When should you use your hazard lights?

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when to use hazard lights in germany - win

My Big Recommendations List for the Steam Winter Sale

This has been an absolutely miserable year but finally it’s coming to an end, and even looking up now that Facebook and Google are being sued by Federal and State governments. If you played Cyberpunk I’m sure you’ll also have your fingers crossed that both companies get the sledgehammer into little pieces, with Amazon and the App Store soon to follow. Next year is up in the air right now; it could be the year XR is completely strangled by those soulless corpo’s at Facebook, or it could be the year that OpenXR, anti trust action, and consumer apathy towards VR cut their legs out from under them. Things look completely up in the air at this point. So take the holidays and enjoy VR while you still can, next year we might just be playing Valve’s Citadel while the ship goes down.
Well Steam’s Winter Sale is here and it’s a great time to pick up a lot of great games, hidden gems, and so on. This is my list of games to pick up. Some of them are the best prices these games have ever had. I categorized them by price tier, and I put a few standouts in bold either because they’re a great game or a great deal, or both.
Merry Christmas
[I also made a hardware guide for headsets and PC components, a guide to using steamVR, a guide about how to use the Index for AR, and a master acab list of great VR games, demos, and software]
The Sale ends on January 5th at 10AM PT
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Also worth taking a look at, over at Fanatical they’re doing a “make your own bundle.” 2 games for $6.99, 3 games for $9.99, 5 games for $14.99
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South Africa part 4: The Soviet war against South Africa

South Africa part 4: The Soviet war against South Africa
Well I'm getting a good impression of why I waited 2 years to write this series. But we have arrived at the climax. Each part of the South Africa series explains crucial concepts as well as leads to the next part
We ended part 3 in 1910 with the initiation of the Union of South Africa. Afrikaner nationalism had been crushed and a British style government created. We'll cover what happens in the next part but the next 50 years are pretty good for South Africa as well and it gets stronger not weaker. The 30 after that are devastating and bring it down. You might ask how was this done? The South Africa of 1910 and 1960 is a country with a healthy economy with vibrant mining at its core. It has British naval protection for its southern shores and is surrounded by friendly countries for 1000 miles to the north. The South Africa of 1990 is a militarily exhausted country with hostiles on every border feeding arms to internal 5th columnists who eventually take power. What happened in the late 1980s doesn't make sense without understanding how South Africa became militarily exhausted, surrounded by enemies and lost control of its borders. This part will discuss how it happened. But I'll start with a warning that all the action we will discuss will take place outside South Africa.
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Map of Africa
I want you for a moment to imagine yourself as a Soviet strategist in 1960 during the Cold War trying to think about how to take Southern Africa for the Soviet block and remove it from the Western alliance. Because of their extensive mineral wealth the two main targets for are the Belgian Congo (Zaire) and British South Africa. Everything else is a means to an end, those two are the ends.
The vast majority of the population in Southern Africa is oppressed by the colonial and post-colonial structures. In most countries the colonial forces are weak, the metropoles have mostly lost the will to fight hard. The indigenous populations permanently loyal to the metropoles are small. A huge majority population opposes their rule or can be easily radicalized by the promises of achieving the same successful decolonizations (remember this is 1960) that have happened all over the planet. There are obviously some exceptions like Botswana where they colonial regime is popular. South Africa is sort of median where the importation of the Afrikaner population in the 17th century by the Dutch and their growth (even including the genocide of the 1890s) means the West/British do have a loyal population that is substantial but not remotely a majority and the post-colonial government is extremely unpopular with the black population.
These former (and sometimes current) Western colonies all interconnect so they currently support one another. Which means they have to be attacked as a group. To make this doable at reasonable cost you are going to have to focus on the weak points, flip those and then use those holes to go after the harder targets. Belgium's Congo (Zaire) colony is completely isolated, the government incompetent and short sighted and absolutely detested by the population. This is one of the two targets, flipping the Congo is not going to be hard so this goes first. South Africa conversely is likely the hardest target with its excellent defensive position and good internals. South Africa is also the most militarily powerful. South Africa is the keystone of the Western position, victory here is victory over Southern Africa. Lose here and the West likely can regain ground. So there is no avoiding South Africa. Southern Africa is far from Russia and the USA is going to be able to block a major invasion force. So direct interference is out you are going to be using typical Marxist / Soviet strategy of internal subversion mostly with military aide and advisors rather than straight up external conquest to flip these countries. This sort of strategy also has the benefit of being considerably cheaper than directly invading. South Africa can hold any one of these colonies by itself but likely can't hold all of them at the same time while having to repress their population. So obviously make Sough Africa constantly fight on multiple fronts simultaneously.
There are some tribes which are happy about the current colonial or post-colonial structures: Botswana and Swaziland for example. Botswana is a terrific border for South Africa but the population views themselves as having benefited enormously from colonialism and the tribes there adore British rule. Those are going to be much hard targets to hold much like Eastern European locations like Poland or Hungary are today. Our goal is to exhaust South Africa so we want them fighting on hostile terrain always. These happy colonies don't interconnect so they can't form a wall which means they can safely be pushed off. Swaziland is out. Botswana despite its excellent map location is out as well. They can safely go after South Africa.
So after the Belgian Congo what's the next tempting target? Portuguese Angola and Mozambique are both terrific. A hated and incompetent administration. Mozambique directly borders South Africa and Angola directly borders Namibia a South African colony. So South African logistics will be easy and the terrain hostile. Terrific way to make them spend a fortune. Those are obviously going to be the best first targets because internal subversion will work so well. That will take time but once you are successful that gets you an equal footing with the British for cross support into slightly harder targets. After you subvert the countries where the colonial administration is weak and destructive you spread out to places where the colonial administration is either weak or destructive but not both. Looking at the map the two Rhodesias and South Africa's colony in Namibia come immediately to mind. These being friendly are for South Africa vital national interests. South Africa is going to be forced to be directly fighting you there. South Africa will militarily exhaust itself having to fight Soviet expansion on unfriendly ground where you not they will have support of the locals on multiple front simultaneously.
Which bring us to South Africa itself. After you are successful flipping the "or" states you would have South Africa completely surrounded by enemies. You will be able to feed weapons and money to elements in South Africa friendly to the Soviets (i.e. the Xhosa and some other tribes) and perform internal subversion there even against the now militarily exhausted Afrikaners. Make the Afrikaners fight you to exhaustion on unfriendly ground before challenging them more seriously on their home country's more friendly ground so they are weaker when they have to challenge the Xhosa. Were the Afrikaners better strategists they would see their way out of this trap but instead they have that German strategic tendency to not separate hazards but rather constantly get themselves into two front battles. Oh look at this they just added another front. The Afrikaners are creating tension with the British just when they will need each other to contain the Soviet threat (discussed in part 6)!
The obvious strategy to anyone who reads the map is precisely what the Soviets did. That's how South Africa was defeated. College students pushing divestment campaigns, not letting South Africans play international soccer and rugby, and boycotts by rock musicians did nothing. Millions died in Mozambique because they got South African border first and thus bore the full brunt of South Africa's counter attack. Incidentally they were knocked out of the war, and Mozambique 3 decades later still hasn't recovered from the damage they took. Hundreds of thousands died in Angola and in Zimbabwe. And that's not counting the economic devastation of decades of war. Regime change in South Africa took the lives of millions of Africans fighting and dying in these Southern African wars so as to tighten the noose around the Afrikaner government. Claiming it was western college students if to my mind spitting on their graves. It is both insulting and ridiculous.
Here is a table outlining how the Soviets beat South Africa':
Colony Name Current state name Name of war(s) Years of war Years of South Africa involvement
Mozambique Mozambique Mozambican War of Independence, Mozambican Civil War 1965-92 1974-84
Angola Angola Angolan War of Independence, Angolan Bush War 1961-90 (approximately 1968) - 1988 (heavy 1975-88)
South Rhodesia Zimbabwe Bush War 1964-1979 1964-79 (heavy 1972-79)
South West Africa Namibia South African Border War 1950-1990 1950-90 (heavy 1975-88)
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It is not hard to see from this table why South Africa entered the late 1980s, exhausted and far weaker from 4 wars on hostile terrain. It is not hard to see why the South Africa of the late 1980s was far easier to flip than it was in 1960. We haven't got to the actually flipping of South Africa but we have gotten to the fatal wounding.
If you want to stop reading this article everything below the line is just a few more details of these battles and is not fundamental to the narrative.
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Details
Mozambique -- This is the country with the worst of the fighting from South Africa. Portugal was having to fight simultaneous colonial rebellions in Cape Verde, Guinea, Angola and Mozambique. In Mozambique the opponent was FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique). In the first wave of the war Portugal sent in a large army with the Soviets and the Chinese arming FRELIMO. Quickly the local population started supporting FRELIMO and Tanzania offered strategic depth to FRELIMO. By 1967 FRELIMO has holding territory 1/5th of the country and 1/7th of the population. In 1969 Portugal realized they were losing and began conducting a large scale development operation to get the population back on their side. They also began recruiting a native army to fight FRELIMO called "Flechas units". FRELIMO responded with lots of urban terrorism against towns providing Flechas and the war started to take on characteristic of a civil war with outsiders providing arms and troops to both sides. In 1974 the Portuguese army tired of the colonial wars staged a coup ending Portuguese involvement. They evacuated the Portuguese civilians (approximately 300k) and handed Mozambique over to FRELIMO. Mozambique was directly on South Africa's border and FRELIMO was a Soviet proxy. The ANC was immediately able to move their base from Tanzania to Mozambique. South Africa had not choice but to take up the fight.
The Portuguese who had been forced out were the bulk of Mozambique's middle class without them FRELIMO couldn't operate the economy. Industrial and social recession, corruption, poverty, inequality and failed central planning made the economic problems worse. South Africa and South Rhodesia (north Rhodesia was already felled) became the state sponsor for RENAMO (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana) guerillas in 1975. By 1977 they were in fighting shape and took an economic situation in Mozambique that was already dreadful and made it much worse. In addition to extensive military casualties over 1m Mozambicans died from famine as a result of the dreadful economy. In 1984 Mozambique surrendered signing the Nkomati Accord taking Mozambique out of the fight against South Africa. The civil war took another 8 years to wind down and Mozambique has still not recovered from the damage.
Zimbabwe -- This country changed names a lot during the few decades. South Rhodesia (1923-65), Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (1953-63), Rhodesia (1965-70), Republic of Rhodesia (1970-9), Zimbabwe Rhodesia (1979), Zimbabwe (1980-) all refer to essentially the same place. Zambia (North Rhodesia) was given independence early to make South Rhodesia easier to defend. There wasn't a war for the North. In the South on the Soviet side we had Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, the military wing of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU); and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army of Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). Yugoslavia (Soviet client state) was throwing money are arms at everyone anti-South Africa. ZANU got additional help from China, Libya, Tanzania and Ethiopia. ZAPU was getting direct Soviet assistance, Zambia, Bulgaria, East Germany and Cuba. On the side of the Afrikaners we had the white Rhodesians themselves and South Africa getting some light assistance from Israel and Portugal. Additional South African intelligence resources likely helped divert Polish munition intended for Uganda (Idi Amin) to Rhodesia.
The South Africans held on a long time but this was another exhausting war. First Phase (1964–1972), Second Phase (1972–1979). During the Second phase South Africa upped their financial aide and directly contributing about 5,000 of their own troops. Total size being subsidized throughout was 8,000-11,000 additional police at all times, 19,000-35,000 additional police reserves to handle uprisings
The white civilians themselves were also acting as militias. Even woman frequently carried submachine guns when out in public. Civilian transport used convoy techniques. As the militias began to be able to inflict losses on local guerilla groups (particularly ZANU) ZANU turned to mass mining of roads and the South Africans responded by developing mine resident vehicles and helping subsidize their purchase for civilian use.
By 1975 the Rhodesians made a last attempt to win the war and used chemical weapons against guerilla water supplies as well as good depots. This proved effective though of course civilian casualties among the black population were high. When this didn't break the back of the guerillas the local Rhodesians and the guerilla forces agreed they were at a military stalemate and entered into negotiations for majority rule and while the war would continue until 1979 the violence peaked in 1975-6. Ignoring details Robert Mugabe emerged as dictator of the new Zimbabwe and created a regime based on: economic mismanagement, widespread corruption, anti-white racism, human rights abuses, and crimes against humanity until 2017 when he was ousted in a coup. One can count frequent massacres of tens of thousands under Mugabe among civilians as a consequence and cost of the war.
Angola The second prong of the Soviet attack against would be Namibia giving the Soviets direct access on both the North East and North West of South Africa. To get to Namibia the Soviets had to cut through Angola which like Mozambique was a Portuguese colony. During the late 1960s South Africa began directly helping Portugal in the Angolan War of Independence with aircraft and helicopters. The colonial Portuguese airforce and the South African airforce were united. Starting in 1974 Portugal was brokering a peace which mainly involved their withdraw the hope of avoiding Portuguese whites from being driven out. By 1975 Cuba was backing Communist factions of black fighters with South Africa backing opposition black factions. The Soviet Union intervened directly to keep Cuba focused on South African containment and not the political policy in Angola. Cubans doubled then quadrupled their forces by 1976, with Sweden acting as a political mouthpiece for Cuban / Soviet policy. Israel in 1976 became an arms dealer to South African backed groups with mixed American backing (i.e. American governmental factions were divided) with the CIA on Israel/South Africa's side. With the USA involved the Soviets were more free to up their involvement. The Americans escalated again and in 1979 were able to broker another peace agreement preventing this war from becoming a direct conflict between the 1st and 2nd world. With Angolan factions receiving tactical training and arms from many side battles went from dozens to thousands dying at approximately World War 2 levels of sophistication. This proxy war and direct fighting continued straight through to 1988 when South Africa had to withdraw from both Angola and Namibia.
Namibia Namibia was the second half of the Soviet border attack. Namibia had been German and thus had been made a protectorate (colony) of South Africa's after World War 1. In the late 1940s South Africa began trying to establish apartheid in Namibia turning the vast majority of the population against their rule. Several of the ethnic homelands bordered Angola directly. By the 1950s the natives had two major organizations: South West African National Union (SWANU) and South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO). SWAPO would fight until independence becoming the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN). By 1975 SWAPO/PLAN was getting direct arms from the Soviets, Cuba, and Angola. This involvement kept South Africa fighting in Angola as well as Namibia tying up thousands to troops for decades. By 1988 South Africa signed the Triparte Agreement with Cuba and Angola ending the colonial war and handing Namibia over to SWAPO. Namibia would have been a terrific base for Soviet action but by then both South Africa and the Soviets were on their last legs. As a result and much to SWAPO's credit SWAPO did keep their promise and Namibia had multiparty democracy under an agreed upon constitutional system.
Botswana -- I wanted to cover because its an obvious border country. It was peaceful here is why. King Kharma III (1872–1873, 1875–1923) was chief of the Bangwato tribe. In his early 20s (1850s) he allied himself and his regime with British missionaries converting to Christianity and encouraging other Botswanans to. This alliance allowed him to carry out a missionary led technological transformation of Botswana. The economy exploded as he opened primary schools (some secondary and even a college), grain silos, water reticulation systems.... The British helped him encouraged free and a trade economy. Moreover Kharma was able to use his influence with the missionaries to prevent Afrikaner settlement and thus there were no white settlers. Because of the alliance the Bangwato had British help in oppressing the San tribe that didn't agree to this pro western approach to this day. Remained friendly throughout South African history. When Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army and Umkhonto we Sizwe bases appeared drawing it into the fighting it formed its own military to chase them off. Current military is weak but is mostly USA trained and aligned with USA goals militarily.
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The Creature in the Baltic

