In one of his videos [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/@INSIDERUSSIA/videos) claims to have been an engineer who worked in the energy sector in Russia.
He mentioned that the turbines Russia is getting from China do not work well with the other infrastructure the West built for them.
They *can* make quality stuff, they'll just take every opportunity to save a cent, lie or hide imperfections within the product. There's a very hard "if you didn't cheat, we're you even trying?" culture so any work with them requires basically a full-time person checking everything and holding their hand throughout the entire process.
China is in the process of building 20 nuclear reactors and just started the world's first fourth generation reactor last year - more advanced than anything in the West.
So I don't think Russia has to worry about getting spare parts for a steam turbine.
Edit: Nothing I said is untrue in the slightest, nor did I say I supported China or the CCP.
So it's interesting to see how redditors have been Pavlovian conditioned to react like dogs without even thinking to any positive mention of China at all. Evidently money well spent by the military industrial complex.
Edit 2:
In case anyone really doubts the fact that China does have the edge on the West when it comes to nuclear technology, I'll quote a publication of an **American** technology think tank:
https://itif.org/publications/2024/06/17/how-innovative-is-china-in-nuclear-power/
* China intends to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035, with 27 currently under construction and the average construction timeline for each reactor about seven years, far faster than for most other nations.
* China has commenced operation of the world’s first fourth-generation nuclear reactor, for which China asserts it developed some 90 percent of the technology.
* China is leading in the development and launch of cost-competitive small modular reactors (SMRs).
* Overall, analysts assess that China likely stands 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy fourth-generation nuclear reactors at scale.
* China’s innovation strengths in nuclear power pertain especially to organizational, systemic, and incremental innovation. Many fourth-generation nuclear technologies have been known for years, but China’s state-backed approach excels at fielding them.
* Analysts assess America and China are likely at par when it comes to efforts to develop nuclear fusion technologies, but they warn that China’s demonstrated ability to deploy fission reactors at scale gives it an advantage for when fusion comes online.
* Looking narrowly at scientific publications on nuclear energy, China ranks first in the H-index, a commonly used metric measuring the scholarly impact of journal publications.
* From 2008 to 2023, China’s share of all nuclear patents increased from 1.3 percent to 13.4 percent, and the country leads in the number of nuclear fusion patent applications.
China and Russia have strong ties and many common geopolitical interests, I doubt China would attempt to harm a long-term ally for short-term economic gain.
China, always puts China first by a mile, especially when they have the upper hand. In the current situation China is indebting Russia on everything. Just look at the natural gas deal they have now. They recently negotiated a deal where Russia sells China its Natural Gas at the same price as it sells its subsidized gas to Russian Civilians. Since EU is working towards cutting off reliability on Russian energy, China is one of a handful of partners they can sell to. In desperation to sell they started building infrastructure to pipe it from north Russia to China before they even began negotiations on the resource pricing. China is waiting for Russian government to collapse under the weight of their debt and weakening economy to swoop in and either grab land and resources via territorial gains or financial means.
Vladivostok was originally a Chinese city. You don't think the Chinese aren't above using's Putin's reasoning for grabbing Ukraine as a reason to take it back?
>more advanced than anything in the West.
Yeah I’m sure the “improvements” they made on the blueprints stolen from the West will be great. Just like their [definitely not a Space X Falcon 9 launch that wasn’t supposed to launch](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna159708) earlier this week.
But hey, it’s a nuclear reactor, what could go wrong?
Someone else made a supposition that maybe they mistranslated "holddown clamps" as "clams"
Could have even been the same person responsible for 3 copies of The Sims...
I mean, china has passed the directly stealing designs stage for alot of industries. They take ideas still sure, but they have a very well funded higher education system and are pumping loads of money into r&d. Like, the amount of new science and tech developments that come out of china are begining to outpace europe and the US
Meh, depends who's doing the construction and at what level. I'm a big infrastructure nerd and china does build some incredible shit. Have u ever driven on a chinese built road? So damn smooth it's amazing.
Just to say aswell, china sucks ass, fuck china. But they do build some good shit and they have a very well developed science and tech industry
I wouldn't say it's better than anything the West is producing. The "gen 4" reactor in China has an efficiency of about 33% and produces about 210MW. The newest reactor in the US is the AP1000, which has an efficiency of about 48% and generates 1117MW. Chinas most favorable estimate is that it will cost about 5 cents per kWh, which is comparable to the AP1000. Some estimates from 3rd parties claim that it might cost as much as 10 cents per kWh or more though.
More advanced does not mean more efficient. You're comparing an optimized version of a mature technology with the first example of a novel technology.
To quote an independent Western think tank that is based in the US:
https://itif.org/publications/2024/06/17/how-innovative-is-china-in-nuclear-power/
* China intends to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035, with 27 currently under construction and the average construction timeline for each reactor about seven years, far faster than for most other nations.
* China has commenced operation of the world’s first fourth-generation nuclear reactor, for which China asserts it developed some 90 percent of the technology.
* China is leading in the development and launch of cost-competitive small modular reactors (SMRs).
* Overall, analysts assess that China likely stands 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy fourth-generation nuclear reactors at scale.
* China’s innovation strengths in nuclear power pertain especially to organizational, systemic, and incremental innovation. Many fourth-generation nuclear technologies have been known for years, but China’s state-backed approach excels at fielding them.
* Analysts assess America and China are likely at par when it comes to efforts to develop nuclear fusion technologies, but they warn that China’s demonstrated ability to deploy fission reactors at scale gives it an advantage for when fusion comes online.
* Looking narrowly at scientific publications on nuclear energy, China ranks first in the H-index, a commonly used metric measuring the scholarly impact of journal publications.
* From 2008 to 2023, China’s share of all nuclear patents increased from 1.3 percent to 13.4 percent, and the country leads in the number of nuclear fusion patent applications.
BTW, the rights to AP1000 have been acquired by China's state power company and they've already developed an advanced local version - CAP1000.
China has had small modular reactors connected to the grid since at least 2021, whilst the US's first SMR design was just cancelled.
I know you've been Pavlovian conditioned like a dog to believe CHINA BAD, but the reality is that they do have a technological edge when it comes to nuclear power. And high speed rail, for that matter.
The reason why people have this perspective on China is because they basically [copied tech from Siemens](https://www.planetizen.com/node/47241) as well as a few other companies, to build out their train network. Then they had one of the worse[ HSR accidents ever in 2011.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision)
They apparently also stole tech from Tesla after letting them build a factory in China. Plus there is god knows how many other companies accusing China of stealing intellectual property from in some form or fashion.
China has built way more infracture than the West has these last 20 years. But there is little proof that hey have actually innovated anything significant. Or make tech that we do not have. So I am going to doubt that their nuclear facilities are superior to anything that the USA could make. It is more so that China actually builds stuff while most of our stuff exist only on paper and prototypes.
Also the main reason why the USA has problems building nuclear power plants. Is because natural gas is so much more cheaper adn easier to build.
For anyone to do business in China, they often force companies to do "technology transfers" for the privilege. That's what happened with Apple and Tesla.
I didn't know that Apple agreed to that, I knew about Tesla and Siemens. Assumed that Apple had too much pull for them to agree with China for that. Now China being more innovative than the West in anyway, just doesn't fit their MO.
Also heard about tons of problems with their dams, but as far as I know none of them have failed yet. While I do not know if any of them have completely failed. They often release water from them with little to no warning to the people down stream.
Sad that you're getting downvoted for the truth. The US has lost its edge with commercial nuclear power generation because we basically gave up on nuclear years ago.
Hopefully the Atomic Energy Advancement Act that will make it into law and our position will change.
The criticism you are facing is definitly exaggerated. Your opinion is absolutly valid and based on reasonable facts from a good source.
However, while the blowback is too vague for a serious debate, i think its not just irrational "china-bad-syndrom" but result of the fact that people have (rightfully) become very suspicious of any chinese success-story.
Of course its not productive to make such broad assumptions the base of an argument. China is a major global power, that is a fact. Its also a fact that a lot of their official data is faked to an unknown extent and a lot of china's innovative potential relies on intellectual theft.
Of course i still think you are making the better argument and know more about chinas energy infrastructure than the reddit-hivemind.
Where i think you are wrong is the conclusion that this somehow solves russias problems with their increasingly struggling energy infrastructure.
Agree with you in everything. I live in a country that borders russia and don't like them, but the bias on reddit is next level. Classic leftist action - cancelling facts that don't agree with their opinions.
That was my first thought. A flux field? But only when it started smoking? It’s gotta be som kind of artifact in the recording. I don’t believe that’s flux that I’m seeing.
Right after the current Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions, I read a post from a guy that worked on these generators. He was basically saying that most of the turbines in Russia were already on their last legs and they don't have the capability to manufacture or repair them. He said their entire energy industry is a timebomb because of this.
Turbines are wild. The gas plant I work at (Canadian oil patch) has a few of them driving compressors. They run near 100% uptime for five years then the whole unit gets replaced. The biggest one is about the size of an industrial washing machine and puts out over 20000 horsepower.
Same was gonna happen with the planes. They seem to be okay (until now) with both aviation, space and the power grid. I'm sure some people dropped whatever they were doing to move to one of those shit countries and set up a business shadow delivering components. The dogs of war.
You probably already know of them, but if you like that kind of video you'll *love* the US Chemical Safety Board (USCSB)'s videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB/videos
Animated accident investigation reports with surprisingly high production values.
The date format 06-26-2024 resp 06-26-24 is not usual for Russia.
"The date format mm dd yyyy (month-day-year) is primarily used in the United States, Canada, and the Philippines. It is also used in some other countries such as Belize and Micronesia, as well as in some instances in Mexico."
I captured a frame and did a reverse image search.
It appears to be Artemovskaya CHPP in Primorye, which is near Vladivostok at the very south east coast of Russia.
I don't recognise any of the websites so I'm not posting a link. There are a number of sites which claim claim this location.
A search for images of the turbines at that station turns up an image of a turbine being assembled for that station but without the cladding fitted. It seemed to have the right shaped modules and the holes for the steam pipes over the top in the right place. I couldn't see anything that would have ruled it out.
Good job, image searches for Артёмовская bring up a couple of photos that I'd agree look the same location. Wiki lists four 100MW units (#5-#8) in use at the existing coal power station. Hard to pick out which unit it was based on photos on the overall turbine hall.
