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Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

reuters.com

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Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#61

Post by Daneel_ »

ardit33 wrote: post #11
jtbayly wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

Bloomberg. Futures are down as well Live feed of the shelling https://youtu.be/fYUT36YGOh8

“A government official told The Associated Press that elevated levels of radiation were detected near the site of the plant”

Closest I could find on Bloomberg, from this page: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-03/refugee-c...

But also in the same article: “..shells were falling directly on the Zaporizhzhia plant and had set fire to one of the facility's six reactors. That reactor is under renovation and not operating, but there is nuclear fuel inside, he said.”

So at worst a small-scale leak.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#62

Post by lupire »

throwanem wrote: post #30
estro0182 wrote: post #9

I would argue that this is a near equivalence of nuclear war with Ukraine. A well-/mis-placed Russian artillery shell could cause a loss of reactor integrity and meltdown, no? EDIT: according to child comments, a meltdown is unlikely/impossible, but spread of radioactive particles due to a direct strike is possible.

Potentially. I'd worry more about coolant and power (to run the coolant pumps if the plant has to shut down) than about direct hits on a containment structure, but it's not like that won't eventually also cause problems if they keep doing it. This is, so far as I know, the first time anyone has carried out a military attack on an operating nuclear plant. Nobody knows yet how that really plays out. But it looks like w…

We know what happened in Japan when an earthquake attacked a nuclear plant.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#63

Post by Gare »

robkop wrote: post #16
Gustomaximus wrote: post #12

Live stream from plant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYUT36YGOh8 Automated Radiation Monitoring system: https://www.npp.zp.ua/en/safety/arms

Doesn't look like radiation levels are going up at the moment, do you know how often this page is updated?

It's past 3 AM in Ukraine. Every couple minutes, it seems.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#65

Post by sterlind »

ikr678 wrote: post #25
ttybird2 wrote: post #10

I do not understand, why are they fighting near the reactor? It only makes sense to keep troops of both sides away from something as dangerous.

Russia may be just trying to take it off line.

they could blow up the substation connecting it to the grid in that case.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#66

Post by nl »

shadowgovt wrote: post #22
estro0182 wrote: post #9

I would argue that this is a near equivalence of nuclear war with Ukraine. A well-/mis-placed Russian artillery shell could cause a loss of reactor integrity and meltdown, no? EDIT: according to child comments, a meltdown is unlikely/impossible, but spread of radioactive particles due to a direct strike is possible.

Probably not. Reactors generally can't melt down the way Chernobyl did anymore. The most significant risk is a breach of the reactor chamber fragmenting the fuel rofs and spreading radioactive particles around, or a hit to the spent fuel stores doing the same. Neither are good, but they wouldn't be nearly as bad as Chernobyl or a nuclear weapon strike.

> Reactors generally can't melt down the way Chernobyl did anymore.

a) "the way Chernobyl did" is technically correct (the VVER reactor that Zaporizhzhia is uses a difference containment strategy), but a distinction without meaning - a meltdown is a meltdown.

b) "anymore" - Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was built between 1980 and 1996.

It's true that it is a safer design than Chernobyl, but yes it absolutely can still meltdown.

> The most significant risk is a breach of the reactor chamber fragmenting the fuel rods and spreading radioactive particles around

Note that this "spreading radioactive particles around" is probably more dangerous to health than a meltdown.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#68

Post by andbberger »

jessriedel wrote: post #43
estro0182 wrote: post #9

I would argue that this is a near equivalence of nuclear war with Ukraine. A well-/mis-placed Russian artillery shell could cause a loss of reactor integrity and meltdown, no? EDIT: according to child comments, a meltdown is unlikely/impossible, but spread of radioactive particles due to a direct strike is possible.

No. It is many orders of magnitude less dangerous. It would potentially cause thousands of deaths, not hundreds of millions . This is true even if a melt down was caused, like Chernobyl, which others have already explained is quite improbable. Chernobyl caused between ~100 and ~16,000 deaths, depending sensitively on how one models the effects of small (sub-natural-background) radiation increases over a large populat…

A single nuke would be more like 100k deaths, still several orders of magnitude safer. But yes, the actual danger posed by radiation is far less than what it is imagined to be

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#69

Post by topspin »

DantesKite wrote: post #2

“Should emphasize there's a LOT of safeguards in place that make a radiation leak unlikely. Still, doesn't seem very wise.” https://twitter.com/inteldoge/status/1499542139155398659?s=2...

These are 80's era Soviet VVER PWRs. They are better designs than Chernobyl style RBMKs, but they're not at par with Western PWRs. In particular they lack much of the automation expected in Western designs.

The danger here is if these were still operating at power when the Russians rolled in and residual heat is not removed because operators have fled or the power gets cut then the core(s) will melt. Melting cores generate hydrogen gas which then explodes. Also, there is probably a large quantity of spent fuel on site, some of which needs active cooling as well.

Re: Fire extinguished at Ukraine nuclear power plant, Europe's largest

#70

Post by jimmydorry »

code_biologist wrote: post #44
ardit33 wrote: post #4

Quoted post unavailable.

These numbers do not agree with that assessment: https://www.npp.zp.ua/en/safety/arms Link is from a comment by Gustomaximus.

Thank you for the link. I will keep an eye on this page. I wouldn't imagine that some damage to the exterior would cause an immediate spike in radiation. However, if damage has been done to critical components, these levels may slowly increase.
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