Chernobyl goes off grid
The Chornobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) has been completely disconnected from the power grid due to the actions of the Russian invaders, the system operator NPC Ukrenergo has said.
‘Because of military actions of Russian occupiers the nuclear power plant in Chornobyl was fully disconnected from the power grid. The nuclear station has no power supply. The military actions are in progress, so there is no possibility to restore the lines,’ Ukrenergo said in a statement.
There are concerns that radioactive substances may leak into the environment.
Mark Wenman, Reader in Nuclear Materials at Nuclear Energy Futures, Imperial College London, comments 'The last reactor unit at Chernobyl was shut down over 20 years ago and units 1 and 2 were shut down between 1991 and 1996. This means the heat, produced by the fuel in the storage ponds will have substantially reduced (decayed) over the 20-30 year period. The fuel storage ponds are also very deep and would likely take weeks for the water to boil down even without cooling pumps active. This should hopefully allow enough time for the power to cooling systems to be restored.
'It is also concerning that communications with the IAEA to the plant are being lost so it will be far more difficult to get up to date live information on the ongoing situation.
'Fire is another risk to the plant in general but this is less concerning as the worst radioactivity is in the fuel, which is protected by being underwater.'
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