As someone who does a lot of security camera work, it's also the default date format for Hikvision cameras, which this appears to be, going by the font of the date stamp.
Thanks.
So we have an expensive, high-tech environment. And they install a camera, and do not bother to set it to local settings.
Wow. That tells me something how the other technology is taken care of. And it shows.
Indeed, hence the reportedly in the title and the unconfirmed location in the main text. It was originally shared with a Turkish caption but describing it as Russia. They had a turbine blade failure at a VVER-1200 last year but I don't know the location of this incident.
Most likely someone bought cheap Chinese cameras and didn't change the settings from the popular US-centric default, I would not put any store by the CCTV's OSD.
It's a steam turbine driving a hydrogen cooled generator at a power station. No info on what form of primary fuel for the boiler/ steam generation, so could be a coal, oil, gas or nuclear power station.
Edit: The fire is probably a mix of hydrogen release and bearing oil, which would account for the significant flames as hydrogen is generally very clean burning
Turbine engineer here. I don't think hydrogen involved. the fire is located on all bearings. control oil wouldn't burn like that unless the Russians don't use flame resistance hydraulic fluid. If it was the hydrogen it would have just exploded on the generator end. overspeed causing the multiple bearing fires or maybe loss of lube oil pressure, but i don't know how if its an overspeed why it didn't throw itself apart. Either why the controls should have tripped it well before it got to this stage which make me wonder why the control system failed
rewatched 90% its overspeed because arcing flashes on the smoke by the collector ring
I'm going with control system (user) failure.. Forced the low lube oil trip false while doing some maintenance or something. I would expect a more spectacular failure for an overspeed and would not expect to see the arcing like it was connected to the grid.
initially I thought maybe the generator breaker failed to open and it was motoring, but I would have expect the LP turbine to fail mechanically, not all of the bearings to fail simultaneously. (Unless the operators thought turning off the oil would slow it down, lol)
yes but seal oil fire would be located around the generator. all the bearings went up starting at the collector bar, but the second fire was the front standard bearing.
I’ve never heard of hydrogen being used to cool a generator, but in America, pretty much all generator housings are filled with a hydrogen atmosphere for the added efficiency of operating in a less dense gas which reduces drag. It is cheaper and easier than operating in a vacuum and the efficiency boosts offset the cost of hydrogen handling and safety measures.
Right on. It is also for cooling. It seems counter-intuivite to me because hydrogen is a very light gas, but it has thermal-transfer properties at least 7X greater than air.
the lube oil carries heat away and is cooled in a heat exchangers by water. only the generator is hydrogen cool. Hydrogen leaks out of everything and typically you only use it where no other option really works. I just had a 10 day outage trying to seal everything i could and replacing the neutral bushings on a generator in June
Cooling of rotor and stator windings, the hydrogen gas is cooled by cooling circuits running through the generator. Bearings are cooled by oil which are also cooled by cooling circuits. These cooling circuits are then most likely cooled by a large primary cooling circuit, the famous cooling tower.
The generator rotor is the main thing being cooled.
The stator windings can be directly cooled with demin water but it is not so easy to directly liquid cool the rotor.
The bearings are kept cool by the flow of lube oil.
Wouldn't helium be cheaper and nearly as energy efficient? Also, the molecules themselves are bigger so keeping them inside is easier.
AND IT CANT EXPLODE, KILLING EVERYBODY!
Helium is significantly more expensive than hydrogen. Hydrogen is much is easier to generate using liquid electrolyte or permeable membrane electrolysis, providing a shorter simpler supply chain.
It is also so much lighter than air that it rapidly dissipates upwards, so provides you manage ignition sources in the area and maintain good ventilation safe operation isn't that difficult to achieve.
Its [a thing apparently](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-cooled_turbo_generator). Hydrogen gets used because of its extremely high thermal conductivity, and very low viscosity (thus reducing drag). So it gets very high performance cooling in a relatively small space.
edit: it looks like its rather commonly used throughout the world actually.
My grandpa worked in a german powerstation back in the day, from his stories I can tell you with somecertainty that the mist you see rising is not steam used to power the turbine. That steam gets superheated (so far above 100°C) and as a result becomes near invisible. In his station, a steamline blew and three people ran into the cloud before figuring out where it was. Instant steamed hams.
The other thing: To a dislocated turbine blade at full RPM, the housing is not a concerning obstacle.
That's why I never like sitting abeam the engines on a plane, even with turbofans. There was the National Airlines DC-10 over New Mexico in the 1970s that managed to throw a blade into the cabin.
Why does a russian energy plant have their cctv system set to english, and even stranger, the stupid american "mm/dd/yyyy" format that nobody else uses?
Neither do most of the world but if you buy a cheap CCTV camera and don't bother to change the settings there's 90% chance it will default to the US-format.
If it is in fact Russia,then it seems strange that the cctv date is in english with roman characters rather than using cyrillic which would look like среда
When traveling on to the Russian launch facility in Baikonur, the stop signs were spelled 'STOP' rather that 'СТОП' which was off the base. It was the classic red octagon with white lettering...I suppose they implemented that after they open up the place for foreign civilian launches.
In the vast majority of instances, you REALLY don't want to shut off the lube oil to a spinning turbine, an ongoing fire is pretty much the only time you do.
