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Title: Ukrainian nuclear plant set on fire. Should we worry about another Chernobyl?
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Published: Mar 4, 2022
Author: Ben Turner
Post Date: 2022-03-08 20:43:16 by BTP Holdings
Keywords: None
Views: 238
Comments: 8
Ukrainian nuclear plant set on fire. Should we worry about another Chernobyl? By Ben Turner | 4 March 2022 The fire blazed for hours before being put out. A screenshot from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant's livestream during a fire following fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces. (Image credit: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Russian troops have seized Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after overnight shelling sparked a fire near one of the facility's reactors, which burned for several hours. World leaders have condemned the "reckless" attack on the plant, the largest nuclear facility by capacity in Europe, after a projectile struck an auxiliary training building just 490 feet (150 meters) from one of the plant's reactor units, starting a fire that blazed from early morning until around 6:20 a.m. local time Friday (March 4). Firefighters successfully put out the fire, with no damage reported to reactors or safety systems, and radiation hasn't exceeded baseline levels, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Employees have continued to work on the site after its capture by Russian forces, the Ukrainian state inspectorate for nuclear regulation said in a statement. Ukraine’s nuclear agency said that three soldiers had been killed and two wounded by the attack. "The plant's staff continues to work on power units, ensuring the stable operation of nuclear facilities," Energoatom, Ukraine's nuclear power operator, wrote on Telegram. "Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded among the Ukrainian defenders of the station." The Zaporizhzhia plant, which is situated in southeastern Ukraine near the city of Enerhodar, produces enough energy to supply 4 million households with electricity, covering roughly one-fifth of Ukraine's population. The attack on the plant, which came on the ninth day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has raised concerns about the security of Zaporizhzhia and Ukraine's three remaining operational nuclear power plants. The Ukrainian state inspectorate for nuclear regulation has warned that "loss of the possibility to cool down nuclear fuel will lead to significant radioactive releases into the environment," which could "exceed all previous accidents at nuclear power plants, including the Chernobyl accident and the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant." "Russian people, I want to appeal to you: How is this possible? After all, we fought together in 1986 against the Chernobyl catastrophe," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a televised address on Friday. U.S. President Joe Biden called the Ukrainian president in the early hours of the morning to speak about the situation at the plant, according to the White House. The two leaders urged the Russian government to halt military activity around the area and allow firefighters and emergency responders to enter the plant. Some experts, however, think that making close connections between Zaporizhzhia and the Chernobyl disaster could be a mistake. Large parts of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, which lies about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of the capital, Kyiv, have been closed off since the disastrous meltdown of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986. In that disaster, two explosions inside the plant's reactor flipped its 2,000-ton (1,800 metric tons) lid like a coin, blanketing the surrounding 1,000 square miles (2,600 square kilometers) with radioactive dust and reactor chunks. Following evacuation and the dousing of the nuclear fire — which cost many firefighters their lives — the reactor was sealed off and the area was deemed uninhabitable by humans for the next 24,000 years. After fighting broke out there last week, the zone is also occupied by Russian forces, Live Science previously reported. Despite the frightening surface similarities between the two events, Zaporizhzhia's reactors are much safer than the ones at Chernobyl, according to nuclear scientists. Unlike Chernobyl's RBMK-1000 reactors, Zaporizhzhia uses more modern pressurized water reactors, which require significantly less uranium fuel in the reactor core, thus limiting the likelihood of a runaway chain reaction. Two layers of protection — a steel-reinforced concrete outer containment unit and a 8-inch-thick (20 centimeters) steel inner vessel — also surround the reactor. Both layers are designed to withstand earthquakes and explosions. Pressurized water reactors also shut down automatically in the event of an emergency. Nonetheless, a direct shell hit to the outside of a reactor could still be dangerous, according to Robin Grimes, a professor of materials physics at Imperial College London. Puncturing the Zaporizhzhia reactors' twin shells wouldn't lead to an explosion like at Chernobyl, he says, but it would still release a lot of dangerous material. "It is not designed to withstand explosive ordinance such as artillery shells," Grimes said in a statement. "While it seems to me unlikely that such an impact would result in a Chornobyl-like nuclear event, a breach of the pressure vessel would be followed by the release of coolant pressure, scattering nuclear fuel debris across the vicinity of the plant and a cloud of coolant with some entrained particles reaching further." Despite being much safer than those at Chernobyl, Zaporizhzhia's reactor cores still contain a lot of highly radioactive fuel, and this is not the only source of concern. Environmentalists and nuclear experts have long warned that the plant's spent nuclear fuel rods, cooling in acres of open water pools and standing in open-air yards behind the site, could produce catastrophic airborne plumes of radiation if struck by a stray shell or missile. On the day before the blaze (March 3), crowds of local residents and employees of the nuclear facility attempted to block Russian troops from advancing toward the plant by setting up improvised barricades, but after some resistance, the Russian troops broke through. Edward Obbard, a nuclear engineering program coordinator at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said that the greatest impact of the attack is not the risk of nuclear fallout but rather the loss of electricity to the Ukrainian people and the likelihood of much more fighting. "The availability of nuclear power is vital to energy security in multiple European States and particularly in Ukraine," he said in a statement. "All nuclear-related risks to people in the vicinity, even in very worst case scenarios, pale in comparison to the very direct and lethal hazard of continued fighting on the ground." Poster Comment: Video at source.
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#1. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
IIRC the fire was in the parking lot.
The one thing I am getting damned tired of hearing, is the lies of the media playing games and pretending that nuclear plants are going up in flames when in fact they are not.
"Call Me Ishmael" -Ishmael, A character from the book "Moby Dick" 1851. "Call Me Fishmeal" -Osama Bin Laden, A character created by the CIA, and the world's Hide And Seek Champion 2001-2011. -Tommythemadartist
Of course not. It is all lies and propaganda by the US media.
Bullshit. There was no fire at the nuclear power plant, the fire was in a nearby training facility and was set by UkiNazis as they were leaving after they tried to attack a Russian patrol that was guarding the area. To top it off, Fox News had shown a video of the training facility and claimed that it was under fire by Russian tanks, where in reality somebody had fired a flare gun and the flare was coming down on a parachute. They claimed that was a Russian tank shell. Gracious, no! Puttinsky did it, beautiful flowery bowers will spring up. _____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
Maybe a dumpster fire? ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
I suppose that is what we should expect from Faux News. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
I had stopped calling them Faux for awhile as they had seemed to come to their senses, but at this point they're worse than CNN much of the time. So it's back to Faux instead of Fox.
#2. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
#3. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
#4. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
"After tomorrow those SOB's will never embarrass me again. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise.” – LBJ to his mistress Madeleine Brown on the eve of JFK assassination 
#5. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
(Edited)
Should we worry about another Chernobyl
#6. To: Ada (#1)
fire was in the parking lot.
#7. To: FormerLurker (#4)
Fox News had shown a video of the training facility and claimed that it was under fire by Russian tanks, where in reality somebody had fired a flare gun and the flare was coming down on a parachute. They claimed that was a Russian tank shell.
#8. To: BTP Holdings (#7)
I suppose that is what we should expect from Faux News.
"After tomorrow those SOB's will never embarrass me again. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise.” – LBJ to his mistress Madeleine Brown on the eve of JFK assassination
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