The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant seen throughout the Dnieper River, which was receding after a downstream dam was destroyed. Photograph by Carl Courtroom/Getty Pictures
A blast on June 6, 2023, destroyed the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in japanese Ukraine. The rupture lowered water ranges in a reservoir upriver on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant within the metropolis of Enerhodar. The reservoir provides water vital for cooling the plant’s shutdown reactors and spent gasoline, which is uranium that has been largely however not fully depleted by the fission response that drives nuclear energy crops.
The Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company, which has inspectors on-site to observe results of the battle on the plant, issued a press release saying that there was no imminent hazard. However, the destruction of the dam will increase the danger of a catastrophe on the plant, a threat already heightened by ongoing fight within the space.
The Dialog requested Najmedin Meshkati, a professor and nuclear security skilled on the College of Southern California, to elucidate what the dropping water stage means for the protection of the nuclear energy plant and the continued dangers to the plant’s spent gasoline.
Why are dropping water ranges a menace to the ability plant?
The speedy scenario is changing into very precarious. The dam is downstream from the plant, that means that the flooding is not going to jeopardize the plant. However the plant attracts water from a serious reservoir on the river for its cooling system. This reservoir is draining as a result of the downstream dam has been broken.
The plant doesn’t want the huge quantity of water it in any other case would as a result of its six reactors are in chilly shutdown. However the plant nonetheless wants water for 3 functions: to cut back the residual warmth from the shutdown reactors, to chill the spent gasoline, and to chill the emergency diesel turbines if the plant loses off-site energy.
The plant’s operators pumped water from the reservoir right into a cooling pond, which is why the IAEA mentioned the plant has sufficient water for a number of months. However that’s the final resort, which is why the company additionally mentioned that it’s very important that the cooling pond stays intact. If the plant loses the cooling pond, the one hope can be to strive one thing like they did on the Fukushima nuclear energy plant after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. They introduced in enormous water pumps to pump saltwater from the Pacific Ocean into the reactors to chill them down. The plant operators could must attempt to pump water from the Dnieper River.
The 2 lifelines of any nuclear plant, whether or not operational or closed down, are water and electrical energy. The newly launched Ukrainian counteroffensive places these two lifelines in additional jeopardy. Because the Russian occupation, the plant has suffered loads and misplaced off-site energy seven instances. My speedy concern is that if the plant loses its final remaining energy line, which powers the cooling pumps, then it must depend on emergency diesel turbines. There are 20 turbines with on-site storage of solely 10 to fifteen days of gasoline provide. Getting gasoline whereas the counteroffensive is occurring is one other main problem.
What does it imply to have a nuclear reactor in chilly shutdown?
The fission response that generates warmth in a nuclear energy plant is produced by positioning various uranium gasoline rods in shut proximity. Shutting down a nuclear reactor includes inserting management rods between the gasoline rods to cease the fission response.
The reactor is then in cooldown mode because the temperature decreases. In accordance with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Fee, as soon as the temperature is beneath 200 levels Fahrenheit (93 Celsius) and the reactor coolant system is at atmospheric stress, the reactor is in chilly shutdown.
When the reactor is working, it requires cooling to soak up the warmth and maintain the gasoline rods from melting collectively, which might set off a catastrophic chain response. When a reactor is in chilly shutdown, it now not wants the identical stage of circulation.
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant makes use of pressurized water reactors.
How does being in chilly shutdown enhance the plant’s security?
The shutdown has eliminated an enormous component of threat. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant is a pressurized water reactor. These reactors want fixed cooling, and the cooling pumps are gigantic, highly effective electricity-guzzling machines.
Chilly shutdown is the state during which you don’t want to continually run the first cooling pumps on the identical stage to flow into the cooling water within the major cooling loop. Now, not less than if the plant loses offsite energy, the operators gained’t have to fret about making an attempt to chill an working reactor with cranky diesel turbines.
And by shutting down all of the reactors, the plant operators have been relieved of a substantial quantity of their workload monitoring the reactors amid the continued uncertainties across the website. This considerably diminished the potential for human error.
The operators’ jobs are more likely to be a lot much less demanding and anxious now than earlier than. Nevertheless, they nonetheless must continually monitor the standing of the shutdown reactors and the spent gasoline swimming pools.
What are the dangers from the spent gasoline on the plant?
The plant nonetheless wants a dependable supply of electrical energy to chill the six enormous spent gasoline swimming pools which might be contained in the containment buildings and to take away residual warmth from the shutdown reactors. The cooling pumps for the spent gasoline swimming pools want a lot much less electrical energy than the cooling pumps on the reactor’s major and secondary loops, and the spent gasoline cooling system might tolerate a short electrical energy outage.
Another essential issue is that the spent gasoline storage racks within the spent gasoline swimming pools on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant have been compacted to extend capability, in accordance with a 2017 Ukrainian authorities report back to the IAEA. The larger quantity and extra compacted the saved spent gasoline rods, the extra warmth they generate and so extra energy is required to chill them.
These large concrete cylinders retailer spent nuclear gasoline rods. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant shops a lot of its spent gasoline open air in casks like these.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Fee
There’s additionally a dry spent gasoline storage facility on the plant. Dry spent gasoline storage includes packing spent gasoline rods into large cylinders, or casks, which require no water or different coolants. The casks are designed to maintain the gasoline rods contained for not less than 50 years. Nevertheless, the casks aren’t below the containment buildings on the plant, and although they have been designed to face up to being crashed into by an airliner, it’s not clear whether or not artillery shelling and aerial bombardment, significantly repeated assaults, might crack open the casks and launch radiation into the grounds of the plant.
The closest analogy to this state of affairs might be a terrorist assault that, in accordance with a seminal examine by the Nationwide Analysis Council, might breach a dry cask and doubtlessly consequence within the launch of radioactive materials from the spent gasoline. This might occur via the dispersion of gasoline particles or fragments or the dispersion of radioactive aerosols. This could be just like the detonation of a “soiled bomb,” which, relying on wind course and dispersion radius, might lead to radioactive contamination. This in flip might trigger critical issues for entry to and work within the plant.
Subsequent steps from the IAEA and UN
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the top of the IAEA, briefed the U.N. Safety Council on Might 30, 2023, in regards to the scenario on the Zaporizhzhia plant. He known as on Russia and Ukraine to make sure that the battle doesn’t put the plant in danger. Grossi has been to the Safety Council a number of instances. Every week earlier than the dam failed, he mentioned it was crucial briefing that he had given to the council. So far, there was no draft decision from the Safety Council.
This example is quickly evolving. And if one thing occurs and there’s a radiation launch, it’s going to unfold around the globe.
That is an up to date model of an article initially printed on Sept. 13, 2022. The article has been up to date to incorporate information of the destruction of a dam downriver from the nuclear energy plant and the IAEA’s report back to the U.N. Safety Council about decreasing the danger that fight poses to the plant.
Najmedin Meshkati acquired analysis funding from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Fee within the mid-Nineties.
