{"id":8677,"date":"2022-08-22T16:24:06","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T16:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8677"},"modified":"2022-08-22T16:24:06","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T16:24:06","slug":"the-risks-to-ukraines-zaporizhzhia-power-plant-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8677","title":{"rendered":"The risks to Ukraine\u2019s Zaporizhzhia power plant, explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“While there are many things that could go wrong at Zaporizhzhia, \u201cthe likelihood of an intentional attack on the [plant] that leads to a major nuclear disaster is low,\u201d Ivanka Barzashka, founder and co-director of the King\u2019s Wargaming Network at King\u2019s College London, told Vox via email. \u201cMoscow would have a lot to lose and nothing to gain from such an outcome, given the reactor\u2019s proximity to Russian forces and population.\u201d Furthermore, the plant is built to withstand direct attacks<\/a>, as it\u2019s constructed with reinforced concrete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real risks to the facility would more likely be due to human error, accidental shelling, or a lack of electricity to cool the nuclear material, according to Matthew Bunn, the James R. Schlesinger professor of the practice of energy, national security, and foreign policy at Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe biggest concern is [the] cooling of a nuclear power plant,\u201d Bunn told Vox. \u201cIn general, to avoid an accident at a nuclear power plant, you need to keep the reactor core under water, and the spent fuel and the spent fuel pool under water so they\u2019re continuously cooled.\u201d That cooling process requires electricity, which now comes from Ukraine\u2019s external power grid. The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, for example, occurred because of a tsunami which cut off-site electricity to the plant and destroyed the generators, making it impossible to cool the facility even though the reactor had undergone emergency shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as Bunn told Vox, a number of those lines have already been cut, increasing the possibility that Zaporizhzhia might have to rely on diesel-powered generators to support the cooling process. It\u2019s unclear how much fuel those generators have, given that Russian forces have reportedly been siphoning off the fuel for their own purposes, Bunn said. \u201cDiesel\u2019s a highly sought commodity in any war zone,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are supposed to be days of diesel at the site; we don\u2019t know whether that\u2019s still true or not.\u201d The Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom said on Friday that Russian forces were seeking diesel to fuel the generators in case of power loss, according to Reuters<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a worst-case scenario, the plant could lose power and the pumps circulating water to cool the reactor core and spent fuel pool would shut down. The heat that the reactor core and the spent material generate would then boil the surrounding water until it evaporates, exposing the reactor core \u201cwithin hours,\u201d Bunn said. \u201cThe fuel would then start to melt. Even if you shut the reactor down, some people refer to it as \u2018the fire that doesn\u2019t go out\u2019 \u2014 the fuel still generates a lot of heat from the radioactive decay of the split atoms, what are called the fission products, in the fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a spent fuel fire \u2014 what Bunn referred to as the \u201cvery very worst case\u201d \u2014 is unlikely given that there\u2019s just not as much of it at Zaporizhzhia as there are at other sites; that\u2019s because Zaporizhzhia used to send spent fuel to Russia for storage and reprocessing there. \u201cThat really only happens when you have fuel that\u2019s pretty closely packed and really hot, having been released from the reactor fairly recently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if the electricity supply holds, shelling could damage the facility<\/a>, causing water to leak out of the plant and upsetting the cooling process. Alarmingly, the ongoing shelling has already done damage to the plant<\/a> \u2014 including near a substation<\/a> which prompted one of only two operating power lines to shut down on August 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Bunn told Vox, the human element is critical in maintaining the plant\u2019s safety. \u201cThe Ukrainian operators have been operating essentially at Russian gunpoint for months,\u201d Bunn said. \u201c[They are under] enormous psychological stress; many of them have sent their families away, they\u2019re exhausted. Under those conditions, the possibility of human error in operating the plant is ever-present. They have been doing a heroic job, but people under stress make mistakes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operators at the plant who have been able to speak to outside sources paint a harrowing picture. \u201cWhat is happening is horrific and beyond common sense and morality,\u201d plant staff wrote in a Telegram channel<\/a>, according to the BBC. \u201cThe psychological situation is difficult,\u201d a worker called Svitlana told the BBC<\/a>. \u201cSoldiers are walking everywhere with weapons and everyone is actually kept at gunpoint.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2022\/8\/20\/23314161\/ukraines-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-russia-united-nations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“While there are many things that could go wrong at Zaporizhzhia, \u201cthe likelihood of an intentional attack on the [plant] that leads to a major nuclear disaster is low,\u201d Ivanka Barzashka, founder and co-director of the King\u2019s Wargaming Network at King\u2019s College London, told Vox via email. \u201cMoscow would have a lot to lose and nothing to gain from such an outcome, given the reactor\u2019s proximity to Russian forces and population.\u201d Furthermore, the plant is built to withstand direct attacks, as it\u2019s constructed with reinforced concrete.<\/p>\n

The real risks to the facility would more likely be due to human error, accidental shelling, or a lack of electricity to cool the nuclear material, according to Matthew Bunn, the James R. Schlesinger professor of the practice of energy, national security, and foreign policy at Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest concern is [the] cooling of a nuclear power plant,\u201d Bunn told Vox. \u201cIn general, to avoid an accident at a nuclear power plant, you need to keep the reactor core under water, and the spent fuel and the spent fuel pool under water so they\u2019re continuously cooled.\u201d That cooling process requires electricity, which now comes from Ukraine\u2019s external power grid. The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, for example, occurred because of a tsunami which cut off-site electricity to the plant and destroyed the generators, making it impossible to cool the facility even though the reactor had undergone emergency shutdown.<\/p>\n

However, as Bunn told Vox, a number of those lines have already been cut, increasing the possibility that Zaporizhzhia might have to rely on diesel-powered generators to support the cooling process. It\u2019s unclear how much fuel those generators have, given that Russian forces have reportedly been siphoning off the fuel for their own purposes, Bunn said. \u201cDiesel\u2019s a highly sought commodity in any war zone,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are supposed to be days of diesel at the site; we don\u2019t know whether that\u2019s still true or not.\u201d The Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom said on Friday that Russian forces were seeking diesel to fuel the generators in case of power loss, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n

In a worst-case scenario, the plant could lose power and the pumps circulating water to cool the reactor core and spent fuel pool would shut down. The heat that the reactor core and the spent material generate would then boil the surrounding water until it evaporates, exposing the reactor core \u201cwithin hours,\u201d Bunn said. \u201cThe fuel would then start to melt. Even if you shut the reactor down, some people refer to it as \u2018the fire that doesn\u2019t go out\u2019 \u2014 the fuel still generates a lot of heat from the radioactive decay of the split atoms, what are called the fission products, in the fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, a spent fuel fire \u2014 what Bunn referred to as the \u201cvery very worst case\u201d \u2014 is unlikely given that there\u2019s just not as much of it at Zaporizhzhia as there are at other sites; that\u2019s because Zaporizhzhia used to send spent fuel to Russia for storage and reprocessing there. \u201cThat really only happens when you have fuel that\u2019s pretty closely packed and really hot, having been released from the reactor fairly recently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even if the electricity supply holds, shelling could damage the facility, causing water to leak out of the plant and upsetting the cooling process. Alarmingly, the ongoing shelling has already done damage to the plant \u2014 including near a substation which prompted one of only two operating power lines to shut down on August 5.<\/p>\n

As Bunn told Vox, the human element is critical in maintaining the plant\u2019s safety. \u201cThe Ukrainian operators have been operating essentially at Russian gunpoint for months,\u201d Bunn said. \u201c[They are under] enormous psychological stress; many of them have sent their families away, they\u2019re exhausted. Under those conditions, the possibility of human error in operating the plant is ever-present. They have been doing a heroic job, but people under stress make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Operators at the plant who have been able to speak to outside sources paint a harrowing picture. \u201cWhat is happening is horrific and beyond common sense and morality,\u201d plant staff wrote in a Telegram channel, according to the BBC. \u201cThe psychological situation is difficult,\u201d a worker called Svitlana told the BBC. \u201cSoldiers are walking everywhere with weapons and everyone is actually kept at gunpoint.\u201d”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[552,121,23,1545,180,444,512,315,311,158],"class_list":["post-8677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-conflict","tag-danger","tag-dangers","tag-invasion","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-energy","tag-nuclear-power","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8678,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8677\/revisions\/8678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}