said:
This is a misconception. About 8kWh of energy, mostly in the form of heat, is used to refine a gallon of gas. Less than 1kWh of electricity is used in the process.

Do you have a source for that? Back in 2013 when I did a lot of car shows with my MS, I looked it up and found 4.5 kWh to be conservative. I just googled and top results, nothing scientifically authoritative tho, were 5+, including this quote from a guy who normally gets the sciency stuff pretty well:

Do Gasoline Based Cars Really Use More Electricity than Electric Vehicles Do?

More on: Media Technology and Innovation Business Insider published an interview today with Tesla founder Elon Musk in which Musk makes a striking claim: “You have en…

www.cfr.org

nativewolf · May 1, 2022

petit_bateau said:
The fancy shells one of you were describing are called "base bleed" munitions. They give extended range.

yeah there are all sorts of manipulations, from injecting gases into the space being vacated by the shell to disrupt vacumn and reducing friction, to rocket assisted rounds. The irony here is that at this time we may be seeing the last great artillery battle, loitering munitions may completely obsolete all the artillery we've been discussing from the rocket assisted rounds to the base bleed rounds etc. They have created by far the most effective and lethal artillery rounds ever launched by a howitzer, precision and lethality and range that was unprecedented even 20 years ago. All that obviated by a loitering munition that combines all of the former capability and adds even greater precision but also can be fired by a single person that is familiar with an iphone type control surface. Interesting times for weapons manufacturers I suppose, fascinating and grotesque all at the same time.

JRP3 · May 1, 2022

CatB said:
Do you have a source for that? Back in 2013 when I did a lot of car shows with my MS, I looked it up and found 4.5 kWh to be conservative. I just googled and top results, nothing scientifically authoritative tho, were 5+, including this quote from a guy who normally gets the sciency stuff pretty well:

Do Gasoline Based Cars Really Use More Electricity than Electric Vehicles Do?

More on: Media Technology and Innovation Business Insider published an interview today with Tesla founder Elon Musk in which Musk makes a striking claim: “You have en…

www.cfr.org

wdolson said:
Using some large scale numbers the US refined 18.9 million barrels a day, which is 6.899 billion a year
Petroleum refining in the United States - Wikipedia

The closest date for electricity bought by refineries is here
U.S. Fuel Consumed at Refineries

The earliest on this list is 2015. The electricity purchased by refineries was 46,860 million KWH for the year. That works out to 6.79 KWH/barrel, which is less than what I quoted above. The chart shows lots of other energy inputs. The natural gas consumed was the equivalent of 185 million KWH. That's 37 KWH of natural gas energy per barrel of oil refined (in 2015).

Doggydogworld said:
Yes, a bit over 150 Wh/gal. Maybe 175 when you include self-generated electricity. That's pretty typical. Refining uses lots of low-grade heat, but very little electricity. It's a good candidate for co-gen, burn natural gas in a turbine then use the waste heat to drive your refinery processes. This Pemex cogen plant pumps 500 MW into the grid.

It's a myth that won't die. Kind of like the stupid Covid conspiracies, liars with agendas make them up then reputable people who don't think things through get sucked in. Musk has repeated this myth, too, though I think he used the more common 6 kWh variant. It's a seductive one -- "the electricity needed to refine one gallon of gasoline is enough to drive an EV 25 miles".

But do a little arithmetic. 16 kWh per gallon is 672 kWh per bbl. As you note, we refine almost 7 billion bbl per year. So US refining would use over 4500 TWh/year. That's more than total US electricity consumption!

Also 10 buck crack spreads are pretty typical. 672 kWh would cost $50+, even at industrial rates.

Doggydogworld · May 1, 2022

CatB said:
Do you have a source for that?

In addition to the data others posted upthread, you can sometimes find numbers for specific refineries. This article about a small co-gen addition to the 345k bpd Pine Bend refinery says it needs 120 MW when running at nameplate. That comes out to 8.3 kWh per bbl or 0.2 kWh per gallon.

stopcrazypp · May 1, 2022

CatB said:
Do you have a source for that? Back in 2013 when I did a lot of car shows with my MS, I looked it up and found 4.5 kWh to be conservative. I just googled and top results, nothing scientifically authoritative tho, were 5+, including this quote from a guy who normally gets the sciency stuff pretty well:

Do Gasoline Based Cars Really Use More Electricity than Electric Vehicles Do?

More on: Media Technology and Innovation Business Insider published an interview today with Tesla founder Elon Musk in which Musk makes a striking claim: “You have en…

www.cfr.org

Did you even read your own link? This is what it says on the conclusion:
"Assuming that you get 42 gallons of refined products from each barrel of oil, this works out to about 0.2 kilowatt hours of electricity used for each gallon of gasoline produced."

