![]() Turning off the plant would intensify the pressure on parts of southern Ukraine, which could be left without energy heading into the winter.īut Kelley said it would be unlikely that Russia would abandon the plant altogether. ![]() The Russians could alternatively “keep one unit running at partial power to supply the plant itself.” “The plant is designed to be shut down and put into a cold state” if its operators decide to do so, Bob Kelley, a former deputy director at the IAEA, told CNN. Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power operator, Energoatom, claimed on Friday that Russian forces at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant are “planning to stop the working power units in the near future and disconnect them from the communication lines supplying power to the Ukrainian power system.” He called the workers’ professionalism under occupation “remarkable” and the use of an operational power plant for military activities “unconscionable.” “The shelling has threatened the safety of operators working on the site, and there have been reports that a worker was hit by shrapnel and taken to hospital,” Henry Preston, a communications manager at the London-based World Nuclear Association, told CNN. On Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities said the town of Nikopol, across the Dnipro River from the plant, had again come under rocket fire again. But fighting has continued despite the concern. Both sides have tried to point the finger at the other for threatening nuclear terrorism.Ĭalls are growing for an IAEA mission to be allowed to visit the complex. Moscow, meanwhile, has claimed Ukrainian troops are targeting the site. Kyiv has repeatedly accused Russian forces of storing heavy weaponry inside the complex and using it as cover to launch attacks, knowing that Ukraine can’t return fire without risking hitting one of the plant’s six reactors. Rafael Mariano Grossi told the UN Security Council that the situation had deteriorated “to the point of being very alarming.” On August 5, several explosions near the electrical switchboard caused a power shutdown and one reactor was disconnected from the electrical grid, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief said. Shellfire at the Zaporizhzhia plant in recent weeks has damaged a dry storage facility – where casks of spent nuclear fuel are kept at the plant – as well as radiation monitoring detectors, according to Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power company. What’s happening at the Zaporizhzhia plant? Here’s what you need to know about the clashes at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, and what their implications could be. The most pressing dangers would be faced by Ukrainians living in the vicinity of the plant, which is on the banks of the Dnipro River, south of Zaporizhzhia city, and by the Ukrainian staff who are still working there. “If we used past experience, Fukushima could be a comparison of the worst-case scenario,” Cizelj added, referring to the serious but more localized meltdown at the Japanese plant in 2011. “In the very unlikely case that it is, the radioactive problem would mostly affect Ukrainians that live nearby,” rather than spreading throughout eastern Europe as was the case with Chernobyl, he said. “It’s not very likely that this plant will be damaged,” Leon Cizelj, president of the European Nuclear Society, told CNN. Inside the Ukraine power plant raising the specter of nuclear disaster in Europe REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko/File Photo Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters FILE PHOTO: A view shows the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine August 4, 2022.
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