I am an oceanographer. Ever since my family started bringing me to the beach when I was young, I was fascinated by the sea, but fascination turned to something else when I was hired to work in an underwater sealab in the Baltic.
My name is Will. I had recently graduated with a degree in marine biology and was looking to start my career. I had always thought that the only underwater research lab had been off the coast of Florida, the Aquarius Reef Base, but here I was staring at an application to work on another sealab across the world. I chalked my lack of knowledge up to my own incompetence, and applied for the job.
It wasn’t long before I got a reply. A sophisticated man with a German accent spoke with me about my education and all the other regular things that you would hear in a job interview, but at the end of the conversation, things started to get a little weird.
“Are you in any way afraid of any sea life like sharks for example?” asked Bertram, the German interviewer.
“I have a healthy fear of ocean predators,” I said. “But I don’t mind swimming with them. They mostly aren’t interested in humans.”
“Good to hear!” he said. “I completely agree. The job will involve some diving in some deeper waters, and this can make some people uneasy.”
To my surprise, I was hired. I boarded a plane and ended up in Rostock, a medium sized German port city. I made my way over to the port itself, where I was to meet with the team and start travelling to my new home under the sea.
I had read the documents they had sent over to familiarize myself with the underwater environment. I had noticed however that there were no bathrooms, and this seemed a little strange. I assumed that I probably would just go in the ocean. I had been peeing in the ocean since I was a kid, but I had never gone number two. I laughed to myself as I thought of how silly it was that I was dwelling on such a triviality.
When I arrived on the dock there was Bertram. I recognized him from the video conference we’d had before. He was taller than I had figured. Next to him stood another, tall skinny man.
“Ah! Speak of the devil,” Bertram said as I approached. His accent made me chuckle to myself, but his grammar and diction were very good nonetheless. “Will, I would like you to meet Derek, our colleague.”
Derek also seemed very polite, and his English was excellent.
“We have a team of French, German, and English speakers. We mostly speak English, but you will have to forgive us if occasionally we start ranting in our native tongues together,” said Bertram
At that, Derek mumbled something in German, and they both laughed.
We hitched a ride on another vessel out towards the east. After about an hour, I saw a little ship.
“That is the Hoffnung,” said Bertram. “Our humble ship.”
The ship was small and rusty. It looked like it had seen better days. Something seemed off. The facility underwater was much too advanced to be paired with such a beat up looking ship.
We geared up for the dive.
As far as depth is concerned, the Baltic is pretty shallow, yet I was surprised to hear that we would be diving down to a depth of 65 meters. The deepest I had ever gone was 30, and going 65 didn’t help my growing anxiety.
“Don’t worry, it is a one way trip, so it isn’t very dangerous, you don’t have to worry about the bends.”
I remembered how cool it was that the underwater facility used ambient pressure and a moonpool. The entire facility was pressurized. It was still too deep for humans to live at the pressure between seven and eight atmospheres. Though humans can free dive quite deep, they cannot live in such crushing pressures for extended periods of time. Three atmospheres was what the facility was pressurized to. Still, the time saved not having to go back and forth between sea level, and seven atmospheres made this facility useful for studying the seabed. We have all heard how we know less about our oceans than outer space. This was what fascinated me so much about the sea.
The beginning of the descent was uneventful. Things started to become darker as less light was able to penetrate the depths. When we reached 40 meters, it felt like I was entering another world. It was surreal. I had never been this deep before, and I remembered my diving instructor mentioning how dangerous it was. People were said to fall into a trance.
As we continued to descend into the misty depths, a building appeared. It was taller than I had expected, spanning at least three stories upward. Certainly this was not the facility that I had read about. Soon enough however I saw the moonpool. It was a peculiar thing to emerge from the ocean into an indoor swimming pool, and we all treaded water for a minute.
Bertram and Derek turned and smiled at me. I couldn’t help but smile back. It was just so badass. I felt like I was in some kind of sci-fi movie. The room we were in was pressurized higher than the rest of the facility, and we made our way into a depressurization chamber, after removing our gear.
“Watch your arm,” said Derek as I clumsily walked into a loose panel. It grazed my skin a little.
“Sorry,” said Bertram. “I should have mentioned the loose panel.”
“The facility is much larger than I read,” I said, inquiring about the large structure I had seen.
“Yes,” said Bertram. “That document is out of date. The facility has expanded in several areas, though we lowly scientists are to remain in our humble quarters.”
He and Derek laughed.
“I thought that this facility was entirely run by scientists,” I said. The job application had been from the website of GEOMAR, a prestigious research institution in Germany.
“It started that way, but after funding was cut back, it looked like we were going to have to abandon the facility,” said Bertram. “But then they discovered the ore deposits down the hole.”
“The hole?” I asked.
We entered the habitat I had familiarized myself with from the manual. There was a bunkhouse, a mess hall, and a couple other rooms for science and storage.
“Is this the new bloke?” asked a voice from around the corner. In walked a short man with a smile on his face. He had instant charisma. “Don’t let the krout scare you mate. Things are peachy down here.” He shook my hand with a vigor that left my arm noodling. He was a middle aged man, a little older than the rest of them. “Name’s Doug. I am from Newcastle.”
I nodded.
“This whole Krout thing.” said Bertram. “I just don’t understand why you all think it is offensive. It just means cabbage. Your people’s world war two put downs weren’t very good.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at their relationship when, suddenly, a loud explosion rang out. They all grabbed for something to brace themselves with.
“Is everyone alright?” came a shrill worried voice from deeper into the facility, amidst the flickering buttons and endless readouts. A french woman cautiously came into the room hugging the wall. Despite the fear the crash moments ago had instilled, she smiled politely to me.
“Welcome Will. It is good to see you,” she said somewhat nervously.
“Hi,” I said smiling back. She was wearing a cap and bulky crewman coveralls, yet I could tell that she was really beautiful.
“The bastards are really pushing our luck with those explosions,” said Doug. “They’re gonna get us all killed.”
“Why are there explosions?” I asked.
“We didn’t have the funding to keep this place running, we were forced to entice some other parties. I said it then and I say it now. It was a short sighted decision,” said Doug.
“Yes, but what choice did we have?” asked Bertram.
The rest of the day was spent familiarizing myself with the facility. Everything was just like it said in the manual, except for an ominous looking door just after the depressurization chamber. That was new.
Though the whole place looked like a futuristic spaceship, this door seemed to be even more so. It looked strong.
“At first there was constant traffic in and out, but after they completed their submarine docking station, a soul hasn’t passed through that door in months. We occasionally speak with one of them on the radio, but we have less and less contact as they need us less. It is a little strange, but it is better than being shut down,” said Bertram as he noticed me looking at the door.
“Who exactly are they?” I asked.
“At first it was underwater welders and construction workers who worked for a German mining company, all the usual stuff, but after several months the miners left and apparently ownership of the facility changed hands again, though I have heard nothing about who. GEOMAR has been vague about it all. No doubt they are up to some kind of exploitative act, probably attempting to weaponize something beautiful. That is why I get the feeling that we are no longer welcome in our own facility. They wouldn’t want their secrets exposed by us pesky good intentioned scientists,” said Bertram laughingly.
Eventually I had to go to the little boys room, and I finally inquired as to how this was done. They all laughed.
“It is a pleasure goin’ number two durin’ the day! The fish can get quite frisky” said Doug.
Manon rolled her eyes, smiling.
“The fish sometimes eat your waste,” she said. “Don’t let Douglas scare you, they are just fish.”
“There is a dome several meters out from the moonpool where you can hang out and do your business. But you won't catch me goin’ out there in the dark,” said Doug.
“Ha. Yeah I can imagine the fish are much more frightening in the dark,” I said.
“Actually that is the weird part,” said Bertram. “There are no fish at night.”
Manon lashed the shirt she was holding at Bertram’s arm punishingly, yet in a soft motheringly way.
“I am just saying, I don’t go number two at night either,” said Bertram.
“If it is an emergency, I drop the log right in the moonpool and you should too,” said Doug. “Floaters be damned.”
“That is disgusting,” said Manon.
“Why do the fish only come at night?” I asked.
“We aren’t sure why. Derek thinks it has to do with their body chemistry. Their noradrenaline levels start to spike as the light stops shining through. They scatter in all directions,” explained Manon.
“All except towards the hole,” said Derek.
“What is this hole?” I asked.
“It is the twenty meter wide hole in the bottom of the ocean out the moonpool to the east. It is hard to miss. We stay away from there,” said Derek.
I made a point to do my business during the daylight and was alarmed and amused by the amount of fish it attracted. I swam out to the dome and soon several fish began to investigate me.
I looked around in the area and saw the massive hole to the East. I could see that the facility must have been built to study the hole.
It was starting to get a little darker and I was ready to swim back to the moonpool when I noticed a small submersible ascending out of the hole. The submersible propelled itself towards the large three story complex attached to our habitat. A hatch opened and the submersible ascended up into the hatch. My imagination ran wild as to what this mysterious other faction was up to behind that hatch.
As weird as it all was, after several days I had fallen into a rhythm and everything became normal. I would gather samples and document the wildlife by day, and study my findings as well as talk to my colleagues at night. Occasionally there would be an explosion, and, like clockwork, a submersible or two would ascend from the hole at sunset.
Sunset became a time of caution, I noticed. The fish would remain until it was dark, but almost in a flash, they all knew to disappear as the last sun rays left. It was part of a fascinating cycle. I had seen things like this in nature before, like when bats all fly out of a cave at the same time, or birds migrating for winter, but this was different. There was a desperation about it. For the fish, it was more of a desperate scramble. I quickly understood why Doug wouldn’t go number two at the dome after dark. I found out that none of them did.
Every day I would walk by the mysterious door leading to the other facility, but the hallway beyond was always dark, and I could never see that far. It was unnerving. On top of that there were no portholes or windows of any kind to look into from the outside, only the submersibles at sunrise and at sunset.
One day I joked.
“Maybe one of us should try to swim up the hatch one time,” I said.
The mood in the room became very tense. It wasn’t long before Manon burst into tears. I didn’t understand.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay mate, it isn’t your fault,” said Doug, as he went to console Manon.
I tried to look at Bertram who usually explained things to me when I was baffled, but his eyes remained fixed on his breakfast. I looked at Derek.
“It is time Will knows about Javier,” said Derek.
Nobody said a word. All that could be heard was Manon sobbing.
“Who is Javier?” I asked.
“Javier was the marine biologist you replaced,” said Derek. “And he also had the idea to swim up the hatch.”
“We were informed that he was dead over a week later, the bastards,” said Doug. “We began searching desperately, but after a couple hours, we knew that the air would have run out. We started searching for his body. Apparently the whole time, he was in the other facility.”
