Zaporizhzhia on the brink: How deteriorating conditions at the nuclear power plant could lead to disaster

Bulletin, By Zakhar Popovych, Denys I. Bondar, M.V. Ramana | October 7, 2022, Soon after it started its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Russian military occupied the southern part of the Zaporizhzhia region. The occupied area includes the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), the largest in Europe. During the summer, the area around the Zaporizhzhia NPP was hit multiple times by missiles and artillery. These affected all high-voltage electric power lines that connect the facility to the grid, so the plant was forced to work for some time in island mode, using the minimal power produced by one of the reactors to maintain functions essential to the plant’s safety. After the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, conducted its inspection on September 1st, Ukrainian maintenance teams were allowed by the Russian military to repair the power lines and refill the diesel fuel storage tanks needed for emergency power generators. This made it possible to supply the facility with external power for the reactor cooling and other maintenance systems.

On September 10, the three of us had a conversation via Zoom with Pavlo Oleshuk, a representative of Atomprofspilka, the nuclear energy and industry workers’ union of Ukraine. Oleshuk is an experienced member of the team that operates the Rivne NPP in northwest Ukraine. As an organizer with the union, he has been in close and constant contact with the employees who directly operate the Zaporizhzhia NPP.

Oleshuk’s descriptions gave us new insight into the working and living conditions of his colleagues at the beleaguered plant. Such details have been otherwise difficult to get as plant operators have avoided talking in public ever since Russian forces seized the plant. Our discussion with Oleshuk lasted for more than two hours, and we offer here the main insights.

At the time we talked to Oleshuk, one of the reactors at the Zaporizhzhia NPP was still operating. However, shortly after our conversation, EnergoAtom, the Ukrainian state nuclear power plant operator, decided to shut down all reactors there. Despite this decision, there is a continued risk of a major nuclear incident as the plant requires permanent cooling. Furthermore, as our discussion with Oleshuk reveals, other factors exacerbate the fragility of the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP.

Context. Oleshuk began with a description of Zaporizhzhia NPP and the city of Energodar, which means literally “the gift of energy.”………………………………………………….

Working under threats and intimidation. The Zaporizhzhia NPP, the city of Energodar, and the surrounding areas have all been under Russian occupation for the past few months. According to Oleshuk’s sources at the plant, Russian armed forces first took control of the nearby territory and peacefully approached the personnel of the power plant claiming that they would not intervene with the operations of the plant. But once the armed forces entered the plant’s premises, so did personnel from the FSB—Russia’s principal security agency and successor to the old KGB—and a couple of experts from Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy corporation. …………………

For their part, the FSB personnel, unlike regular soldiers, violated the rules about who can access different areas of the plant and went everywhere within the premises, including inside radiation-controlled zones. But rather than taking control over the plant’s operations, the FSB agents seem to have been tasked with finding the so-called “ringleaders” who are organizing protests against the occupation ………………..

Over time, many more nuclear power plant workers have left Energodar for other cities that are still under the control of the Ukrainian government, creating a shortage of personnel at the Zaporizhzhia NPP. Even though some nuclear power plant maintenance functions can be carried out remotely, most cannot. As a result, there are concerns about the safety of these reactors and their associated systems.

Living without supplies. Because it is in Russian-occupied territory, residents of Energodar can no longer get their supplies from Ukraine-controlled territories, although they are located just across the Dnipro River. Instead, they must get them from other occupied territories—which means that even the supply of basic groceries is intermittent, with some food products simply no longer available………………….

Another major problem for the residents of Energodar is the collapse of utilities. ………………………

The supply of water supply has also become a problem since it relies exclusively on electric pumps and there are no water towers in Ukraine because the electricity supply was always considered to be reliable and abundant. ……………….

Outlook. With winter coming, the future is grim for the workers of the Zaporizhzhia NPP who still live in Energodar. Like other satellite cities, Energodar relies on the Zaporizhzhia NPP for most of its energy needs, including for heating……………………..

If both nuclear and thermal power plants cannot resume operation, then Energodar’s inhabitants will not be able to heat their living premises. The Ukrainian winter is cold with temperatures often being less than 20 degrees Celsius below zero (-4 degrees Fahrenheit). Plant workers don’t know how they will survive the winter.

Making an already desperate situation worse, there has been a loss of leadership and governance. The mayor of Energodar, Dmytro Orlov, was initially arrested by the Russians, but later managed to flee the city. The occupying forces did try to take over the city hall, but effectively the local authority has largely collapsed. The inhabitants are now left on their own.

