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Back in 2018, I published a list of forty reasons that nuclear fission power was a bad idea. In one section, I addressed the dangers that would follow if a nuclear reactor wound up in a war zone. It was hypothetical at that time but now it is a cold reality threatening the world at Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine. I have written a number of posts about the situation there and I thought that it was time for an update.
World leaders issued a call for Zaporizhzhia to be completely demilitarized after images of Russian army vehicles inside the plant emerged. Russian vehicles have been parked inside the turbine halls of the only two reactors still operating at Zaporizhzhia as well as underneath elevated areas between the reactors.
Rocket have landed only sixty feet from spent fuel containers. Other threats to nuclear security at the plant include vehicles parked so tightly together that firefighters would struggle to access them if a fire broke out. There have been reports that staff at the plant have been held at gunpoint and tortured. One was beaten to death, and another needed three months to recover from his injuries. Over two hundred Ukrainians are being held at the plant.
There have been multiple explosions at the plant in the past weeks that have raised the level of concern. Russia and Ukraine have both blamed the other for the shelling of the plant. Recent satellite images of the plant have shown that the Russians are lying about Ukrainian attacks at the plant.
The connections between the plant and the Ukrainian grid are in critical condition. Three of the four main lines have been broken during the war. Two of the three back-up lines connecting Zaporizhzhia to the Ukrainian grid have been destroyed.
The Russians have drawn up a detained plan to disconnect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant from the electrical grid of Ukraine. World leaders had previously warned Russia against cutting the plant off from the Ukrainian grid and reconnecting it to the Russian electrical grid.
Petro Kotin is the head of the Ukraine’s atomic energy company. He told an interviewer that Russian engineers had already drawn up a blueprint for such a switch on grounds that it was emergency planning in case the fighting severed the remaining power connections to the plant. He said, “They presented [the plan] to [workers at] the plant, and the plant [workers] presented it to us. The precondition for this plan was heavy damage of all lines which connect Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to the Ukrainian system.” He fears that the Russian army is currently targeting those power connections to make the emergency scenario a reality. He added, “They just started doing that, they started all the shelling, just to take out these lines.”
The Russian plan to disconnect the plant entirely from the Ukrainian grid would raise the risk of a catastrophic failure by leaving it dependent on a single source of power to cool the reactors. Kotin said, “You cannot just switch from one system to another immediately, you have to … shut down everything on one side, and then you start to switch on another side.”
During a shift between the Ukrainian and Russian grids, the plant would have to rely only on a back-up diesel-powered generator. There would be no other options if that generator failed. After only ninety minutes without power the reactors would heat up to a dangerous temperature. Kotin said, “During this disconnection, the plant won’t be connected to any power supply and that is the reason for the danger. If you fail to provide cooling … for one hour and a half, then you will have melting already.”
Please read Part 2 next