“What?” I asked, mortified.
“Aye. They said that there had been an accident and they weren’t able to save ‘em,” said Doug.
“And they waited to tell you?” I asked.
He nodded.
I never looked at the hatch the same way. Had Javier been trapped in there and run out
of air? Surely there must have been some way he could have entered the facility as it is how the submersibles went in and out.
Over the coming days, things went back to normal, or at least, as normal as living 60 meters underwater could be. I didn’t dare broach the subject of Javier. I just kept my head down and did my work. There was plenty of plant life to catalog, not to mention all of the different species of fish and jellyfish. Occasionally a pod of sea mammals would pass through.
As I was performing my nightly bathroom ritual before the dark set in, one night I noticed the submersible ascending from the hole as always, only this time, it seemed to be having trouble moving through the water. It almost seemed to be stuttering. As I looked closer, I saw what looked like markings on the side of the vessel, as if it had been in some kind of accident down there. I shuddered to think of what would have happened if the craft had been damaged more.
There I tread in the outhouse dome, pondering what I just saw. It made me feel uneasy, but nothing like what I felt after what I saw next. My gaze fell back on the giant sinkhole. There at the very edge, I saw something that will horrify me for the rest of my life. I saw a head looking back. The rest of the body was hidden down the hole. Just the head, as if it was peering at me. Even with the water clouding the distance between us, I felt his stare burn into my soul. Here, 60 meters below in the middle of the ocean was a face, completely unencumbered by gear, no air tanks. What was he breathing?
I must have been hallucinating, but the moment lasted for what seemed like a lifetime. Up until then, it was the longest moment of my life. His eyes locked on mine, just his head.
As it got darker, I came out of my confused trance. I made a mad dash for the moonpool. I didn’t dare look back. I leapt out of the moonpool and into the decompression chamber. I was terrified. I stared at the moonpool through the window, half expecting the head to emerge from the water.
How could a man have been in the hole? He would have had to have held his breath for at least five minutes as I hadn’t seen anyone else as I swam to the dome. Although with training, a human being can hold their breath that long, something was just off. I had goosebumps all over my body. I had heard of pressurized air playing tricks on people’s minds. Perhaps I had nitrogen narcosis.
I quickly went in and told the others.
“Elevated levels of nitrogen affect us all in different ways,” said Manon as she examined me. “It is possible that you hallucinated.”
“I must have,” I said.
“If anything like this happens again, come tell us right away,” she said.
I noticed Derek looking at me from across the habitat. He quickly looked away when I made eye contact. There was something about it that made me feel like he knew more.
I decided to sleep it off, but had wild dreams about what I saw.
I woke in a cold sweat. I felt even more exhausted than before.
The crew, for the most part, hadn’t noticed that I was a little off. All except Derek. He approached me that night.
“You must be feeling a little rattled,” he said. “I was good friends with Javier. When he died, I sort of lost it a little bit. I couldn’t sleep or eat. I even saw things too.”
He became very serious.
“This place is dangerous. More so than the others understand,” said Derek.
He brought me over to a laptop and opened up a folder with images. He then brought up a picture of the crew all happily posing. There they all were, Doug, Manon, Derek and Bertram. Then my eyes came to rest on the fifth person, and when they did, electricity ran through my body all at once as horror welled up from the depths of my soul into my throat. There stood the very same face that had stared at me from the hole, and all at once I knew who that was, what Derek had seen, and what it meant.
I could barely speak. I just muttered.
“That was the man I saw,” I said.
“We have to tell the others, and they are not going to believe it, or like it,” he said.
We headed into the common room where the others were gathered. Derek led bluntly in a dire tone.
“We both saw Javier, alive in the water,” he said.
Doug almost dropped what he was doing and turned around to look at us, then looked at Bertram who was as bewuthered as him. Then they both broke into laughter.
Manon looked very upset.
“That is not funny Derek. And Will, I didn’t think you were like this,” she said.
“Derek showed me a picture of Javier, and it was without a doubt the same face that looked at me,” I said. I didn’t care about impressing Manon anymore. Something was horribly wrong.
“I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me because Javier had just died. I heard you can see people sometimes who have just died,” said Derek. “So I didn’t think much of it. But one thing is very clear. We need to leave,” he said. It was empowering to be next to him. I would have never had the courage to say these things.
There was a moment of silence.
“Okay, I will put in the call for the ship to come pick up whoever wants to leave, I guess, but this is my life’s work. I can’t just leave because you think you saw a ghost, you understand,” said Doug, respectfully.
“I strongly urge you to reconsider,” said Derek. “And we can’t wait for the ship to get us, we need to take the Hoffnung, now.”
Suddenly this wasn’t sounding like such a good idea. The Hoffnung had seen better days.
Bertram started to argue with Derek in German. Manon and Doug started jumping in and I had no idea what was going on. At last, however, Derek won out with a loud exclamation that silenced the rest. He then turned to me.
“I know it seems like the Hoffnung isn’t seaworthy, but she is. She passed the required inspection.”
“That was five years ago, Derek, really,” said Doug. “There is a reason we don’t use her anymore, she is a floating platform, just in case something happens down here. Really, what is another day to wait for the ship?” he said.
“If you had seen what we had seen, you would understand,” said Derek.
I wasn’t sure what to do. On the one hand, waiting another day for a proper ship to take us back seemed reasonable. Yet, what if that thing in the water came into the moonpool tonight? What if it came into the decompression chamber?
“Very well. I am going to make the call to be picked up,” said Derek.
He left and came back moments later.
“There is a storm coming. They can’t make it here for two days,” he said.
My stomach started to turn. That rusty old boat was starting to look more and more enticing.
I was starting to feel better about everything. There were tests to be run, and flora to be catalogued. Manon even helped me, which put me at ease. During the day she started asking me questions.
“So you are sure that it was Javier that you saw?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “He must still be alive, but we watched each other for minutes. I don’t know anyone who can hold their breath that long.
Manon looked at me horrified.
“He was a good swimmer,” she said. “But five minutes?”
“I know,” I said.
After I finally started to feel normal again, I started to feel tired, even though it was just the afternoon. Something about the pressure, or being cooped up. That was why I went to sleep early that night. Going to sleep early turned out to be a giant mistake.
I woke up in the late evening around ten. I had to poop something fierce. I instinctively went over to the decompression chamber. When I entered the moonpool, for the first time, I saw pitch black water. I stood there watching it ripple. Beyond was just the murky black depths.
I remembered Doug admitting he wouldn’t go to the bathroom at night, and now, I understood. I walked up to the edge and looked down. There was absolutely no way I was going to swim to the out house dome. With little options left, I pulled down my trousers and attempted a squat right over the moonpool.
Still, squatting there, I couldn’t help but look back every couple seconds to make sure something wasn’t coming up to grab me. It felt silly, but it was a very vulnerable position to be in. After trying for a couple minutes, I stood back up. It is amazing what kinds of things the body will do when it knows it is not safe. I suddenly felt no urge to go to the bathroom at all. I slowly backed away from the edge of the moonpool keeping my eyes on its dark, rippling depths. I thought I saw something move. I felt a deep fear. I had to get out of there.
I went for the decompression chamber, and, to my horror, I saw out of my peripheral a mass cresting out of the water. I threw myself into the chamber and, as fast as I could, tried to throw the door closed.
A monstrous dark grayish green tentacle moved with startling speed and just as I was shutting the door, wrapped around my leg, sinking several spines into me. I cried with pain as the creature began to drag me out of the chamber. I slammed the door on the tentacle, but it was thick and strong, and continued to drag me. A second tentacle just like the first was starting to crest out of the moonpool.
Just then I looked up. It was the same sheet metal panel that had grazed me when I first walked in. I ripped it off the wall with surprising ease. With all my might, for my life, I cleaved the tentacle. It didn’t sever but I cut it deeply and it released me. Before the second tentacle could reach the chamber, I slammed the door with all my might. I looked at the tentacles prodding and probing the sealed door. It was absolutely horrifying. I knew they had every intent on dragging me down into the depths.
They were terrifying, like a giant octopus, with spiny thorns attached, to hook its prey. After what seemed like hours, the decompression finished. I had already been screaming and the others had gathered at the door. I exited the chamber and turned to the others.
“We have to get the hell out of here, now!” I screamed.
“Calm down,” said Manon. “What happened?”
“There is some kind of,” I stopped. I didn’t know what to say. “I know this sounds crazy but a massive, predatory invertebrate grabbed me in the moonpool.”
“Like a pacific octopus?” Doug asked curiously. They were not understanding the gravity of the situation. The tentacles weren’t visible from this angle, and I dared not open the door to show them. Instead I showed them my leg.
It was bleeding, though not profusely. The puncture wounds were still clearly visible. The others began to inspect his leg. Derek went into another room and came back with a couple knives. They were the only weapons we had available.
“At first light, all of us should make a break for the Hoffnung,” said Derek.
“But, what about the storm?” said Bertram.
“I would rather take my chances with the storm than be down here. At least I would die a natural death,” said Derek.
I don’t think the others understood, but I knew exactly what he meant. The idea of drowning in the open waters somehow seemed like a tolerable alternative.
It suddenly made sense. The explosions. The beaten up submersible. This animal was being studied by the other facility.
“One thing is certain,” said Derek. “The creature only seems to be around at night, and we seem to be safe in here. I am swimming for the Hoffnung in the morning. I strongly urge the rest of you to come.”
I nodded. The others looked among themselves, not knowing what to think.
We all went to our bunks and tried to sleep. After hours of tossing and turning, and staring at the entrance, half expecting a dark gray tentacle slither around the corner.
My wound felt better. Manon had bandaged it and applied disinfectant. I slowly started to nod off.
When I awoke, I started my daily routine. I even got ready to go out and swim to the bathroom when I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt a deep sense of horror, as if I was just remembering what had happened to me in the moonpool just hours before. I suddenly felt no urge to go to the bathroom at all. I just stood there gazing at the pressure chamber.
All of the others had risen and were mulling about.
“Have either of you seen Doug?” said Manon. “I am waiting for his data but I haven’t seen him.”
“Maybe he hasn’t woken up?” I said.
“He isn’t in his bunk,” said Manon. “I am starting to get worried.”
“He probably just went out for some samples,” said Bertram.
“You are probably right,” said Manon, and she started busying herself with her work.
I finally worked up the courage to go out to the bathroom dome.
The water was moving faster than usual, but nothing I couldn’t swim against. I could see how being a poor swimmer would be very hazardous and understood now why they insisted on strong swimmers in the job application.
Out at the dome, I looked around and realized that there wasn’t a fish in sight. Usually during this time of day, the ocean was full of them, but now, it was barren. It was unnerving.