The trade off is that if you automate fire detection with an oil isolation valve and it spuriously activates, you destroy the bearings and possibly the entire turbine instead. Plenty of water mist/ cooling from firewater and manual shutoffs away from the fire are common in this scenario.
Just to add to your comment. These larger turbines typically have 2 AC lube oil pumps and an emergency DC lube oil pump.
The AC pumps are designed to start automatically if its sister pump is not running or it senses low lube oil pressure. The DC pump is typically designed to start if neither of the AC pumps are running or an even lower pressure is detected.
In nearly all applications, these have to all be manually turned off (Breaker opened) - because losing oil on a running turbine will cause catastrophic damage
My cousin who worked at a power plant got to see what happen when power down a turbine. Normally, it took 30 minutes to coast to a stop. Somebody screwed up on the procedure and missed a page and cut off the oil and got to see it coast to a stop of sorts in about three minutes.
It could be a couple things but I am certain it is not that. I have only ever seen a combustion turbine take 30 minutes to get put on turning gear. Looking at data from some of the turbine I am in charge your comment is funny
What must it be like to live in a country which is built so shit, like at least in India or something you know the risk you're taking since you're literally sat on the top of a train, but in Russia, everything looks fine but is basically a ticking time bomb.
It’s unlikely this happens by accident. There are safeguards in place to prevent it. Odd I’m being downvoted tbh I’ve a fair amount of experience in this area
I was wondering when there would be - inevitably - the guy running away and wasn't disappointed.
He was there uncomfortably late on - the turbine was not happy within the first 10s of the video.
Looked like gas surge, then the generator left the chat right when it's HMI blew up on the left side post
What does HMI in that context mean?
Human Machine Interface? Just a guess though.
Correct
I did not think that would be correct lol
that’s a steam turbine, what gas surge?
He had the impression of someone going: "What the hell is going on in he.... OH CRAP!"
I was taking an OH SHIT.
In Russian translation "What the hell is going on in here." takes about 40 seconds to say so I won't bother translating it here.
Wish the video had sound so we could hear his "woob woob woob woob woob" sound as he exited.
Wish we had an actual video file instead of a screen recording.
Gone in 60 seconds.
"Yeah, I can stick this out. This isn't so bad."
Why? Why do Russians just casually walk towards an obvious shit-show and suddenly realize they are about to die? The. Actual. F
Used to it as a form of governance?
It's moments like this that you wish there was sound recorded of this shitshow. Imagine the racket coming out of that dying machine.
I'm imagining a blend of "marbles in a coffee grinder" and "concrete drill hitting rebar"
Wow. That really does bring a certain cacophony of sound to mind. None of which is very pleasing to the ear.
>marbles in a coffee grinder Will it blend? *That* is the question.
Turbine generator smoke, don't breathe that...
Yeah but so loud that even with double ear protection it still deafens you.
Even in normal operation, this hall would be so loud that you can barely hear the guy speaking next to you.
Good luck getting spares
In one of his videos [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/@INSIDERUSSIA/videos) claims to have been an engineer who worked in the energy sector in Russia. He mentioned that the turbines Russia is getting from China do not work well with the other infrastructure the West built for them.
Really I thought China made quality products like bamboo...
Their economy relies on making things, so if they make something that doesn't last, then they get to make more of it, thus keeping cash flowing
[It keeps moving in a circle](https://i.imgur.com/e8kDE1J.gif)
They made their Paddy's dollars back
They *can* make quality stuff, they'll just take every opportunity to save a cent, lie or hide imperfections within the product. There's a very hard "if you didn't cheat, we're you even trying?" culture so any work with them requires basically a full-time person checking everything and holding their hand throughout the entire process.
"Bamboo works great as a crankshaft, comrade"
Ivan, I tell you before. Crankshaft is car part. Is not leisure activity.
China. Sadly
China is in the process of building 20 nuclear reactors and just started the world's first fourth generation reactor last year - more advanced than anything in the West. So I don't think Russia has to worry about getting spare parts for a steam turbine. Edit: Nothing I said is untrue in the slightest, nor did I say I supported China or the CCP. So it's interesting to see how redditors have been Pavlovian conditioned to react like dogs without even thinking to any positive mention of China at all. Evidently money well spent by the military industrial complex. Edit 2: In case anyone really doubts the fact that China does have the edge on the West when it comes to nuclear technology, I'll quote a publication of an **American** technology think tank: https://itif.org/publications/2024/06/17/how-innovative-is-china-in-nuclear-power/ * China intends to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035, with 27 currently under construction and the average construction timeline for each reactor about seven years, far faster than for most other nations. * China has commenced operation of the world’s first fourth-generation nuclear reactor, for which China asserts it developed some 90 percent of the technology. * China is leading in the development and launch of cost-competitive small modular reactors (SMRs). * Overall, analysts assess that China likely stands 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy fourth-generation nuclear reactors at scale. * China’s innovation strengths in nuclear power pertain especially to organizational, systemic, and incremental innovation. Many fourth-generation nuclear technologies have been known for years, but China’s state-backed approach excels at fielding them. * Analysts assess America and China are likely at par when it comes to efforts to develop nuclear fusion technologies, but they warn that China’s demonstrated ability to deploy fission reactors at scale gives it an advantage for when fusion comes online. * Looking narrowly at scientific publications on nuclear energy, China ranks first in the H-index, a commonly used metric measuring the scholarly impact of journal publications. * From 2008 to 2023, China’s share of all nuclear patents increased from 1.3 percent to 13.4 percent, and the country leads in the number of nuclear fusion patent applications.
China’ll charge out the ass for it, since it’s just them and North Korea still selling to the Russians
That is naive, they can still get any part, just route it through enough foreign companies and pay more.
Ok, all the dodgy companies will charge out the ass for it, since they’re the only ones selling to Russia. Better?
China and Russia have strong ties and many common geopolitical interests, I doubt China would attempt to harm a long-term ally for short-term economic gain.
If China has a long-term goal there it is to own Russia. They're not friends.
Ally? Try vassal.
😂
China, always puts China first by a mile, especially when they have the upper hand. In the current situation China is indebting Russia on everything. Just look at the natural gas deal they have now. They recently negotiated a deal where Russia sells China its Natural Gas at the same price as it sells its subsidized gas to Russian Civilians. Since EU is working towards cutting off reliability on Russian energy, China is one of a handful of partners they can sell to. In desperation to sell they started building infrastructure to pipe it from north Russia to China before they even began negotiations on the resource pricing. China is waiting for Russian government to collapse under the weight of their debt and weakening economy to swoop in and either grab land and resources via territorial gains or financial means.
Vladivostok was originally a Chinese city. You don't think the Chinese aren't above using's Putin's reasoning for grabbing Ukraine as a reason to take it back?
>more advanced than anything in the West. Yeah I’m sure the “improvements” they made on the blueprints stolen from the West will be great. Just like their [definitely not a Space X Falcon 9 launch that wasn’t supposed to launch](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna159708) earlier this week. But hey, it’s a nuclear reactor, what could go wrong?
Someone else made a supposition that maybe they mistranslated "holddown clamps" as "clams" Could have even been the same person responsible for 3 copies of The Sims...
Correct, copied French reactors that they purchased.
I mean, china has passed the directly stealing designs stage for alot of industries. They take ideas still sure, but they have a very well funded higher education system and are pumping loads of money into r&d. Like, the amount of new science and tech developments that come out of china are begining to outpace europe and the US
May be true, but the construction phase is where they generally really fuck up.
Meh, depends who's doing the construction and at what level. I'm a big infrastructure nerd and china does build some incredible shit. Have u ever driven on a chinese built road? So damn smooth it's amazing. Just to say aswell, china sucks ass, fuck china. But they do build some good shit and they have a very well developed science and tech industry
You do realize they just purchased and copied French nuclear reactors?
I wouldn't say it's better than anything the West is producing. The "gen 4" reactor in China has an efficiency of about 33% and produces about 210MW. The newest reactor in the US is the AP1000, which has an efficiency of about 48% and generates 1117MW. Chinas most favorable estimate is that it will cost about 5 cents per kWh, which is comparable to the AP1000. Some estimates from 3rd parties claim that it might cost as much as 10 cents per kWh or more though.
More advanced does not mean more efficient. You're comparing an optimized version of a mature technology with the first example of a novel technology. To quote an independent Western think tank that is based in the US: https://itif.org/publications/2024/06/17/how-innovative-is-china-in-nuclear-power/ * China intends to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035, with 27 currently under construction and the average construction timeline for each reactor about seven years, far faster than for most other nations. * China has commenced operation of the world’s first fourth-generation nuclear reactor, for which China asserts it developed some 90 percent of the technology. * China is leading in the development and launch of cost-competitive small modular reactors (SMRs). * Overall, analysts assess that China likely stands 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy fourth-generation nuclear reactors at scale. * China’s innovation strengths in nuclear power pertain especially to organizational, systemic, and incremental innovation. Many fourth-generation nuclear technologies have been known for years, but China’s state-backed approach excels at fielding them. * Analysts assess America and China are likely at par when it comes to efforts to develop nuclear fusion technologies, but they warn that China’s demonstrated ability to deploy fission reactors at scale gives it an advantage for when fusion comes online. * Looking narrowly at scientific publications on nuclear energy, China ranks first in the H-index, a commonly used metric measuring the scholarly impact of journal publications. * From 2008 to 2023, China’s share of all nuclear patents increased from 1.3 percent to 13.4 percent, and the country leads in the number of nuclear fusion patent applications. BTW, the rights to AP1000 have been acquired by China's state power company and they've already developed an advanced local version - CAP1000.
If it isn’t a design stolen from the West, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near it during operation.
China has had small modular reactors connected to the grid since at least 2021, whilst the US's first SMR design was just cancelled. I know you've been Pavlovian conditioned like a dog to believe CHINA BAD, but the reality is that they do have a technological edge when it comes to nuclear power. And high speed rail, for that matter.
