Global Courant
Ukrainian officials have warned for months that Russia plans to blow up the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, but those warnings have escalated in recent days.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has even warned that Russia has placed items that could be explosives on the roof of the power plant. In an interview with ABC News, Zelenskyy said Russia could stage an explosion at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to stop the Ukrainian advance on the battlefield.
But experts say the cold shutdown of the plant’s six reactors has largely mitigated the risk of an explosion at the plant.
“We are actually very, very lucky. Any incident would not involve an active reactor, which could cause tremendous environmental hazard and damage and deaths,” William Alberque, the director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies told ABC News.
A satellite image of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, July 5, 2023.
AP
Russian troops stormed and took control of the plant on March 4, 2022. Despite the Ukrainian energy company still operating the plant, Russia sometimes has limited access to parts of the plant, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Last October, the IAEA said there are mines along the perimeter of the Zaporizhzhia power plant, but not in it.
According to Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, IAEA experts on the site of the power plant gained additional access to the plant on Friday and reported not seeing any visible evidence of mines or explosives. But the IAEA said the experts still need additional access to the plant.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, speaks during an interview in Tokyo, Japan, July 7, 2023.
Shuji Kajiyama/AP
Alberque said the IAEA has enough access to the plant to theoretically see if Russia took steps to blow up the plant from the inside. However, he said warnings from Ukrainian officials should be taken seriously.
“Every time (Ukraine and the US) think there is going to be a false flag attack, they talk about it early, often, and loudly. And this, I think, is an attempt to dissuade Russia from doing something that they feel worry. happen,” Alberque said.
Experts say the threat should be taken seriously.
“It’s a real threat, just as the Kakhovka dam mining warnings ultimately turned out to be realistic,” Keir Giles, a Russia and Eurasia Program senior consulting fellow at London think tank Chatham House, told ABC News. last month. “And the advantage for Russia is that it can cause the kind of nuclear incident that would be of serious concern not only to Ukraine’s Western backers, but to the entire world, without necessarily having the consequences of a nuclear attack.”
How could Russia blow up the factory?
Alberque said there are four areas in the plant that Russia could plan to attack: They could blow up the dry fuel storage, blow up the wet fuel storage, blow up one of the reactor buildings itself or try to melt down the nuclear fuel that is still there. . in the reactor.
“If they hit it from the outside and tried to say Ukraine did it, they would hit a reactor building that is incredibly well fortified. These are not the RBMK reactors that Chernobyl was. These are DVRs, they have a very large containment on the outside – a lot of concrete. So you would have to hit it with a lot of weapons to do any damage that would have any significance for an accidental release,” Alberque said.
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as seen from the Ukrainian city of Nikopol on July 7, 2023. The head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on July 7, 2023 that it was making progress in inspecting various parts of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, after allegations that it was mined.
Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images
“None of these scenarios rise to the level of Fukushima or Chernobyl,” Alberque said, referring to two infamous nuclear plant meltdowns, “unless they blow it up from the inside and monitor it to make sure no one can do anything about it for a few weeks and the fuel builds up and then explodes.”
With the IAEA on the ground, Alberque said this is not a credible scenario at the moment. Alberque said the IAEA is closely monitoring the reactors and it is still a fully functioning facility, so it would be difficult to plan such an explosion from the inside without the team on site seeing it.
The least dangerous of the four scenarios, blowing up the dry fuel storage, would affect people in the direct wind, who would have an increased risk of cancer during their lifetime, Alberque said.
The most dangerous scenario would be to blow up the reactor vessel in the building itself, Alberque said. This would be similar to what Russia did when it blew up the Kakhovka Dam, a strategically vital dam and hydroelectric power station, in June.
First responders attend anti-radiation exercises to prepare for an emergency at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant amid the Russian attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, June 29, 2023.
Reuters
“You’re not talking about opening up a working reactor like in Chernobyl, but you’d set the fuel station on fire, probably hoping it would melt through the floor and trigger a Fukushima-like event. But that would take a long time. to happen,” Alberque said.
Chernobyl, another nuclear power plant in Ukraine, melted down in April 1986 during a safety test. The Fukushima meltdown occurred in March 2011 when a massive earthquake triggered a tsunami that damaged the factory on Japan’s east coast.
How harmful can an explosion of the plant be?
Alberque said any explosion in Zaporizhzhia would be far less damaging than the dam blown up by Russia last month.
“If something bad happens, it won’t even be as devastating as that flood. That flood was much more devastating, much greater environmental impact, much more deaths than anything they could do with the reactor now,” Alberque said.
More than 100 people were killed when the dam in Kherson was blown up at the end of June, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
A resident looks out from the destroyed city hospital of Hulyaypole, Zaporizhia region, Ukraine, July 6, 2023.
Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images
The American Nuclear Society has released similar guidelines, saying closing the reactors limits the risk of radioactive fallout from an explosion. “Our experts have carefully considered worst case scenarios, including bombing and deliberate sabotage of the reactors and spent fuel storage canisters. They cannot foresee a situation that would lead to radiation-related health consequences for the public,” the American Nuclear Society said. in a statement this week.
The American Nuclear Society said that with the reactors shut down for more than 10 months, they are not producing enough heat to cause a radiological release. “ZNPP is designed to withstand natural and man-made hazards. Thick, steel-reinforced concrete containment buildings protect the reactor cores and are designed to keep all radioactive materials isolated from the environment,” according to the American Nuclear Society.
Residents pass by a street in Nikopol, with the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the background, behind an expanse of sand exposed after the destruction of Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka Dam on July 3, 2023.
The New York Times via Redux
“In the unlikely event that containment structures were breached, any potential release of radiological material would be confined to the immediate vicinity of the reactors. In this regard, any comparison between ZNPP and ‘Chernobyl’ or ‘Fukushima’ is both imprecise and misleading,” said the American Nuclear Society.
Alberque said people living within 20 miles of the reactor should be aware of the safety procedures. On a warning that something has happened, they should go inside, close the windows and try to recirculate the air from inside. Anyone outside should take off their clothes completely and wash everything completely as soon as possible.
ABC News’ Zoe Magee and Will Gretsky contributed to this report.