I looked around the erie depths, trying to make out what I could through the misty sea water. I noticed something strange. The hatch to the other part of the facility was open. That same hatch that Javier had swam up. Upon thinking about Javier, my eyes darted back to the place where I had seen his eyes, staring at me from the hole. I shuttered and suddenly started to feel very vulnerable. I got done with my business and started back towards the moonpool.
When I entered the habitat I saw that Manon was coming my way with Bertram and Derek.
“There you are,” she said. “We are going out to look for Doug. He should have been back by now.”
“The hatch is open,” I said.
They all looked at one another.
“We will have to think about that later,” she said. “Everyone, suit up and make sure you are full of oxygen.”
The water was still moving fast due to the stormy conditions. It was difficult to fight against the current, but Doug should have come back by now, and there was a chance he was stuck and running low on air. We had to look for him. We checked down the slope in the opposite direction of the hole, but there was no sign of Doug. We finally came to the hole.
We shined our lights down into the depths. Nothing but darkness. After a while, our oxygen levels were getting low and we returned to the habitat. On our way back, we all saw the opened hatch. No doubt we were all thinking the same thing. Doug might have gone up the hatch for some reason.
When we had shed our gear in the moonpool, Derek was the first to mention this.
“We need to get in touch with the other part of the habitat,” he said. “I will try to radio them again.”
As I walked past the door that connected the two habitats, I peered down it’s corridor. Surely we could just override the locks and walk in there. It seemed like the right thing to do given the circumstances.
I shined my light down the corridor through the glass. It was strange. Something at the very end of the corridor seemed to be floating. I squinted and tried to discern what it was that I was looking at.
“Hey guys,” I said. “I think something is moving in there.”
We all gathered at the glass of the door and peered into the darkness. There was something that seemed to be hovering. It was drifting closer. I knew what it was before my mind could register what I was seeing. It was a strange feeling. On the one hand, there was a pen, but on the other, it was drifting right in the middle of the air. The pen was floating because the chamber had filled with water.
“It won’t break through,” said Derek. “This door is designed to withstand pressures far beyond this. It was always a possibility that one of the habitats would be compromised.”
His words did little to reassure me. I kept staring at that pen, as it seemed to drift aimlessly. It ricocheted off one of the walls, gently.
“What happened to all the people?” asked Bertram.
There was nothing but silence for a moment. Then Manon spoke.
“We have to go in there,” said Manon. “That must be where Doug is. Maybe he is trapped.”
Derek and Bertram exchanged glances and started speaking in German. Manon interrupted them and they all started yelling at each other. I stood there puzzled until finally they switched back to English.
“I can’t believe you two,” said Manon. “Doug would have done it to save you.”
“Doug is dead,” said Derek. “Or worse.”
“What do you mean ‘or worse’?” said Manon.
“He has been out of air for a while now and we all know it,” said Derek. “Bertram and I are going for the Hoffnung. We aren’t waiting for the ship.”
Bertram stood there looking as guilty as he was terrified. Finally, they were starting to understand. We had to get the hell out of there. I opened my mouth to agree adamantly, but Manon spoke first.
“I am going over there,” she said defiantly.
She looked at me and waited for me to speak.
“Okay,” I said. “I will go with you to look for Doug.”
“This is crazy,” said Derek. “I don’t want to be on that sinking boat in a storm any minute longer than I have to. We can’t wait for you.”
“One hour,” said Manon. “That is all we need.”
Derek and Bertram started arguing and German again.
“We will wait one hour,” said Bertram. “Then we will head to the surface together.”
Suiting up went fast. We did our final checks and dove back into the moonpool. The hatch seemed to beckon me. I thought of Javier, and how I had seen his head staring at me. Even now it gave me the chills, but I put it in the back of my mind.
Soon, we could almost see up the shaft. I thought of how much had happened in my life since I had taken this job. How much I had learned and seen. It was hard to remember what my life used to be like. It seemed like so long ago that I had been sleeping in a nice bed and eating all the food I wanted. Mostly, I thought about how much I had taken for granted. You don’t realize how important it is to feel safe until you don’t.
We reached the entrance of the shaft. It became dark fast. Manon turned on her light and my heart sank. At the end of the shaft was a metal door, but it looked as though it had been warped. What could have done this? Luckily, our divers' masks had radio communication built in.
“What could have done this?” said Manon. She looked over at me. She knew what I was thinking already.
“There is no creature ever discovered like the one you hallucinated, Will.”
I went to retort but stopped. There was no point in arguing. I wanted to live, not to be right.
“Let’s hope not,” I said.
It took everything I had, but I managed to start kicking, and swam up into the shaft. Manon soon followed after me. We traced the dark room with our lights. It seemed to have been some kind of submersible docking room. What once was a moonpool had been overtaken by water. All manner of clutter floated about.
It was unnerving to be there in the darkness, 60 meters beneath the surface of the water, in a breached habitat that had gone silent. I swatted a tablet away from my head as we continued onward.
The decompression chamber was wide open. Both of the large doors stood unsealed.
I knew what had happened. That creature that had tried to grab me, that.. giant octopus creature, had gotten through the decompression chamber. I couldn’t stop thinking about those tentacles that had grabbed me. They looked like they were as thick as a tree trunk as they disappeared into that black water. I will never forget it.
As we swam into the next room. It was large, and quite long. It was full of all types of computers and lab equipment, but in the center of a room and to my horror, there it was. That same, dark gray tentacle. It must have been fifty feet long. . I instinctively swam away. This was horror movie 101. I had done everything I could to convince Manon that my story was true. If she didn’t believe me now, it was on her. To my great relief I saw her swimming fast behind me. She now understood that our lives were in imminent danger.
As we rounded the corner in the room with the hatch we saw Doug. It seemed like a miracle. There he was, floating there in his diving gear.
We made it up towards the moonpool and started to get out of our gear. That’s when I caught out of the corner of my eye. Doug’s oxygen meter had been empty. Still, I didn’t think much about it as we made our way to the decompression chamber. I wish I had.
“Doug, I have to say it is good to see your stupid face,” said Manon. “Why didn’t you respond to my radio?”
Doug gave a slight smile.
“We looked everywhere for you,” I said.
He looked at me. He looked like he had some kind of debris in his eye. Still he said nothing. He just stared at me. That is when I realized that Bertram and Derek were nowhere to be found.
“Derek! Bertram!” I cried out.
“You don’t think they would have left without us do you?” asked Manon.
Suddenly, I heard a loud crash a distance from the habitat. It was as loud as the explosions, but it was different. I could tell Manon thought the same thing as we looked at each other in horror.
Putting it out of our mind, Manon and I desperately scrambled around the habitat. When we returned we noticed Doug standing by the decompression chamber. He seemed to be examining it.
“You okay there, Doug?” I asked.
He turned to me and gave me that same hollow stare. I had seen that stare before, somewhere. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He soon returned to the decompression interface. He just stared at it.
“Any ideas on where Derek and Bertram are Doug?” I asked, more to make conversation than anything else.
We stood there in silence for a moment. I dared not walk away.
Manon had made her way over to us after searching for Derek. By the look on my face she could tell that there was something wrong.
“Doug?” she asked.
After a moment of silence, Doug’s hand rose, and pressed one of the buttons.
He pressed another button. He was starting to figure it out. I tried to block the panel, but he swatted me away with a speed that was uncharacteristic of Doug. He was trying to open the decompression chamber.
I tried to push him away from the panel, but he headbutted me, hard. I fell to the ground. I felt woozy. I tried to stand up but fell over again.
“Manon,” I cried out. “Don’t let him open the chamber!”
Manon stood there, horrified, as I finally got to my feet, but it was too late. Doug managed to open the decompression chamber. Still, there was a failsafe mechanism. Both doors couldn’t be opened at once, unless overridden in an emergency. I had read about it in the manual before I came aboard. There was a way, but if it was done underwater at that depth, the moonpool’s integrity would fail, and the water would rush into the habitat.
Doug stood there once more, thinking. Thinking with that horrifying, hollow stare.
My head was still spinning but I managed to grab a hold of his arm and we both went tumbling over. I managed to dodge some swings at my head and scrambled backwards. Doug refocused his attention back on the panel. Suddenly a loud alarm sounded. It was over. The moonpool integrity had been compromised. Water immediately began to rush in.
Manon and I looked at each other in horror. She rushed over to a cabinet. The water was already up to our knees and rising fast.
Doug simply stared at us void of emotion. The water poured forth and in seconds I had taken a deep breath from the air at the top. I tried to think of something, anything, but before I could, Manon grabbed my hand. She had found the life raft. We swam for it.
We both started towards the moonpool when all of a sudden I felt a strong hand grip my leg. It was Doug.
I thrashed and kicked but to no avail. I tried to fight Doug with all I had left, but he was too strong, and I was running out of oxygen. The edges of my eyes were starting to turn black, and my lungs were crying out. This was it.
Suddenly Manon drove a fixed blade deep into Doug’s stomach. He momentarily let go and we scrambled out of the moonpool with Doug right behind us. To my horror, I saw Doug swimming down after us, blood pouring out. Manon screamed and pointed towards the hole. There was Javier, Bertram, and Derek swimming for us, all with that hollow, lifeless look in their eyes.
All we had to do was clear the building above us, and we could pull the rip chord. We were so close. That is when I saw the Hoffnung. It was the ship that was supposed to be above us, but there it was. I could barely make it out through the murky water, but it was hard to miss something so big. The storm, or maybe the others, had sunk it. That was what the crashing sound had been.
We cleared the structure, and just as the creatures were closing in on us, Manon ripped the cord.
Holding on, we started to ascend fast. I watched as we left that horrible place behind. It disappeared into the misty ocean underneath my feet.
We hung there, blind and helpless all the while thinking to ourselves, what if the others swam up after us? How long would it take them to reach us?
My joints were hurting and I knew why. Decompression sickness was setting in. Still, we were alive.
The more I strained to look, the more I started to make out several shadows. They were getting closer. I could start to make out the human bodies now, they were no more than several meters away, swimming for us.
My joints were in agony, and I felt so tired. I needed to sleep. Still, the sight of the surface so close, its glimmering majesty. Just a little farther.
We broke the surface gasping for air. The life raft was so close. We scrambled into it as I felt that fear of having my last leg grabbed, but it wasn’t. We had made it. We quickly looked over the side.
A chill ran down my spine as I saw, right beneath the surface, the faces of Javier, Derek, Doug, and Bertram. All of their eyes fixed on us. There they remained as if unable to break the surface. Doug was still bleeding profusely from his stomach, and a cloud of red was gathering. We collapsed in the bed of the life raft, exhausted. We had made it. We could feel their hands scratching at us through the raft. It was unnerving, but the raft seemed to be holding. The sun was setting and the sky was a beautiful pink color.
That brings us to now. The last light has gone away now. The others are still scratching at the bottom of the raft. The sun is no longer holding it at bay. The creature will surely come for us tonight.
submitted by CodingWoodsman to nosleep [link] [comments]