The reason why people have this perspective on China is because they basically [copied tech from Siemens](https://www.planetizen.com/node/47241) as well as a few other companies, to build out their train network. Then they had one of the worse[ HSR accidents ever in 2011.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision) They apparently also stole tech from Tesla after letting them build a factory in China. Plus there is god knows how many other companies accusing China of stealing intellectual property from in some form or fashion. China has built way more infracture than the West has these last 20 years. But there is little proof that hey have actually innovated anything significant. Or make tech that we do not have. So I am going to doubt that their nuclear facilities are superior to anything that the USA could make. It is more so that China actually builds stuff while most of our stuff exist only on paper and prototypes. Also the main reason why the USA has problems building nuclear power plants. Is because natural gas is so much more cheaper adn easier to build.
For anyone to do business in China, they often force companies to do "technology transfers" for the privilege. That's what happened with Apple and Tesla.
I didn't know that Apple agreed to that, I knew about Tesla and Siemens. Assumed that Apple had too much pull for them to agree with China for that. Now China being more innovative than the West in anyway, just doesn't fit their MO. Also heard about tons of problems with their dams, but as far as I know none of them have failed yet. While I do not know if any of them have completely failed. They often release water from them with little to no warning to the people down stream.
Sad that you're getting downvoted for the truth. The US has lost its edge with commercial nuclear power generation because we basically gave up on nuclear years ago. Hopefully the Atomic Energy Advancement Act that will make it into law and our position will change.
The criticism you are facing is definitly exaggerated. Your opinion is absolutly valid and based on reasonable facts from a good source. However, while the blowback is too vague for a serious debate, i think its not just irrational "china-bad-syndrom" but result of the fact that people have (rightfully) become very suspicious of any chinese success-story. Of course its not productive to make such broad assumptions the base of an argument. China is a major global power, that is a fact. Its also a fact that a lot of their official data is faked to an unknown extent and a lot of china's innovative potential relies on intellectual theft. Of course i still think you are making the better argument and know more about chinas energy infrastructure than the reddit-hivemind. Where i think you are wrong is the conclusion that this somehow solves russias problems with their increasingly struggling energy infrastructure.
Agree with you in everything. I live in a country that borders russia and don't like them, but the bias on reddit is next level. Classic leftist action - cancelling facts that don't agree with their opinions.
Some shitty company in the US: "Here you go." Executive branch: "Well, nothing we can do!"
Is the CCTV camera capturing magnetic lines from the generator?
Probably a blend of [moiré](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern) from filming a monitor, and stacked compression artifacts
Probably the whole building vibrating. That’s a lot of energy doing bad things.
EMI from arcing perhaps? Dunno, interesting though
Whatever it is. It was pulsing in time with the fire breathing.
That was my first thought. A flux field? But only when it started smoking? It’s gotta be som kind of artifact in the recording. I don’t believe that’s flux that I’m seeing.
No it's moire effect from filming a screen.
Right after the current Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions, I read a post from a guy that worked on these generators. He was basically saying that most of the turbines in Russia were already on their last legs and they don't have the capability to manufacture or repair them. He said their entire energy industry is a timebomb because of this.
Shame
Turbines are wild. The gas plant I work at (Canadian oil patch) has a few of them driving compressors. They run near 100% uptime for five years then the whole unit gets replaced. The biggest one is about the size of an industrial washing machine and puts out over 20000 horsepower.
Same was gonna happen with the planes. They seem to be okay (until now) with both aviation, space and the power grid. I'm sure some people dropped whatever they were doing to move to one of those shit countries and set up a business shadow delivering components. The dogs of war.
Burning through the built-in safety margins, eventually things will start failing in quick succession.
I'm sure they will but time is a factor here.
It’d be such a shame if the people of Russia had to experience hardship like their Ukrainian neighbors.
Oh wow
Classic release of magic smoke
Looks similar to the incident where a turbine was accidentally energized by a massive current and basically turned into a giant electric motor.
[The Callide coal plant accident in 2021](https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/1aunjoc/animation_of_callide_power_station_turbine/).
This is like engineer porno. Thanks.
You probably already know of them, but if you like that kind of video you'll *love* the US Chemical Safety Board (USCSB)'s videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB/videos Animated accident investigation reports with surprisingly high production values.
The date format 06-26-2024 resp 06-26-24 is not usual for Russia. "The date format mm dd yyyy (month-day-year) is primarily used in the United States, Canada, and the Philippines. It is also used in some other countries such as Belize and Micronesia, as well as in some instances in Mexico."
I captured a frame and did a reverse image search. It appears to be Artemovskaya CHPP in Primorye, which is near Vladivostok at the very south east coast of Russia. I don't recognise any of the websites so I'm not posting a link. There are a number of sites which claim claim this location. A search for images of the turbines at that station turns up an image of a turbine being assembled for that station but without the cladding fitted. It seemed to have the right shaped modules and the holes for the steam pipes over the top in the right place. I couldn't see anything that would have ruled it out.
Good job, image searches for Артёмовская bring up a couple of photos that I'd agree look the same location. Wiki lists four 100MW units (#5-#8) in use at the existing coal power station. Hard to pick out which unit it was based on photos on the overall turbine hall.
As someone who does a lot of security camera work, it's also the default date format for Hikvision cameras, which this appears to be, going by the font of the date stamp.
Thanks. So we have an expensive, high-tech environment. And they install a camera, and do not bother to set it to local settings. Wow. That tells me something how the other technology is taken care of. And it shows.
Everyone leaves their CCTV camera setting on default, if just becouse changing them is a pain in the ass.
This is true
Indeed, hence the reportedly in the title and the unconfirmed location in the main text. It was originally shared with a Turkish caption but describing it as Russia. They had a turbine blade failure at a VVER-1200 last year but I don't know the location of this incident.
Pfft, next you're going to tell me that Russians don't call it "Wednesday" either??
In latin letters
Most likely someone bought cheap Chinese cameras and didn't change the settings from the popular US-centric default, I would not put any store by the CCTV's OSD.
what kind of turbine is that?
It's a steam turbine driving a hydrogen cooled generator at a power station. No info on what form of primary fuel for the boiler/ steam generation, so could be a coal, oil, gas or nuclear power station. Edit: The fire is probably a mix of hydrogen release and bearing oil, which would account for the significant flames as hydrogen is generally very clean burning
Turbine engineer here. I don't think hydrogen involved. the fire is located on all bearings. control oil wouldn't burn like that unless the Russians don't use flame resistance hydraulic fluid. If it was the hydrogen it would have just exploded on the generator end. overspeed causing the multiple bearing fires or maybe loss of lube oil pressure, but i don't know how if its an overspeed why it didn't throw itself apart. Either why the controls should have tripped it well before it got to this stage which make me wonder why the control system failed rewatched 90% its overspeed because arcing flashes on the smoke by the collector ring
I'm going with control system (user) failure.. Forced the low lube oil trip false while doing some maintenance or something. I would expect a more spectacular failure for an overspeed and would not expect to see the arcing like it was connected to the grid. initially I thought maybe the generator breaker failed to open and it was motoring, but I would have expect the LP turbine to fail mechanically, not all of the bearings to fail simultaneously. (Unless the operators thought turning off the oil would slow it down, lol)
vibration leading to bearing failure. vibration monitor failed to trip is my guess
Comment nuked by Power Delete Suite
yes but seal oil fire would be located around the generator. all the bearings went up starting at the collector bar, but the second fire was the front standard bearing.
This guy turbines.
Supposedly it's Artemovskaya coal power plant. Reason given is bearing failure.
I agree with you. However, hydrogen has slight tendency to go kaboom when you burn it in an uncontrolled fashion.
They use HYDROGEN to cool the machinery?
I’ve never heard of hydrogen being used to cool a generator, but in America, pretty much all generator housings are filled with a hydrogen atmosphere for the added efficiency of operating in a less dense gas which reduces drag. It is cheaper and easier than operating in a vacuum and the efficiency boosts offset the cost of hydrogen handling and safety measures.
Right on. It is also for cooling. It seems counter-intuivite to me because hydrogen is a very light gas, but it has thermal-transfer properties at least 7X greater than air.
Is it the bearings and journals that need cooling or other components too?
The generator windings are blanketed with hydrogen. The mechanical parts are still cooled with oil/water.
Is that heat from the resistance of the windings?
yes
the lube oil carries heat away and is cooled in a heat exchangers by water. only the generator is hydrogen cool. Hydrogen leaks out of everything and typically you only use it where no other option really works. I just had a 10 day outage trying to seal everything i could and replacing the neutral bushings on a generator in June
Cooling of rotor and stator windings, the hydrogen gas is cooled by cooling circuits running through the generator. Bearings are cooled by oil which are also cooled by cooling circuits. These cooling circuits are then most likely cooled by a large primary cooling circuit, the famous cooling tower.
The generator rotor is the main thing being cooled. The stator windings can be directly cooled with demin water but it is not so easy to directly liquid cool the rotor. The bearings are kept cool by the flow of lube oil.
I learned something today. I would never expect that from hydrogen, the smallest molecule and lightest gas.
Wouldn't helium be cheaper and nearly as energy efficient? Also, the molecules themselves are bigger so keeping them inside is easier. AND IT CANT EXPLODE, KILLING EVERYBODY!
Helium is significantly more expensive than hydrogen. Hydrogen is much is easier to generate using liquid electrolyte or permeable membrane electrolysis, providing a shorter simpler supply chain. It is also so much lighter than air that it rapidly dissipates upwards, so provides you manage ignition sources in the area and maintain good ventilation safe operation isn't that difficult to achieve.
Helium is *twice* as viscous as hydrogen, with a worse thermal conductivity to boot.
Its [a thing apparently](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-cooled_turbo_generator). Hydrogen gets used because of its extremely high thermal conductivity, and very low viscosity (thus reducing drag). So it gets very high performance cooling in a relatively small space. edit: it looks like its rather commonly used throughout the world actually.
I wonder how these designs account for hydrogen embrittlement.
Metallurgy is important, as is temperature and moisture content. Our generators rarely exceed 130F and we maintain a dew point of ~-60 to -70F
Presumably they use alloys less susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement and limit hydrogen exposure as much as possible.
It’s a coal plant.
a burning one
A fucked one.
FlameMaster 2600
My grandpa worked in a german powerstation back in the day, from his stories I can tell you with somecertainty that the mist you see rising is not steam used to power the turbine. That steam gets superheated (so far above 100°C) and as a result becomes near invisible. In his station, a steamline blew and three people ran into the cloud before figuring out where it was. Instant steamed hams. The other thing: To a dislocated turbine blade at full RPM, the housing is not a concerning obstacle.
