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Ukraine’s nuclear reactors are now war zones


Each nuclear reactor is a balancing act, in which the fuel rods are carefully kept, just close enough together to generate the heat needed to generate electricity, and are constantly monitored to avoid overheating. heat, melt the fuel. This requires constant cooling and a highly trained staff. The reactors themselves are covered by a steel shell and a heavy concrete layer, which are clearly designed to withstand bullets and plane crashes, and are meant to contain the heat of the fuel that melts in the air. a disaster. Chornobyl reactors lack this level of protection, resulting in an outdoor release of radioactive material.

Ukraine has four operating nuclear facilities, including Zaporizhzhia, according to the IAEA Power Reactor Information System database. According to Joshua Pollack of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, there are at least two worrying scenarios that worry experts about nuclear power plants being submerged in a war zone:

• While reactors are hardy, their storage tanks, which hold spent fuel rods that are still hot, are not. If a cooling pond fails and stops working, the water will eventually boil and these fuel rods will catch fire, spewing radioactive particles into the sky. This was of great concern during the Fukushima disaster.

• If a reactor is shut down, loses access to external power, and then loses backup power, the coolant inside the reactor will stop flowing on its own. Soon after, the fuel ignited inside the reactor and released hydrogen gas. “As we know in Fukushima, this is quite dangerous,” Pollack said. In that disaster, hydrogen explosions blew off the roofs of the reactors. That led to the release of radioactive gas and large evacuations.

There seem to be at least three possible explanations for the current attack on Zaporizhzhia by Russian forces, said Melissa Hanham, an open-source intelligence expert with the Center for Security and International Cooperation at Stanford University. during the invasion of Ukraine. The first was simply that in the fog of war, Russian invading forces were taking over every facility in its path, leading to a shootout at the factory. The second is a deliberate attempt to control a high-risk location, similar to taking over Chornobyl at the outset of the invasion. The IAEA has complained that staff at Chornobyl are not relieved of their surveillance activities there. The third explanation offered by Ukrainian officials is that Russia intended to control and cut off electricity to the country as part of an invasion plan.

“If it’s under Russian control, you’d be asking for some confidence building by allowing the IAEA to have regular access and communication with whoever is running it, perhaps Ukrainian staff. “, said Hanham.



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