Nuclear power is often the subject of disinformation, spreading of FUD, and dismissed. This post addresses many of these points. Questions are welcome but civility required.

Nuclear power is often the subject of disinformation, spreading of FUD, and dismissed. This post addresses many of these points. Questions are welcome but civility required.
This post is about nuclear power. It is long. If you want to debate, that is welcome but please read this post first. It's likely I will have addressed your concern in it. There will be no tl;dr.
I've seen a fair few posts on here, and other "green" sites doing their best to discredit and undermine the science of nuclear power in lieu of glorified pipe dreams. That the world can go 100% "renewable" (with plenty of caveats tacked on the end of course, half of them unfeasible).
There are 4 main "arguments" against nuclear power. Danger, waste + storage, cost, and fuel availability. This post is to hopefully illustrate why all are red herrings designed to sew FUD and in actual fact keep us tied to a hydrocarbon-based grid.

Danger

This is a three-prong argument. The first usually invokes events such as Chernobyl, Fukushima, TMI, and other lesser incidents; the second invokes radiation safety; and the third mentions terrorism.
Starting with nuclear events, of these three I mentioned---only one is actually at all relevant and that's TMI. But mentioning it in terms of safety is the equivalent of comparing a ford model-T to a modern family saloon. Additionally, it led to the raft of safety measures we now have thus preventing it from ever happening again.
Chernobyl is a total red herring. While it wasn't a good event, it's pretty much the only event in nuclear power history that has led to any "significant" casualties, with the official death toll being 60 and numbers in the region of 6-20k cited from extended exposure. Whilst high for a single event, this makes up the vast majority of all nuclear incidents and in terms of death/TWh produced, still results in nuclear being the safest of all power sources. Plus, the RMBK reactor used on site wasn't designed for producing power, but for plutonium for nuclear bombs. As such, it was made deliberately unsafe so they could pop it open quickly to get the Pu out. It was this deliberate design choice that caused the failure. Obviously, this is not present in power-based reactors. It's also likely that the deaths are overestimated in this event due to the employment of the linear no-threshold model, which has repeatedly been shown to be flawed, and a hormetic model should instead be employed. This even gets ramped up to 11 in some countries that have radiation "spas" where you sit in a radon-filled basement in a bath-robe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24298226/
And Fukushima? Yes it wasn't ideal, but literally nothing has come of it. No increased cancers. No deaths. No change in the background radiation level. Those maps bandied about showing the "flow into the ocean"? Garbage designed to spread FUD. The site fundamentally failed because a tsunami was higher than the seawall and drowned the diesel generators that were below sea-level. If the reactor hadn't shut down, it's likely it wouldn't have failed at all. Fukushima is less anti-nuclear and more anti-diesel generator.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fukushima-emergency/
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-daiichi-accident.aspx
The clean-up will cost money yes, but see the section later about why that's actually a good thing. Other events such as the Windscale fire were also caused by plutonium production.
Now lets compare those deaths with another singular event: a damn bursting in China. 230k dead. More than 10x all the nuclear incidents ever yet I don't hear many here complaining about hydro-power.
https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/230000-died-in-a-dam-collapse-that-china-kept-secret-for-years/91699/
In fact, comparing all the methods of power generation as deaths/terawatt-hour produced, nuclear is safest by about an order of magnitude (in other words, 10x more power can be produced for each person killed by that method of generation). How many people do you want to die to keep your lights on?
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
The second of these prongs is fear of radiation. While I briefly touched on it when discussing Chernobyl, the fear runs much deeper. The main problem here is lack of scientific education, and an overzealous media. The thing about radiation is we are very good at detecting it, even at very low levels, and some units need to use very large numbers, such as atomic decays/second (Bq). Thing is, there are a lot of atoms in a small volume of anything. Avogadro's constant tells us that there are 6.022x1023 atoms in one mole of the substance. And one mole is the atomic number of the element in grams. So 92g of Uranium has 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms (approx). And with the density of U being ~19.1g/cm3, that's 5 cubic centimetres of uranium. Or a double shot in a bar.
This sort of numbering has led to the tongue in cheek unit "banana equivalent dose".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
Yes, that is the radiation dose you will get from eating a banana. In continuation, people will talk about waste being so hazardous, but without really understanding the numbers. So what are those numbers? Well, the granite worktop in your kitchen would be classed as nuclear waste under current legislation, thanks to radon in it.
Terrorism is another danger often cited. And this may even be a valid one, if there had ever been a terrorist attack on any nuclear plant across the world in the history of the human race. They're also designed to withstand a direct impact from a train or a 747, so a 9/11 attack isn't a concern. On a related vein, many conflate nuclear power with nuclear weaponry. These two implementations are about as different as can be, with the only commonality is that they both use a radioactive source. It would be like decrying a coal plant because C4 explodes as both are carbon based. Nuclear weaponry and nuclear power are fundamentally different technologies and cannot be conflated.

Waste/Storage

People don't think of granite worktops or gloves or aprons being "nuclear waste" though, they think of leaking soft steel barrels full of green liquid seeping out into waterways and turning us all into three-armed monstrosities with cancers out the wazoo. Except, none of that is true. Including the fact it's waste at all. So from now on I will call them used fuel rods, as that is what they are, The way fuel rods are disposed of is in a water bath for heat control of any short-lived elements to decay away, and then they are stored in "dry cask storage", or large concrete barrels on the reactor site.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
"But these barrels are dangerous right? You will die if you get near them?"
Well, yes. But only because the armed guards on site will shoot you as you run towards them. If you had proper clearance, you could sit and have lunch leaning up against one with negligible radiation dose.
"But these drums are piling up with nowhere to store them, It's a catastrophe".
Well... also no. As you may remember the numbers from the previous section, volumes are small. If you were to take the entire US stockpile of used fuel rods and group them together, you'd have a mass of 70k metric tonnes. Sounds a lot right? But remember the density of uranium, that gives a volume of about 3665 m3. For comparison, single football stadium (I've pulled up Samara Arena in Russia for convenience), it has a volume of 503,480 m3. So the entire volume of used nuclear fuel in the US wouldn't even fill a football stadium, and in fact wouldn't even come close. I'd say we've got room to breathe there.
"But it lives for billions of years right and is super radioactive right?"
Well, again, not quite. Think of anything, the hotter it burns, the shorter it lives. Same with nuclear fuel. The high-activity nuclides in the used fuel rods decay in days-weeks. What's left is inert filler with fresh uranium mixed through. In fact, after it's removed from the reactor, it's still about 95% fresh uranium. Which has a half life of billions of years, but consequently is also low activity. You could hold reactor rods in your hand and be fine. And in fact this is how they are installed into a reactor in the first place. Notice no lead aprons, no serious PPE. Just gloves and goggles.
Fuel Rod Assembly: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy
And yet in the US that's buried underground. Why? Blame President Carter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
In fact, that is the only main problem with storage of used fuel rods. The US gets a disproportionate amount of air-time across the world, and it also cannot reprocess its used fuel. It'd be like a car in which most of the petrol you put in trickled out the exhaust again. You'd either improve the design, or put it through again. And that's the purpose of either recycling the fuel rods, or using what is known as a breeder reactor. And in fact these breeder reactors are grid-proven and it's literally just lack of political will preventing them being rolled out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor
If the US was the recycle all the fuel it had in storage, it wouldn't need to mine any more for the next century or so. Yes, century.