The Elon quote was proven incorrect (only accurate for energy use, but most energy use in refining is not from electricity).

nativewolf · May 1, 2022

Come on gentle beings. Lets not have a spiraling circle of who's right and wrong. It was just a question on my part as to the petro market, it's a curiosity rather than something that will directly impact the future of the Ukrainian state. I apologize to all for taking us down this rabbit hole. Lets just leave it at it takes a bit of energy to make fuel from oil. My curiosity is partly driven from being a large user of diesel (60 gallons a day) and we've seen diesel prices soaring around the world and that really didn't make sense to me so I was trying to figure it out. I'm still not sure if the rise of the EV movement will naturally cause diesel price increases but again it is not the point of this thread.

It has been a great thread, hate to see it devolve.

madodel · May 1, 2022

Washington Post Virtual Program World Stage: Sweden with Swedish Ambassador to the United States Karin Olofsdotter

May 5 - 11:00 a.m. ET

Sweden’s ambassador to the United States Karin Olofsdotter addresses how the war in Ukraine has led to sharp geopolitical shifts across Europe and a reassessment of its relationship with NATO.

nativewolf · May 1, 2022

Russians plunder $5M farm vehicles from Ukraine -- to find they've been remotely disabled | CNN

Russian troops in the occupied city of Melitopol have stolen all the equipment from a farm equipment dealership – and shipped it to Chechnya, according to a Ukrainian businessman in the area.

www.cnn.com

Chechen bandits operating as Russian soldiers are stealing en mass, including all the equipment at a dealership.

wdolson · May 1, 2022

petit_bateau said:
The fancy shells one of you were describing are called "base bleed" munitions. They give extended range.

I forgot the name and was too lazy to look it up. The names of things always trip me up. It's even worse when I have to name something I'm creating (I design and write software).

nativewolf said:
Come on gentle beings. Lets not have a spiraling circle of who's right and wrong. It was just a question on my part as to the petro market, it's a curiosity rather than something that will directly impact the future of the Ukrainian state. I apologize to all for taking us down this rabbit hole. Lets just leave it at it takes a bit of energy to make fuel from oil. My curiosity is partly driven from being a large user of diesel (60 gallons a day) and we've seen diesel prices soaring around the world and that really didn't make sense to me so I was trying to figure it out. I'm still not sure if the rise of the EV movement will naturally cause diesel price increases but again it is not the point of this thread.

It has been a great thread, hate to see it devolve.

Diesel may be skyrocketing in price because Russia was a big exporter of refined diesel and at least the US is refusing any imports from Russia. The US has been able to refine enough gasoline for all its needs since the 90s, but there has been a shortfall in refining capacity for diesel, so a lot of that is imported. Some new refineries have come online in the last decade so the US may be refining some diesel now, but I think there is still a shortfall.

So it might have some connection to the war.

I don't know if anyone else saw the video from a drone that dropped some small bombs on a group of Russian troops including one that went in the sunroof of a stolen car and went off inside as they were trying to drive away. This is an explanation of how that drone was modified and what the Ukrainians are doing with drones to turn smaller drones into the 21st century's sniper

https://twitter.com/x/status/1520561969153073153

SmokyPeat · May 1, 2022

wdolson said:
Diesel may be skyrocketing in price because Russia was a big exporter of refined diesel and at least the US is refusing any imports from Russia. The US has been able to refine enough gasoline for all its needs since the 90s, but there has been a shortfall in refining capacity for diesel, so a lot of that is imported. Some new refineries have come online in the last decade so the US may be refining some diesel now, but I think there is still a shortfall.

So it might have some connection to the war.

There's definitely a connection between the rising diesel prices in the US and the war in Ukraine. We may only import about 6% (and export more) of the ULSD consumed here(mostly from Canada), but it's a global market.

Where our diesel comes from - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Sources of diesel fuel from petroleum refining and how diesel fuel is transported to consumers by pipeline, ships, trains, and trucks.

www.eia.gov

Doggydogworld · May 1, 2022

wdolson said:
Diesel may be skyrocketing in price because Russia was a big exporter of refined diesel and at least the US is refusing any imports from Russia. The US has been able to refine enough gasoline for all its needs since the 90s, but there has been a shortfall in refining capacity for diesel, so a lot of that is imported. Some new refineries have come online in the last decade so the US may be refining some diesel now, but I think there is still a shortfall.

US exported 1.47m bpd of diesel (distillate fuel oil) the past four weeks while only importing 0.12m bpd. If you click on the History links you'll see we've averaged ~0.25m diesel imports for decades. Exports started ramping up about 15 years ago (EIA only shows back to 2010).

Europe went diesel-crazy in the 2000s and for almost a decade until dieselgate product tankers took diesel from the US to Europe and came back filled with their excess gasoline. The whole thing was dumb, but.... politicians. Anyway, for the past five years or so we've been a net exporter of both gasoline and diesel. Overall we're a net importer of crude but a bigger net exporter of products.