Attempted nuclear power plant connection to Crimea: Zaporizhia operator fears Fukushima scenario

Attempted nuclear connection to Crimea
Zaporizhia operator fears Fukushima scenario

Apparently, Russia is trying to connect the occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to the power grid of the annexed Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainian head of nuclear power plant operator Enerhoatom warns that this is extremely dangerous. He threatens military action.

The head of the state-owned Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Enerhoatom, Petro Kotin, warns Russia against connecting the occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to the annexed Crimean peninsula. To do this, the existing power lines of the Ukrainian grid must first be cut, Kotin said in an interview with the Ukrainian agency RBK Ukraine. “Between August 7th and 9th, the Russians have already damaged three high-voltage lines. The plant is currently running on only one, which is an extremely dangerous mode of work.”

According to Kotin, as soon as the last line is interrupted, the emergency power generators of the nuclear power plant start up. “Then everything will depend on their reliability and fuel reserves,” the Enerhoatom boss warns. Should this occur, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is, according to him, on the first stage of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.

Precursor to Fukushima?

A nuclear meltdown occurred in the Japanese nuclear power plant in 2011 after a severe earthquake interrupted the power supply. As planned, emergency generators stepped in to cool the reactors. When a few minutes later a tsunami, some of which was several meters high, broke over the nuclear power plant site, they were flooded and failed within a few minutes.

According to Kotin, the diesel generators at the Zaporizhia NPP have enough fuel for ten days. According to him, it should take about three days to connect the power plant from the Ukrainian to the Russian power grid in Crimea. But nobody “ever checked whether the generators really worked for ten days,” he says in the interview.

“Our armed forces will be ready”

Shortly after the start of the war, the Ukraine and neighboring Moldova disconnected from the former Soviet power grid and joined the European power grid. Should Russia successfully connect the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to the Crimean power grid, the occupied territories of Ukraine could then also be synchronized with the Russian power grid. Moscow would then control the energy supply in large parts of Ukraine.

Enerhoatom boss Kotin assumes that the Ukrainian military will intervene and in turn destroy the Russian power lines before Russia finalizes this plan. “I think our armed forces will be ready if necessary,” he said in the interview. This could happen before the Russian troops finally disconnect the power plant from the Ukrainian grid.

With six blocks and an output of 6000 megawatts, the plant in the city of Enerhodar in the Zaporizhia Oblast is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Russian troops occupied the facility in early March. After that, the nuclear power plant continued to be operated by Ukrainian personnel, but was monitored by Russian nuclear specialists.

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