Fuel Availability

"But it'll all run out eventually? In fact, a lot of estimates put it at only ~200 years availability? Why bother when the sun and wind are essentially limitless?"
Again, not quite. This figure comes from single-pass fuel use then storage. As I've just shown, that's incredibly inefficient and frankly a stupid way to handle it. In fact, if you combine breeder reactors, and fuel reprocessing, we have enough fissile fuel to keep our reactors happy for the next few hundred thousand years.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/

Cost

"But it's really expensive to build nuclear plants and takes too long."
It is expensive to build the nuclear plants yes, but the time taken to build them is largely based in legislation which itself is based in flawed science (as I mentioned earlier with the LNT statements). But when investigate it as a levelised cost of energy (LCOE), nuclear is pretty much front of the queue.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx
Plus, I'm going to take a little detour out of science here and start talking about economics. Things being expensive for a government is not the same as things being expensive for a person/business. The fundamental difference is that the latter is a user of currency, whilst the former is the issuer of currency. A common way of thinking is the out-dated gold standard, in which currency is finite and tied to gold/tax receipts/stocks/bonds. This, and consequential statements such as "we are generating debt our children must pay" hasn't been true since 1971. The government, being able to issue its own currency can never go bankrupt as it can always pay its debts. This also does not lead to inflation as it used to. If this has you scratching your head in disbelief, that's understandable. I suggest the book "The Deficit Myth" by Prof. Stephanie Kelton. Additionally, she does a really good seminar on it here and is definitely worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1SMjeuyF-Y
So fundamentally, if the government wish to build nuclear, they have both means and motive to do so, with no detriment to the economy (unless you count people in work being a detriment).
A few conspicuous sites are also mentioned in nuclear costs. These are typically Hanford in the US, and Sellafield in the UK. Both of these sites are scheduled to take decades to clean up, and cost hundreds of billions of $/£ to do so. This sounds ominous, but it isn't. Both of these sites were built in the 40s/50s as research sites and plutonium production facilities. Neither of these are actually relevant to modern power production and are simply a legacy from a time we didn't understand nuclear materials. When discussing US decommissioning costs, Hanford makes up 80% of this budget in the US, and Sellafield making up 75% in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/cost-taxpayers-clean-nuclear-waste-jumps-100-billion-year-n963586
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy/nuclear-provision-explaining-the-cost-of-cleaning-up-britains-nuclear-legacy

Discussion

So why am I so bothered? Why bother making this post at all? I am a scientist and it bothers me to see disinformation and anti-science get spread so freely. There is also an extremely bad-faith argument from a lot of people in this regard, as they do not discuss the waste generated in the production of renewables, nor the full LCOE and instead cherry pick good days and state it as an average. This disingenuity has led to some of the most expensive power in the US for Californians, and Germany needing to fire its coal stations back up as well as import power from nuclear powered France. Furthermore, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) performed an interesting study, in which it collates the opinions of those educated in science versus the general public. It can be seen that when formally trained in science, the approval rating nuclear is much higher. Surely we want our path to saving the planet rooted in science instead of hubris?
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/07/23/an-elaboration-of-aaas-scientists-views/
Also as I showed with the burst-dam, there are statements made about nuclear that are not made about renewables. So if I repeat the process, the waste produced for solar and wind is not discussed often enough. Both wind and solar produce huge volumes of toxic and radioactive waste. But as they are not as similarly constrained as the nuclear industry, this is both unaccounted, and just drained to the environment.
https://www.cfact.org/2019/09/15/the-solar-panel-toxic-waste-problem/
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind/big-winds-dirty-little-secret-rare-earth-minerals/
https://e360.yale.edu/features/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks
Neither can the panels or blades be recycled so they go to landfill, to leech out toxic elements into the soil and groundwater.
https://stopthesethings.com/2020/10/10/lingering-legacy-millions-of-toxic-solar-panels-that-cant-be-recycled-destined-for-landfills/
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-waste-the-dark-side-of-clean-energy
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
And if nuclear fuel availability is mentioned, then so should availability of the minerals required to produce renewables. Many of the minerals used have available supplies of less than a year, and as is in the name, they are rare to begin with.
https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/10/chinas-monopoly-on-rare-earth-elements-and-why-we-should-care/
And to address a few points unique to renewables, the first is that by their method of operation, they harness a diffuse source. As such, they need to be big. Really big. Hundreds to thousands of hectares big. To produce an amount of power that could be generated by a reactor a fraction of the size. Now some people may find vast fields of solar panels or turbines beautiful, but I'd rather see vast woodlands, prairies, swamplands. I'd rather see our land returned to nature to actually capture some of the carbon that's ready to drive our extinction. It would also have the additional benefit that it would actually give back to the environment, and allow the bugs, birds, reptiles, critters, grazers, and hunters to thrive again. They don't thrive under windmills or solar panels.
https://www.strata.org/footprints/
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18270734.14m-trees-cut-scotland-make-way-wind-farms/
https://theconversation.com/wind-farms-built-on-carbon-rich-peat-bogs-lose-their-ability-to-fight-climate-change-143551
"But it's cheap!"
Exactly, and that's why renewables still have a place as is shown by the "energy pyramid" attached. Every rooftop should be lined with solar panels. Domestic windmills should be used to feed back into the grid. The land is already used, so make the most of it. But don't destroy nature to build renewables, as this is often exactly what happens.
The Energy Pyramid [Eric G. Meyer, Generation Atomic]
There are further issues faced by renewables but not faced by nuclear. These are called "capacity factor" and "insertion factor", and neither permit for exponential power demands that we as a race face. The former is a simple one, wind doesn't blow all the time. Sun doesn't shine all the time. There needs to be a backup, that right now is natural gas. Super batteries will not fix this issue, and are actually more likely to render renewables obsolete as our demands will grow with our capacity. The second, insertion factor, relates to how once the "good spots" are taken, we must use less good spots, and as such need larger installations to make up for the shortfall in production. With nuclear, both of these do not apply.
But why nuclear at all? Well, fundamentally, there is just so much uranium, and it is so energy dense, that it is silly to not use it. But when I talk about energy density compared to other fuels, it is hard to envision, so this wonderful presentation gives us more of a clue.
https://youtu.be/tpUtrDvya1w
So what does that energy density look like? Well, in a nuclear fuel assembly (shown earlier), there are hundreds of fuel pellets such as shown below. Each single one of those pellets are 7g of the ceramic uranium oxide, and can power a typical household for ~4 months.
Fuel pellets in a fuel rod [nuclear.duke-energy.com]
So why would you not want to use the cleanest, safest, arguably cheapest power source on earth?

Conclusion

This post hopefully illustrates some of the common and unfortunately pervasive myths around nuclear power. And if for a moment we assume the problems are all real and genuine, we have less than 10 years to fix our planet before it starts trying, and likely succeeding, to kill us. This is not the time to be advocating anti-science or wanting to look like you care whilst doing nothing. If the waste issue was true, that gives us hundreds to thousands of years to find a problem. If the terrorism issue was true, we'd have high employment in the military to keep the sites safe. If the fuel availability issue was true, we could use it until we perfect fusion. But fundamentally, if you are about to be hit by an out-of-control bus, you do not worry about the grazed knee you get by jumping out the way.
Edit 1: S/P
Edit 2: Included the AAAS survey in the "Discussion" section.
Edit 3: Added Hanford and Sellafield to the "Costs" section.
Edit 4: Added additional references to "Discussion" section.
Edit 5: Updated data on Chernobyl death toll.
Edit 6: Added fuel rod assembly image.
submitted by Vaudane to ExtinctionRebellion [link] [comments]

New eco-friendly way to make ammonia could be boon for agriculture, hydrogen economy

Ammonia has sustained humanity since the early 20th century, but its production leaves a huge carbon footprint. Now researchers have found a way to make it 100 per cent renewable.
Traditional ammonia production consumes 2 per cent of the world's energy and accounts for 1 per cent of the industrial world's carbon dioxide emissions. Photo: Shutterstock
Chemical engineers at UNSW Sydney and University of Sydney have found a way to make ‘green’ ammonia from air, water and renewable electricity that does not require the high temperatures, high pressure and huge infrastructure currently needed to produce this essential compound.
And the new production method – demonstrated in a laboratory-based proof of concept – also has the potential to play a role in the global transition towards a hydrogen economy, where ammonia is increasingly seen as a solution to the problem of storing and transporting hydrogen energy.
In a paper published today in Energy and Environmental Science, the authors from UNSW and University of Sydney say that ammonia synthesis was one of the critical achievements of the 20th century. When used in fertilisers that quadrupled the output of food crops, it enabled agriculture to sustain an ever-expanding global population.
But since the beginning of the 1900s when it was first manufactured on a large scale, production of ammonia has been energy intensive – requiring temperatures higher than 400oC and pressures greater than 200atm – and all powered by fossil fuels.
Dr Emma Lovell, a co-author on the paper from UNSW’s School of Chemical Engineering, says the traditional way to make ammonia – known as the Haber-Bosch process – is only cost-effective when produced on a massive scale due to the huge amounts of energy and expensive materials required.
“The current way we make ammonia via the Haber-Bosch method produces more CO2 than any other chemical-making reaction,” she says.
“In fact, making ammonia consumes about 2 per cent of the world’s energy and makes 1 per cent of its CO2 – which is a huge amount if you think of all the industrial processes that occur around the globe.”
Dr Lovell says in addition to the big carbon footprint left by the Haber-Bosch process, having to produce millions of tonnes of ammonia in centralised locations means even more energy is required to transport it around the world, not to mention the hazards that go with storing large amounts of it in the one place.
She and her colleagues therefore looked at how to produce it cheaply, on a smaller scale and using renewable energy.
“The way that we did it does not rely on fossil fuel resources, nor emit CO2,” Dr Lovell says.
“And once it becomes available commercially, the technology could be used to produce ammonia directly on site and on demand – farmers could even do this on location using our technology to make fertiliser – which means we negate the need for storage and transport. And we saw tragically in Beirut recently how potentially dangerous storing ammonium nitrate can be.
“So if we can make it locally to use locally, and make it as we need it, then there's a huge benefit to society as well as the health of the planet.”

Out of thin air

ARC DECRA Fellow, colleague and co-author Dr Ali (Rouhollah) Jalili ([email protected]) says trying to convert atmospheric nitrogen (N2) directly to ammonia using electricity “has posed a significant challenge to researchers for the last decade, due to the inherent stability of N2 that makes it difficult to dissolve and dissociate”.
Dr Jalili and his colleagues devised proof-of-concept lab experiments that used plasma (a form of lightning made in a tube) to convert air into an intermediary known among chemists as NOx – either NO2- (nitrite) or NO3- (nitrate). The nitrogen in these compounds is much more reactive than N2 in the air.
“Working with our University of Sydney colleagues, we designed a range of scalable plasma reactors that could generate the NOx intermediary at a significant rate and high energy efficiency,” he says.
“Once we generated that intermediary in water, designing a selective catalyst and scaling the system became significantly easier. The breakthrough of our technology was in the design of the high-performance plasma reactors coupled with electrochemistry.”
Professor Patrick Cullen, who led the University of Sydney team, adds: “Atmospheric plasma is increasingly finding application in green chemistry. By inducing the plasma discharges inside water bubbles, we have developed a means of overcoming the challenges of energy efficiency and process scaling, moving the technology closer to industrial adoption.”
​

Storage solution

Scientia Professor Rose Amal, who is co-director of ARC Training Centre for Global Hydrogen Economy, says in addition to the advantages of being able to scale down the technology, the team’s ‘green’ method of ammonia production could solve the problem of storage and transport of hydrogen energy.
“Hydrogen is very light, so you need a lot of space to store it, otherwise you have to compress or liquify it,” says Professor Amal.
“But liquid ammonia actually stores more hydrogen than liquid hydrogen itself. And so there has been increasing interest in the use of ammonia as a potential energy vector for a carbon-free economy.”
Professor Amal says ammonia could potentially be made in large quantities using the new green method ready for export.
“We can use electrons from solar farms to make ammonia and then export our sunshine as ammonia rather than hydrogen.
“And when it gets to countries like Japan and Germany, they can either split the ammonia and convert it back into hydrogen and nitrogen, or they can use it as a fuel.”
The team will next turn its attention to commercialising this breakthrough, and is seeking to form a spin-out company to take its technology from laboratory-scale into the field.
The original paper can be found at https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2021/EE/D0EE03769A#!divAbstract
https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EE03769A
submitted by Alijalili to RenewableEnergy [link] [comments]

"You've hit another cargo ship? The Problems with the US Navy: Not all of them begin with "Seven" and end with "th Fleet".

Rule Brittania America! America rules the waves!
Americans will never be slaves!
​
Welcome to yet another in my series of effortposts detailing the complex situation developing in the East Asia-Pacific Region, with today covering a portion of one of the biggest players--the United States, and, specifically, the United States Navy, which has decided that the best response to a massive naval arms race is to just go right out and decommission a large chunk of the fleet with no plans for replacements--not that they have much choice in the matter, as it was made for them in the late 1990s and early 2010s. I thought the condition of the US Navy was bad when I started this--but I didn't quite get just how dismal the outlook actually is, even with limited efforts being undertaken to fix some of these problems.
  1. What you [might] need to know about South Korea's ludicrous arms buildup
  2. We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches.... uh, what do we do after that again?: The Perilous Defensive Position of Taiwan
  3. "You've hit another cargo ship? The Problems with the US Navy: Not all of them begin with "Seven" and end with "th Fleet"."
  4. [preliminary, some variant on the pun thereof] China has a PLAN
​
Glossary:
7th Fleet = the largest fleet in the US Navy and the one responsible for East Asia
AEGIS = Aegis combat system, the awesomest and most sophisticated combat system afloat by a mile, with only the latest Chinese destroyers beginning to come anywhere close, mostly used by the US Navy but also by Australia [full version] and Japan and South Korea [downgraded versions]
SSN = Nuclear attack submarine, or just attack submarine [US only] or fast attack
SSBN = Ballistic missile submarine, nuclear-powered, shoots nukes, part of strategic deterrent, also called boomer
SSGN = Cruise missile submarine, nuclear powered, primary armament is cruise missiles--sort of overlaps with newer SSNs, which incorporate VLS [vertical launch system] tubes for launching missiles
SSK = Diesel-electric attack submarine
Guided-missile cruiser = Cruiser that mostly shoots missiles, usually larger than destroyers
Guided-missile destroyer = Destroyer that mostly shoots missiles
Frigate = Whatever's smaller than a destroyer but still used in the open ocean, multipurpose generally
Littoral Combat Ship = Like a frigate except more expensive and more terrible in every single way
Navy SEALs= Named for Sea Air Land, the SEALs are the Navy's "contribution" to American Special Forces, and operate in all domains, not just in a marine role
Operational Tempo = Opstempo = basically the amount of stuff that the military is doing. Doing more with less means a higher opstempo.
​

1. Maritime vs Continental

This dives a little into IR theory, somewhat derived from one of the classics, Raymond Aron, a French thinker who is all too little known outside of France and the continent. I haven't read his stuff on this topic for a bit, so I may have forgotten some parts of this. In essence, Aron divides great powers into two types--the maritime and the continental. Maritime states are based around trade, openness, liberty, and other good things, and develop strong navies to protect their interests, particularly in trade. The Dutch and British were both maritime states, so was Athens, and, today, the United States, which has lacked a continental rival since the end of the Civil War. Continental powers, on the other hand, are more insular and autocratic, more focused on their army and their neighbors. Prussia, and later Germany, was one, as was the Soviet Union, and now China. While all of them certainly had navies, they were not top priorities--not key to their success. For the US, though, its navy is essentially the most important part of its armed forces, as only with the Navy can the US enforce its standards of trade, mount small expeditionary wars, and fight against foreign powers. The maritime domain is also the primary one through which power is projected. So as a result, the US Navy is really pretty important, all things considered--not just to the US, even, but to the entire world.
​

2. The Mighty American Navy

From the very beginning, America had a particular interest in naval affairs, due to a combination of its British heritage and a rapidly growing industry in fishing and commerce, centered around New England. The very first foreign wars fought by the US were conducted by the Navy against the Barbary pirates of the Mediterranean, and this naval tradition continued through the rest of the century, with the US Navy fighting pirates and opening new areas to American trade, from which the US has derived its wealth and power--most famously in its expeditions to East Asia, in which the US forced several nations--Japan most notably--to open themselves to trade at gunpoint. The US Navy only really came into its own, though, around the turn of the 20th century, as the US began to assert itself as a dominant power. The US already dominated merchant shipping and shipbuilding, and, beginning in the late 1880s, began building an absolutely massive fleet of pre-dreadnought battleships [sound familiar to anyone? This will probably be covered in the next post on China's navy].
​
The US Navy, in its modern incarnation, first tasted blood against the Spanish, in a series of lopsided victories against the declining power. It then went on to fight in the First World War, though never in a large set battle the likes of Jutland, and rather mostly as a counter-U-boat force. By the conclusion of the First World War, the US was one of the world's three great naval powers--the UK being the first and Japan the third. Shipbuilding was suppressed for a time by the Washington Naval Treaty, but by the late 1930s and early 1940s the Navy was the focus of American efforts to prepare for war, as shipbuilding takes substantially longer than most other tasks required in a military buildup. Then, of course, came Pearl Harbor--a dramatic blow that failed to cripple the US Navy and set it against Japan and, to a lesser extent, Germany. After a series of setbacks, the USN won a stunning victory at Midway [whether due to luck or skill, it is disputed] and from then on the US went pretty much undefeated to the end of the war, and, indeed, until the present. Lessons from the Second World War heavily influence American naval thinking even to this day, and some of them are the following:
​
Since WWII, the US Navy has only come to blows a few times, and it has generally distinguished itself in each case. The USS Liberty survived repeated Israeli attacks, sustaining casualties yet remaining afloat. The USS Stark survived a hit from an Exocet missile, again demonstrating a very effective and strong damage control tradition [which seems to be a particular talent of the USN--see the fate of the Yorktown after being thought destroyed multiple times during the Second World War]. US warships have survived collisions with freighters and suicide bombings by small boats. They're tough, really tough--it's telling that even the highly capable Royal Navy lost four ships in the Falklands to missiles that failed to take out even a small American warship. The US has also done quite well in the offense, too, destroying Libyan and Iranian warships with relative ease [built by the Soviets and British respectively]. The US Navy has also generally been on the leading edge of naval technology--its AEGIS combat system and AN-SPY1 radar are unparalleled in capability, its ballistic missile submarines carry more missiles and are quieter than their peers, and, well, you get the idea. However, the US Navy has some serious problems.
​

3. Corruption

I'm using corruption in a fairly broad sense here.
Our first, largest, and most pressing issue goes by the alias of "Fat Leonard", and, yes, this scandal is almost comical in its scope. In short, in exchange for steering contracts for naval services--everything from sewage disposal to sending in divers to search harbors for explosives--towards Leonard Glenn Francis, a Malaysian national whose 350lb [160kg] plus bulk earned him the nomiker of "Fat Leonard", officers in the Seventh Fleet [you're going to hear more about these guys] were provided with everything from cash to luxury vacations to visits from Fat Leonard's "Thai Navy SEAL Team" of prostitutes. 33 people were directly embroiled in the scandal, but what matters is who these people were--the top officers in the Seventh Fleet, and mostly flag officers at that. It also crippled the careers of hundreds of innocent officers who were merely in proximity to the guilty, who had to be investigated and were often not freed from suspicion for years afterwards. One admiral said the following: "China could never have dreamt up a way to do this much damage to the U.S. Navy's Pacific leadership."
​
Then, we have the destroyer collisions. Yes, collisions plural. The USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain, both Arleigh Burke-class destroyers from the Seventh Fleet, hit different cargo vessels in Southeast Asia in separate incidents three months apart. In both cases the problems were similar--a lack of sleep, poor leadership, and poor situational awareness. This showcased what many sailors had known for years--that the Navy had a culture issue, that lack of sleep was a serious problem aboard ships, that training was insufficient and leadership erratic, especially in the Seventh Fleet, which, anecdotally, most sailors seem to avoid at all costs. It also highlighted a problem which has been afflicting almost the entire US military--aging equipment and an excessive operational tempo. This humiliating chain of events showcased these problems to the entire world.
​
After that, we have an array of problems. The Navy SEALs are by far the most guilty, and are, these days, despised in the military. In between everything from SEALs falsifying records and thus both covering up their cowardice and preventing an Air Force combat controller from receiving a Medal of Honor--this coverup was enabled by top brass, too, not just the SEALs--a group of SEALs raping a corpsman and thus getting the SEALs sent home from Iraq, and numerous other incidents, along with their tendency to hog attention, publicity, books and movies, the SEALs are so hated by other military members, even sometimes inside the Navy, that some might think about murdering a SEAL if they could get away with it--oh wait, no, that was the SEALs that murdered a Green Beret. But it's not just the SEALs. It's dog teams that hazed members and had at least two members commit suicide. It's submariners that placed cameras in the female showers. Now, it's not as if the other service branches don't have their problems and scandals every so often--but the Navy seems to be particularly guilty.
​
Thus, we have our first problem. A rotten culture. But this is really only the tip of the iceberg of the problems the US Navy has right now.
​

