The external power supply to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), seized by Russia, has been down for more than three days – the longest such outage to date – raising concerns over the plant’s safety.
Source: The Guardian with reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency and Ukrainian officials
Details: Emergency diesel generators are being used to power cooling and safety systems after the last power line to the plant was disconnected from the Russian side at 16:56 on Tuesday 23 September.
The Guardian said Western experts and Ukrainian officials fear that the Kremlin is deliberately creating a crisis to consolidate its control over the facility, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, and that Russia is taking reckless steps to restart at least one reactor despite the wartime conditions.
“Russia is using the nuclear power station as a bargaining chip,” one Ukrainian government official said.
Stress tests conducted by European regulators after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan established that a nuclear power station should be able to operate without external electricity for up to 72 hours. Ukrainian sources note that the scenario has never been tested beyond this limit.
The IAEA stated that Russian operators had reported enough diesel fuel to keep the generators running for 20 days without replenishment. However, IAEA Director Rafael Grossi warned that the loss of external power “increases the likelihood of a nuclear accident”.
Seven of the 18 available generators are currently providing cooling onsite, but Ukrainian sources caution that, should they fail, nuclear fuel in the six reactors could heat up uncontrollably within weeks, resulting in meltdown.
An accelerated version of this scenario unfolded at Fukushima, as the reactors there had just been operating. Japan was struck by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, and the hot reactors at the site automatically shut down.
Background: At 16:56 on 23 September, the only power line through which Zaporizhzhia NPP received electricity from the Ukrainian grid was cut off. This blackout is the tenth since the plant was seized by Russian forces.
Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
From Ukrainska Pravda via this RSS feed