Depends on the failure mode. There are failure modes where superheated steam can revert to saturated steam.
That's why I never like sitting abeam the engines on a plane, even with turbofans. There was the National Airlines DC-10 over New Mexico in the 1970s that managed to throw a blade into the cabin.
Every machine is a smoke machine if you operate it wrong enough!
Proof that any machine's a smoke machine if operated wrongly enough.
What was that spew of fire at 36 seconds? Middle left of the screen, right around where that guy comes running out a few seconds later.
How many western companies are already on it trying to circumvent embargo?
Now it really is an external combustion engine.
What a lovely sight! I hope all of Russia's shit burns to the ground.
My exact reaction as well
Seems like it took a while for the guy to wake up.
Why does a russian energy plant have their cctv system set to english, and even stranger, the stupid american "mm/dd/yyyy" format that nobody else uses?
Cheap CCTV cameras with default settings.
Not great. Not terrible.
Would you like to explain to me how a Russian turbine explodes?
he’s delusional, take him to the infirmary
Oh cool, I was wondering when Rammstein was going to tour again
Russians don't use the MM-DD-YYYY date format...
The camera might not be Russian.
Neither do most of the world but if you buy a cheap CCTV camera and don't bother to change the settings there's 90% chance it will default to the US-format.
North Korean machine parts are the best!
Russia tomorrow :"why would Ukraine/the west/anyone else they don't like right now, do this?"
Where the hell did that guy come from???
That looks....expensive
I wonder if this is another StuxNet .....
If it is in fact Russia,then it seems strange that the cctv date is in english with roman characters rather than using cyrillic which would look like среда
When traveling on to the Russian launch facility in Baikonur, the stop signs were spelled 'STOP' rather that 'СТОП' which was off the base. It was the classic red octagon with white lettering...I suppose they implemented that after they open up the place for foreign civilian launches.
Very satisfying, just the right size for a big bag of marshmallows
Where are the fire suppression systems?
Blyat. Suka Blyat
Stuxnet
I hope this is sabotage, Russia has been conducting sabotage attacks throughout Europe. Paybacks a mutha fucka
Cue the "not great, not terrible" Chernobyl quote.
That's what happens when you let the magic smoke escape.
Well, I mean, at least this time, they didn't poison half of eastern Europe, right? That means they're improving, right?
You could argue that as it is believed to be a coal power plant, it probably had a net positive effect on air quality 😁
"Quick! Someone get hoses and start spraying water on it!"
You'd think there was some sort of emergency shutoff for the fuel that's feeding the fire.
In the vast majority of instances, you REALLY don't want to shut off the lube oil to a spinning turbine, an ongoing fire is pretty much the only time you do. The trade off is that if you automate fire detection with an oil isolation valve and it spuriously activates, you destroy the bearings and possibly the entire turbine instead. Plenty of water mist/ cooling from firewater and manual shutoffs away from the fire are common in this scenario.
Just to add to your comment. These larger turbines typically have 2 AC lube oil pumps and an emergency DC lube oil pump. The AC pumps are designed to start automatically if its sister pump is not running or it senses low lube oil pressure. The DC pump is typically designed to start if neither of the AC pumps are running or an even lower pressure is detected. In nearly all applications, these have to all be manually turned off (Breaker opened) - because losing oil on a running turbine will cause catastrophic damage
the fuel is the bearing oil the controls should have tripped the unit before they got hot enough the catch fire all at once
My cousin who worked at a power plant got to see what happen when power down a turbine. Normally, it took 30 minutes to coast to a stop. Somebody screwed up on the procedure and missed a page and cut off the oil and got to see it coast to a stop of sorts in about three minutes.
It could be a couple things but I am certain it is not that. I have only ever seen a combustion turbine take 30 minutes to get put on turning gear. Looking at data from some of the turbine I am in charge your comment is funny
Blew a gasket
I can't stand it... I know you planned it... Imma set it straight... This watergate... ...Im telling ya'll!
What must it be like to live in a country which is built so shit, like at least in India or something you know the risk you're taking since you're literally sat on the top of a train, but in Russia, everything looks fine but is basically a ticking time bomb.
Would Russian CCTV use the American date format?
It wouldn't be unheard of for it to be US manufactured cameras.
I would be surprised that there would be any US manufactured cameras. Don't they all come from china in some capacity?
Before the Ukraine War consumer trade was common between the US and Russia.
I was wondering the same thing.
What is it with Russians and their power plants?
I wonder if this could be the result of a hack.
That’s the Night that the lights went out Georgia!
Overspeed? Is that you stuxnet?
Its broken.
This is what happens when your hauk tua game isn't on point. When the lube fails all sorts of bad things happen.
Looks like sabotage
Let’s hope so.
And you can tell that on hand of what clue in the video?
Over reving, full fuel, nothing kicked in to slow the machine down, odd, almost like it was told to go full speed and not stop.
It’s unlikely this happens by accident. There are safeguards in place to prevent it. Odd I’m being downvoted tbh I’ve a fair amount of experience in this area
Chernobyl vibes
Ooooh hydrogen 💣
My high ass was thinkin the vertical pixel lines were window blinds.
Nah, Ukraine thingy. They've lost so many power plants that they're over-extending the few ones that are left with the results as depicted.
"Climate Change"