4. An Aging Fleet

The US Navy, like most of the US Armed Forces, has been hurt pretty bad by the "Peace Dividend" of the 1990s, and also from spending in the early 2000s when naval matters were simply not a top priority. Since the Navy operates on a greater lag than any other service branch--it takes quite some time to build ships--this is especially important. Below are several platforms which just... aren't there, or are going to see major gaps. In particular, the US Navy is going to have a rough time in the late 2020s as several platforms age out.
​
Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser
These ships are probably still the most potent in the US Navy, aside from the newest Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which are expected to replace them. However, they are proving expensive to maintain, and are beginning to hit their 35-year end of life--the Navy actually has some plans to decommission some of them early [which I actually support for reasons addressed later], but as things presently stand they are expected to all be out of service by 2030. In the meantime, only 11 Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are scheduled to take the place of this 22-strong class, which was originally to be replaced by a cruiser variant of the Zumwalt.
​
Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer
As if replacing the "Ticos" wasn't enough trouble already, the Arleigh Burke class also is reaching end of service life for the earliest production units, starting in 2026, and 13 are expected to be out of service by 2030 unless expensive service-life extensions are funded. This class was supposed to be replaced by the Zumwalt, but, instead, has been kept in production, albeit in modernized versions. It's also now the Navy's do-everything tool because it has no frigates or smaller combat vessels, except for the LCS, which generally doesn't work.
​
Littoral Combat Ship/complete and total lack of frigates
The Littoral Combat Ship program has been a fiasco, and the ships produced are pretty much useless--so terrible that the Navy has made up excuses to decommission four vessels barely a decade old, that the Navy doesn't want any more LCSes, and that there have been serious proposals to replace the Littoral Combat Ship with forty-year-old Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates. The fact that the only frigate currently in service with the US Navy is the USS Constitution has also been irksome to many. This problem, at least, looks to be finally solved. The US Navy has begun building a very capable frigate based on the popular European FREMM design, and is planning on building two ships a year throughout the 2020s [and rumors say that the Navy likes the design so much we may see as many as 60 of these new, cheap, small ships].
​
Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine
These boats are reaching the end of their service lives, and, despite Navy efforts to extend their service lives by up to ten years, they're wearing out and not much can be done about it. As a result of the fact that their successor, the Seawolf class, was cancelled after three vessels were constructed, and that the Virginia class until recently was not a high priority in spending, the attack submarine fleet is projected to drop to 41 in 2029, despite the US Navy saying that it needs 66 at the very least--and in my view that's a conservative estimate.
​
Ohio class nuclear cruise missile submarine/ballistic missile submarine
These boats are all projected to, very consistently, hit their 42-year service lives [already extended from design expectations] and will have to be retired starting in 2023 [2026 for the ballistic missile subs] and will finally all be out of service in 2039. In the meantime, though, in the mid-2020s the US Navy will lose one of its most potent assets--the Ohio-class SSGNs--only partially replaced by new Virginia-class submarines with the Virginia Payload Module, and will then have to spend on extremely expensive and resource-hogging Columbia class SSBNs to replace their current fleet. It is expected that the costs of this procurement program will amount to $100 billion, spent over the next two decades, and this is expected to have a serious impact on the entire naval procurement budget.
​

5. Budget Troubles

These mostly begin with the infamous budget sequester, but to a degree precede it. Budgetary concerns resulted in the cancellation of the Seawolf and Zumwalt class, along with a cruiser replacement for the Ticos, and thus interrupted spending for years. The budget sequester was the final nail in the coffin, making a dramatic cut to military spending, and as a result readiness across the entire force has been on the decline. In addition, the US Navy is approaching a perfect storm of poor budgetary conditions--it must pay more and more to maintain an increasingly elderly fleet, while also spending billions on modernizations, service-life extensions, and replacements. There is, as of yet, relatively little sign that it'll get adequate funding. The Navy has repeatedly tried to cancel refuelings and decommission ships early, and to stop LCS purchases, all to no avail. Without a major increase in funding, the Navy is, to be a bit melodramatic, doomed.
​

6. Lack of building capacity and mothballs

In the past, the US was one of the world's great shipbuilders, and maintained a massive merchant fleet. This is no longer the case. The world's largest shipbuilder is South Korea, a nation which is also able to build the equivalent of an Arleigh Burke, US weapons systems included, for a price half that of an Arleigh Burke. The second-largest shipbuilder is China, the third-largest Japan, and the rest of the world combined ranks behind these top three. The merchant fleet of the US is small, and its production capacity is quite limited--and mostly focused on building barges, riverboats, and smaller freighters that navigate the intercoastal waterways and the Great Lakes. The military shipbuilding capacity of the US is limited as well. The submarine industry, for instance, can only build about three nuclear submarines per year if stretched to the limit, so once the Columbia-class begin construction, only two new Virginia-class boats can be built every year--and that's largely why the submarine gap is a thing. If a war broke out, the US would have limited capacity to build new warships, probably having to turn to shipyards in Europe, Japan, or South Korea if available.
​
In addition, in the past, the US maintained a massive "mothball" fleet of older ships, that could be restored to service relatively quickly if needed. For much of the Cold War, this mothball fleet consisted of large numbers of partially modernized Second World War naval vessels [the existence of this fleet was largely based on the US experience in WWII]. However, the once-massive mothball fleet [which also included resupply and logistics vessels] is now a relative minnow. At present, the mothball fleet contains a fairly substantial presence--two conventional supercarriers, nineteen Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates, three cruisers and two destroyers--but the only ships which seem to have a long-term future in the reserve are three Tarawa-class amphibious assault ships. There simply is no backstop for the modern US Navy. It is, however, a possible fringe benefit that the rapid retirements in the 2020s will result in a much more capable reserve force.
​
As a result, at the moment, the US Navy has no room for error in a peer conflict. If its ships are destroyed, they have no replacements. Fortunately the US Navy has done quite well at preserving even tremendously damaged vessels, but in the case of war, it is inevitable that some will be sunk.
​

7. Where to go from here

My suggestion would be that the US Navy, paradoxically, "shrink to grow". It's already facing a massive wave of retirements--but the vessels in the fleet already are generally undermanned, and personnel are stretched thin. Retiring the Ticonderogas early, as the US Navy has floated proposals to do, and not refueling the later Nimitzes, would save billions of dollars, and allow the US Navy to focus on personnel and culture issues while working to rapidly build up capability--and also preserving a substantial reserve force, possibly with multiple supercarriers and guided-missile cruisers. These early retirements are things that the Navy really wants to do, so I suggest we let them, and amend the current US Code which requires the Navy to have 11 carriers at all times [or just have the executive redefine "aircraft carrier" to include amphibious assault ships].
​
I also strongly endorse the US Navy's plans to build a large new frigate fleet, and in my view their current plans are still too unambitious--we should indeed be aiming for 60 frigates, or possibly even more. I would also suggest that the Navy just go right out and retire the entire Littoral Combat Ship fleet, but politics likely make that difficult to impossible, even if a lot of Navy brass probably would like to see the LCS go die in a ditch somewhere. Bringing back the Oliver Hazard Perry class might even be a viable stopgap solution until new frigates are built.
​
In addition, I have some proposals that the Navy is less likely to support.
​
I strongly recommend that the US Navy bring back diesel-electric attack submarines, probably starting off of a foreign design like the highly capable Japanese Soryu class [in no small irony since the Japanese based their modern subs off of our diesel-electric designs], but also incorporating US tech like the modular Virginia-class sail and SWFFTS. Doing so is the only way that the US Navy can hope to close the gap, by building at least twenty SSKs, and quite possibly many more--a class size around forty might make reasonable sense--and diesel-electric subs bring with them other advantages. They're much more capable in littoral seas like the East China Sea and South China Sea, and are much cheaper to purchase and operate--a single Virginia-class with the Virginia Payload Module costs six times the price of a Soryu, and even accounting for higher construction costs in the US, would still be much cheaper. It would also allow the US Navy to extend the lives of its SSN fleet, which wears out quickly in those littoral waters.
​
I am also of the view that the US Navy should seriously consider looking into light aircraft carriers, even really light ones like the Sea Control Ship that are built around the F-35B and/or UCAVs, that are built around sea control/area denial and anti-submarine warfare rather than as buses for marines.
​
In a similar vein, if the US Army's ludicrous Long-Range Strategic Cannon project bears fruit, the Navy would be wise to look into using it as a naval weapon, and the Navy should also resume its work on Prompt Global Strike now that the INF treaty is gone.
​
The Navy should also let go of its long nervousness of automation, which may be the only way to keep things running with fewer personnel and at lower costs, and also let go of the cult of the pilot [the Air Force really needs this, but that's a separate post] and ship-driver, embracing drones for use above, on, and below, the sea.
​
The F-18 Super Hornet isn't bad, but it's not what the Navy should be buying when the focus is on a peer conflict. The F-35 should really be the sole focus of procurement efforts, even if it is more expensive.
​
Finally, the US needs to make a serious effort towards reviving domestic shipbuilding and a merchant fleet. The Jones Act doesn't work and needs to go. Instead, the US should focus on subsidies for shipbuilding, and funding newer and more innovative construction methods--which will both increase capacity and possibly bring acquisition prices down for the Navy as the US gets better at building ships in general.

8. Conclusion

The Navy is in deep trouble, but if we act quickly it might be salvageable. A poor culture continues to cause problems for the Navy and particularly certain components of it, like the SEALs. Aggressive retirements are needed, but also aggressive shipbuilding starting now. The US Navy, no matter what happens, is likely to face an extremely serious capability gap in the late 2020s through early 2030s, and this time is likely to be exceptionally dangerous--if I were China, that would be when I would make my move, after my shipbuilding program was largely complete but before the US Navy had recovered from their wave of retirements.
​
Also, if you're not in the US, and you're not in, say, China, you should be pushing for domestic naval expansions pronto, or supporting them, or whatever you can do on that front. The fall in American capabilities means that your navy might be expected to make up the gap pretty soon.
​

9. Citations

As always, much of it does include Wikipedia and my head. But that mostly covers relatively unimportant and easily verifiable stuff, historical, etc. and I've linked a lot of fancier articles here. I've also undoubtedly been influenced by more articles, and even Reddit threads, in my views on the US Navy's problems, but I can't link everything.
​
Sam LeGrone, Paying the Price: The Hidden Cost of the Fat Leonard Investigation
Washington Post: Prostitutes, Vacations, and Cash: The Navy Officials Fat Leonard Took Down
ProPublica: Years of Warnings, Then Death And Disaster
Dan Lamothe, ‘Supreme courage’: U.S. airman John Chapman posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor
Alex Ward, Navy SEAL platoon sent home from Iraq over rape allegation and drinking while deployed
Todd South, Leaked documents provide details of Green Beret's death involving Navy SEALs and Marine Raiders
David B Larter, Once again, the US Navy looks to scrap its largest combatants to save money
Ben Werner, Navy Considers Reversing Course on Arleigh Burke-Class Life Extension
Tyler Rogoway, The Navy's Rationale For Not Reactivating Perry Class Frigates Doesn't Float
James Homes, The US Navy's Littoral Combat Ship: A Beautiful Disaster?
David B Larter, The US Navy, facing a shortfall, aims to ink an enormous attack sub contract next month
Megan Eckstein, Navy Finds Urgency In Staving Off Sub Shortfall Decades In The Making
Nick Childs, Relentless Pressure: UK and US SSBN procurement challenges
Nick Simeone, Sequester Degrades Navy, Marine Corps Readiness, Officials Say
Sydney Freeburg Jr, Pentagon To Retire USS Truman Early, Shrinking Carrier Fleet To 10
US Naval Institute, There's A Case For Diesels
Kyle Mizakmai, Should The US Navy Buy Diesels?
Megan Eckstein, Navy Report: Submarine Industrial Base Can Maintain 2-Attack Boat Construction Rate, Bolstering Lawmakers’ Plans
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Using hazard lights in the rain: Is it legal? - YouTube

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when to use hazard lights in germany

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