Critical facilities were damaged by Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which included the Zaporizhzhia Plant on Thursday.
Ukraine now reports that Chernobyl power was cut, raising fears that it could lead to a radiation leakage. According to Reuters
Energoatom, a state-run nuclear corporation, stated that a high voltage power line was damaged in fighting between Ukrainian troops to Russian troops occupying the plant. It also said it had been disconnected from the national grid. Read more
It said “radioactive substances” could eventually be released, threatening other parts of Ukraine and Europe, if there was no power to cool spent nuclear fuel stored at the plant that suffered the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.
Dmytro Kuleba, Foreign Minister, stated that the power plant could be powered by reserve diesel generators for 48 hours.
Following initial concerns about radiation from Zaporizhzhia’s Zaporizhia plant, following the fire at one of its administration buildings, it was later reported that the plant was secured and no reactors were damaged. There was also no rise in radiation levels.
#BREAKINGIAEA: Ukraine declares ‘no changes’ to radiation levels at its nuclear power plant pic.twitter.com/JUW7ym8xfN
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 4, 2022
In response to concerns raised by Ukrainian officials regarding potential leaks as a result of the Chernobyl power outage, the IAEA indicated it “sees no critical impact on safety.”
#UkraineIAEA has been notified of the power outage #ChornobylNuclear Power Plant @rafaelmgrossiDevelopment violates the key safety pillar of uninterrupted power supply. IAEA does not see any critical safety impact.
— IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency (@iaeaorg) March 9, 2022
The IAEA followed up with a tweet claiming that even without power, there is enough cooling water available to heat remove the heat.
IAEA estimates heat load from spent fuel storage pools and cooling water volumes at #ChornobylNuclear Power Plant is sufficient to provide heat removal with no need for electricity. IAEA update from March 3: https://t.co/x5IlduZQOn
— IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency (@iaeaorg) March 9, 2022
This, despite the fact that, on Tuesday, IAEA announced that “remote data transmission from safeguards monitoring systems installed at the Chornobyl NPP had been lost,”
Per the latest indication from the IAEA, this isn’t presenting a critical safety threat. We’ll continue to monitor and provide any updates as they become available.
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