The atomic power station installed on the banks of the Dnieper, the scene of a fire after Russian fire on Friday, is a major strategic issue. It alone provides a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity and is both coveted and feared.
Russian tanks fired overnight from Thursday to Friday on the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, the largest in Europe, causing a fire and raising fears of a huge disaster. The attack did not affect any essential installation of the plant, whose nuclear security was not affected, according to the Ukrainian authorities and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The site is now controlled by the Russian army. Here are some facts about the plant and its facilities, how events unfolded, and the levels of radioactivity found in the surrounding area.
Where is the central located?
The Zaporijia nuclear power plant is located in the city of Enerhodar – literally “gift of energy” – in southern Ukraine, on the Dnieper River, 525 kilometers from Chernobyl, which has passed under Russian control. It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, with a total capacity of almost 6,000 megawatts, enough to supply electricity to around four million homes. In normal times, the site produces a fifth of the country’s electricity and almost half of its nuclear energy.
Construction of the first reactor began in 1979, when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. Inaugurated in 1985, the plant now has six VVER-1000 reactors of Soviet design, the last of which was commissioned in 1995. These reactors have a lifespan of between forty and sixty years, or even more with the advancement in technology.
Aware of the stakes and the potential danger represented by the plant, the local population had massed on a road leading to the installation, two days before the events, in order to prevent the Russian troops from advancing, as reported several media, supporting videos.
What happened ?
On Friday, Ukrainian authorities warned that a Russian bombardment had caused a fire in a building dedicated to training and in a laboratory. After several hours of uncertainty, the premises were secured and the reactors were “safely arrested”according to US officials. “Nuclear security is now guaranteed”, confirmed on Facebook Oleksandre Starukh, head of the military administration of the Zaporizhia region. The fire, which caused no casualties, was extinguished by Ukrainian firefighters at 6:20 a.m. local time (4:20 a.m. French time).
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian tanks opened fire on the plant. “These tanks are equipped with thermal sights so they know what they are doing, they were prepared”he says in a video published by the Ukrainian presidency.
The IAEA “calls for an end to the use of force and warns of grave danger if the reactors are hit”, the organization tweeted. Zelensky accused Moscow of resorting to “nuclear terror” and to want “repeat” the Chernobyl disaster, the worst in history in 1986. “We alert everyone to the fact that no other country apart from Russia has ever fired on nuclear power plants. This is the first time in our history, the first time in the history of mankind. This terrorist state is now resorting to nuclear terror.he said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson calls for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council “in the next few hours”. After talking to his Ukrainian counterpart, Bojo feels that “President Putin’s irresponsible actions can now directly threaten the security of all of Europe”. The Ukrainian President also spoke with US President Joe Biden. The latter then “urged Russia to cease its military activities in the area” of the plant, according to the White House. Around 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning, the Ukrainian energy regulator announced that the site had come under the control of the Russian army.
How does the central work?
The design of the VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors, considered to be among the safest, comes from those fitted to nuclear submarines. They differ from those of Chernobyl, moderated with graphite and initially designed to produce plutonium and not electricity. The power plants at Balakovo, on the Volga in southern Russia, and Kozloduy, on the Danube in Bulgaria, have similar technology.
Zaporizhia’s VVER-1000s are powered by fuel enriched in the fissile isotope Uranium-235. They operate using steam heated by the core, but unlike other reactors, the nuclear-contaminated steam is not used to turn the turbines, but to heat another circuit of uncontaminated steam which then turns the turbines. . This technique makes it possible to maintain a relatively low level of radioactivity for the employees of the plant.
What are the levels of radioactivity?
Background radiation around the site was 0.1 microsievert per hour on Friday morning, according to the plant operator, below the global average and well below that from an airplane flight or an X-ray . For comparison, during the Chernobyl disaster, the level of radioactivity was millions of times higher, at 300 sieverts per hour.
After the Russian military operation against Ukraine in 2014, Kyiv developed safety protocols for the physical protection of nuclear facilities in the country, with regular inspections, vulnerability assessment and implementation of automated control systems Datas. Air defense has also been reinforced over Zaporizhia.