According to Oleshuk, the situation is simply no longer tenable for the plant workers who are exhausted and stressed out. …………………more https://thebulletin.org/2022/10/zaporizhzhia-on-the-brink-how-deteriorating-conditions-at-the-nuclear-power-plant-could-lead-to-disaster/

October 7, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant: Energoatom denies fire in power unit 2

Yahoo News, Ukrainska Pravda, September 29, 2022, STANISLAV POHORILOV —

Energoatom, a Ukrainian state enterprise operating nuclear power stations in this country, has denied information about power unit No. 2 of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) being on fire, and explained what has happened.

Source: press service of Energoatom

Quote: “Telegram channels are spreading false information about power unit No. 2 of the ZNPP being on fire. We hereby officially confirm that this is not true. As of 15:40, 29 September 2022, no fires have been detected in power units of the ZNPP.”

Details: Energoatom added that an emergency, not related to the fire, could occur due to a mine explosion, since the perimeter around the power plant is mined by occupiers, and explosions happen because of wild animals (boars, foxes, dogs) wandering around.

Today, there was an explosion on the perimeter, on a line of voltage supply to an oxygen station of power unit No. 6. The explosion damaged the line, and a power surge resulted in a short circuit in one of the voltage transformators, causing minor smoke.

There was no need to involve a fire brigade, which arrived at the scene.

Background:…………………..  https://news.yahoo.com/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-energoatom-134651082.html

September 29, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Missile strike near Ukrainian nuclear plant raises new fears. But the real question is why is it there at all?

 https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2022/09/26/another-close-call/ By Linda Pentz Gunter, 28 Sept 22,

“What is Russia thinking?” asked CNN news anchor Ana Cabrera of her guest, retired Air Force colonel, Cedric Leighton, after reports that Russian missiles landed within 328 yards of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant on September 19.

But here’s the question that should have been asked — but rarely is: why are we still using such a profoundly dangerous technology to generate electricity? What are WE thinking? (We will leave aside here the conflicting accusations about who is shelling the reactors. The point is their very presence in a war zone and all that implies.)

Nothing has brought that risk into sharper focus than the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where 15 operational reactors at four sites are sitting duck targets that could release a radioactive nightmare if struck — whether accidentally or deliberately — by either side as battle rages.

When the invasion began on February 24, it was the closed Chornobyl site — scene of the world’s worst, and most notorious, nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 — that was first occupied. Although none of the four reactors there are operating any longer, there is a significant radioactive waste inventory on site. This was stirred up by Russian forces and their heavy equipment. Soldiers even dug sleeping trenches, apparently unaware of the radiation exposure risks that resulted.

This time around, however, Chornobyl is of lesser concern than the four other nuclear sites in Ukraine, although it remains a potential disaster scene largely due to the irradiated fuel stocks on site.

The four active nuclear sites — at Rivne and Khmelnitsky in western Ukraine, and South Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia in the south and eastern regions— are generally described as “newer” than Chornobyl, but this is only true in the technological sense. Chornobyl was an old Soviet RBMK design, lacking containment. Incredibly, Russia still reportedly operates 10 Chornobyl-style RBMK reactors, albeit modified to try to avoid the fatal design flaws that contributed to the 1986 explosion and meltdown.

The operating reactors in Ukraine are VVER pressurized water reactors similar to those used in the United States, for example. The VVER is also a Russian design but with an actual containment, so in theory, more robust than the old RBMKs. However, there is a great deal of doubt that the VVERs, like any reactor today, are robust enough to withstand an onslaught of missiles under war conditions.

Yet, in another sense, the VVER reactors are far older than Chornobyl Unit 4 was when it exploded. That reactor had only been operating approximately two years when disaster struck. The present day 1,000 megawatt reactors in Ukraine have been operational mostly since the 1980s, accumulating much larger radioactive inventories. 

As Beyond Nuclear has continued to warn, the radiological — and therefore health — consequences of a major breach of one of these reactors would be far worse than those of the 1986 Chornobyl accident.

But it needn’t take a war. The dangers presented by commercial nuclear power plants are inherent. They are there every day. They are made worse by warfare, which increases the likelihood of a nuclear disaster — and that same war now also increases the danger that nuclear weapons might be used.

And yet, as we continue to “play with fire”, as even IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi described the insanity of shelling near or at nuclear plants in Ukraine, the obvious connection isn’t made.

We’ve seen scientists and media outlets map out how far a deadly radioactive plume would spread if, say, Zaporizhzhia suffered a fatal missile strike. But scarcely if ever do they go on to observe that we are only holding our collective breath so tightly because of the persistent threat that these reactors pose on any given day. 

We don’t need to use nuclear power today. We never needed it. And it is a totally insane way to boil water.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International.

September 27, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment