This week, the head of the United Nations atomic watchdog, Rafael Mariano Grossi, was so concerned about the new danger at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant that he flew to Ukraine and crossed the country’s front lines in war with Russia to review the situation. he himself.
Grossi has been to the plant before and has also expressed serious concern about the possibility of a nuclear disaster, but the threat is different: The recent destruction of a dam on the Dnipro River has stripped it The main water source is used for the factory. The main task is to cool the six reactors and spent fuel rods.
But on Friday, following a visit to the plant, Mr Grossi delivered some good news, saying that the stored water currently available at the plant would support the reactors for “several months” and that the authorities there had already start taking other steps to replenish supplies.
Here’s what to know about Ukraine’s nuclear industry and why the Zaporizhzhia plant is under threat:
Why is the Zaporizhzhia tree important?
Few countries are as dependent on nuclear energy for their energy supply as Ukraine. Before Moscow launched its full-blown invasion in February 2022, the nuclear industry provided about half of Ukraine’s energy needs.
Ukraine has 15 reactors at four plants. Three facilities far from the front lines of the war. The fourth plant, the Zaporizhzhia plant, was occupied by Russian forces in a gunfight last March. It no longer produces electricity for Ukraine’s electricity grid, but as it is a working nuclear plant, its safe operation remains essential to avert a catastrophic crisis.
The country’s industry has a rough history. The first reactor operated during the Soviet era, and in 1986, an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl plant in northern Ukraine caused the worst nuclear accident in history.
Why is water so important for plants?
Water cools both the reactor core and spent nuclear fuel, and as a result the plant depends on a large and constant supply.
To meet demand, it was built near a 14-mile-wide reservoir on the Dnipro River. That mass of water feeds a huge cooling pool on site — bigger than the National Mall in Washington — and water from the pool is pumped to the plant’s six reactors.
The design minimizes the risk that the reactors may lack the water needed to prevent melting.
What are the latest risks and what is being worked on?
The water level in the reservoir that serves as the nuclear plant’s main source of water has plummeted since June 6, when an explosion destroyed the nuclear power plant. Kakhovka damflooded the lower river basin and killed at least 14 people.
However, there is no immediate danger at the plant because the cooling tank is full and the reactors need much less water than usual.
Due to threats of war to the plant, five of the reactors have been in “cold-off” mode since last year, a state of inactivity in which they produce no electricity. The sixth is in “hot shutdown mode,” which means it generates some power for plant safety.
Mr. Grossi said Friday that he is encouraged that preventive steps are being taken to help replenish existing water in the pond that is evaporating. Without that, he said, “there will be a very serious problem happening very clearly before the end of the year.”
Grossi said it would be years before the dam and reservoir were restored, so plant workers have begun installing pumps to bring water from the depleted reservoir, whose banks are receding. original river. They are also planning to drill deeper into the ground to the water table to create wells that can supply water to the pond, he added.
What is the broader problem?
That is obvious. The Zaporizhzhia plant is located in a war zone, the first time in history that a nuclear plant has been occupied by a foreign power.
Ukrainian authorities say that Russian forces have planted mines on the factory premises to thwart an attack, stored weapons and explosives in its rooms, set up gun emplacements and stationed troops there on the road. to the battlefield.
Moscow has also attempted to impose managerial control, with Russian managers in place pressuring workers to cancel contracts with Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom and sign contracts with the company. Russian nuclear, Rosatom. According to Oleh Korikov, Ukraine’s nuclear and radiation safety inspector, they also pressured them to apply for Russian passports.
During this process, workers said that some people were detained and tortured and 11,000 employees have been cut to about 2,000, Mr. Korikov said. Mr. Grossi said on Tuesday that many of the remaining workers were not allowed to come to the plant because they refused to contract with Russian controllers.
Long-term nuclear safety requires compliance with the principles listed by the United Nations’ watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, including a stable political environment, an predictable and quiet environment for workers and employees as a whole. According to Mr. Grossi, these principles were violated in Zaporizhzhia.
What about actual war?
Ukraine made no attempt to retake the plant. However, last summer, shelling damaged an area spent fuel storage, the most serious of a series of shelling attacks.
In addition, the plant was forced to rely on diesel generators seven times because the power lines supplying the plant were cut off due to shelling.
An uninterruptible power supply is critical to spinning the cooling water circulation pumps. Each time, the power lines were quickly reconnected, but the outage caused concern because the diesel fuel stored at the plant, for use in backup generators, would only last for a few days. day.
More broadly, the facility was located near the front lines at a time when Ukraine began to counterattack to regain territory in the south and east of the country. The plant is located on the east bank of the river, which is part of the land belt north of the Sea of Azov held by Russian forces. According to Grossi, any skirmishes in the vicinity would be an additional risk.
In the longer term, the IAEA suggested last year that the plant be demilitarized with a mutual agreement not to attack. However, the governments in Kiev and Moscow have not agreed to establish a security zone around the plant.
One obstacle, according to experts, is Ukraine’s unwillingness to officially recognize Russia’s control of a factory on its territory. For its part, Moscow, which illegally annexed the Zaporizhzhia region last October and now considers the nuclear plant part of Russia, does not want to relinquish control.
William J. Broad contribution report.
