Completely disconnected last Wednesday from the power grid due to hostilities by Russian forces, the power supply to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was restored this Sunday. This was reported by the Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom with reference to the Minister of Energy of Ukraine.
“Today, thanks to the incredible efforts of specialists from Ukrenergo (Ukrainian operator of the site), our nuclear scientists and our electricians managed to restore the power supply to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which was seized by Russian invaders,” the minister said. German Galushchenko in a press release published by Energoatom.
“From now on, fuel assemblies cooling systems will again operate in normal mode, and no longer thanks to emergency generators,” he added.
No significant impact on safety
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the power outage “did not have a major impact on safety” and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned that the station had emergency generators with only 48 hours of power. The site houses reactors that were decommissioned after the 1986 accident, including the sarcophagus-covered Reactor 4 and storage facilities for radioactive waste. Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSS). Because “melted heart” does not “need no cooling system”. Storing 20,000 fuel assemblies in the pool was also not dangerous. Given the time that has passed since 1986, “the thermal load of the basin and the volume of Cooling Water were sufficient to ensure efficient heat removal without electricity,” the IAEA said.
These older builds are “relatively cold” and even if power is not restored after 48 hours, “based on what we know about the plants, there is no danger of radioactive releases,” confirms Karin Erviu. In this case, studies conducted after the Fukushima accident in Japan in March 2011 “show a slow temperature increase of about 60°C, but no dehydration of the assemblies.” “The water will gradually heat up, but will not be brought to a boil,” she explained. The power outage “will create more problems” at the country’s four operating nuclear power plants, “where it is absolutely necessary to ensure the cooling of the available fuel,” the head of the IRSN said.
“There is much more heat that needs to be evacuated there” than in Chernobyl.
Ukrainian reactors have emergency systems with four emergency generators, which usually have fuel for 7-10 days. “They also have mobile equipment in place, water supplies to manage the situation and generally avoid heart degradation,” added Karin Erviu.
Russian employees of Rosatom in Zaporozhye
In a press release published on Sunday, the minister stressed that Ukraine “does not need anyone’s help to supply or restore electricity” to its infrastructure. An allusion to the arrival on Friday of eleven employees of the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporozhye, the largest in Europe, fell into Russian hands on March 4 after an assault marked by bombing of the plant that caused a fire.
Nuclear Power Management: Another Battleground of the Russo-Ukrainian War
According to the Ukrainian agency Energoatom, the arrival of these Russian personnel is aimed at checking radiation levels and helping to repair the plant. Its reactors were commissioned between 1985 and 1995. They are of modern design compared to Chernobyl, the first power plant built in the country in 1970, where the reactors were far less safe. The Zaporozhye Power Plant, which opened in 1985, has six Soviet-designed VVER-1000 reactors and has a total capacity of nearly 6,000 megawatts, enough to power about four million homes.
“The plant is considered the territory of Russia”
Also, according to Energoatom, one of the Russians who arrived at the plant with engineers, who introduced himself as the new head of the local military-civilian administration, told employees that the plant is now considered Russian territory and is dependent on Rosatom. In a press release, Rosatom confirmed the dispatch of Russian specialists, but indicated that the operation of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, like the Chernobyl one, is still provided by Ukrainian personnel. He added that Russian specialists “advise” Ukrainian teams. This includes “restoring the power supply to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the physical protection system of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant,” the Russian operator explained on Friday.
“Activities aimed at ensuring the safe operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants are carried out in close contact with the leadership of the IAEA,” Rosatom assures.
At the Zaporozhye power plant, generators are ready if needed, the IAEA said this week, adding that two of the four external power sources appeared to be “damaged.”
Next take, Konstantinovka, in the south of Ukraine?
Concerns about the nuclear risk in Ukraine continue to grow after two of Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants, Chernobyl and Zaporozhye, were taken over by the Russian army, the capture of which shocked the world.
After Chernobyl and then Zaporozhye, the Russian army may try to capture a third nuclear power plant, Konstantinovka, in southern Ukraine. A strategy to weaken Ukrainian resistance that could open the door to worst-case scenarios.
With 15 reactors spread across four sites, Ukraine ranks 7th in the world in nuclear energy production, with the atom providing half of its energy, according to the IAEA.
“This allows you to cut off the supply to big cities. Whoever says more electricity says more heating, more running water, more refrigerators, more freezers (…) One of the tasks of the Russians is to force people to leave, to use the opportunities and will to protect the resistance fighters,” an analyst recently explained to AFP in International Relations Jean-Marc Balancy.
“They will want to seize all the power plants in order to increase the pressure,” predicts a French military source.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin assured his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that “he had no intention of striking nuclear power plants,” the three reactors of the Konstantinovskaya power plant (south), located between Kherson, the first major city occupied by the Russians, and Odessa, one of their main targets may be within projectile range in a few days.
IAEA chief wants to visit Ukraine
The head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, offered to visit Ukraine in order to establish a framework that would guarantee the safety of nuclear facilities during the conflict. From the very beginning of the Russian invasion, Mr. Grossi warned of the danger of a conflict that first occurred in a country with a major nuclear program.
“This time, if an accident occurs, the cause will not be a tsunami caused by mother nature, but the result of a human failure to act when we knew we could and should have,” he said earlier in the week.
latribune.fr
March 13, 2022, 7:57 pm