Ukraine: cooling pond at Zaporizhzhia plant at risk after dam collapse – report

The cooling pond astatine the Zaporizhzhia atomic powerfulness works is successful information of illness arsenic a effect of the demolition of the Kakhovka dam and the draining of its reservoir, according to a French atomic information organisation.

Without the reservoir connected the different broadside to counteract it, the interior unit of the h2o successful the cooling excavation could breach the dyke astir it, a report by the Paris-based Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) said.

The nonaccomplishment of the excavation would not needfully beryllium catastrophic arsenic different sources of h2o could beryllium brought in, specified arsenic pumping trucks, to forestall a meltdown of the plant’s atomic fuel, but a nonaccomplishment of the cooling excavation would dramatically summation information concerns astatine the plant.

Officials astatine the Ukrainian atomic vigor corporation, Energoatom, said that immoderate illness of the dyke astir the cooling pond would beryllium partial adjacent successful a worst-case script and that determination would inactive beryllium capable h2o to support reactor cores and spent substance cool, but they warned of the dangers of sabotage by Russian forces who are occupying the plant.

Since the illness of the Kakhovka dam connected Tuesday, its reservoir has been draining into the Dnipro River and the Black Sea beyond, and volition soon driblet beneath the h2o intakes utilized to pump h2o into an array of spray ponds that are utilized to chill the reactor cores and spent substance astatine the tract and the overmuch bigger cooling excavation utilized arsenic a h2o reserve.

“We are reaching this dormant zone, which is 12.70 [metres], aft which determination volition not beryllium immoderate h2o intake either for the cooling ponds astatine the Zaporizhzhia station,” Ihor Syrota, the caput of Ukrhydroenergo, Ukraine’s hydro powerfulness corporation, said connected Thursday.

In the aftermath of the dam disaster, for which Ukraine, the UN, EU and different satellite leaders are holding Russia responsible, the caput of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, warned that “it is captious that this cooling pond remains intact”. “Nothing indispensable beryllium done to perchance undermine its integrity,” helium said.

The IRSN study suggests that the integrity of the dyke astir the pond could beryllium successful information of illness adjacent without Russian sabotage.

“A driblet successful the Dnipro’s h2o level could pb to basin leakage, oregon adjacent to the illness of the surrounding dyke, owed to the unit exerted by the h2o contained successful the basin,” it said. It added that Energoatom had conducted accent tests aft the Fukushima atomic catastrophe pursuing a tsunami successful 2011. Those tests, it said, estimated that the dike tin “withstand a Dnipro level of 10 metres successful the vicinity of the powerfulness plant”.

“This h2o level and the watertightness of the retention basin volition beryllium intimately monitored implicit the coming days,” the study said.

Karine Herviou, the IRSN’s lawman manager wide for atomic safety, said that due to the fact that each six reactors astatine the Zaporizhzhia works had been unopen down immoderate months agone arsenic a effect of warring successful the area, the plant’s cooling needs are constricted and could beryllium met by different means.

“If the dyke is destroyed arsenic a effect of the h2o pressure, determination are different means to replenish the spray ponds, similar pump trucks bringing h2o from the Dnipro oregon different h2o basin located nearby,” Herviou told the Guardian.

Asked astir the IRSN report, an Energoatom authoritative said: “If the h2o level successful the Kakhovka reservoir drops to little than 10 metres, the dam connected the cooling pond whitethorn collapse, but not completely. Only the precocious portion whitethorn collapse.

“But adjacent then, the magnitude of h2o that volition stay volition beryllium capable to support the works successful a acold mode.”

The president of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said connected Thursday that the existent h2o proviso astatine Zaporizhzhia is capable “to support the atomic powerfulness works successful a harmless mode of operation”, but warned of the menace of Russian sabotage.

“The precise information that the Russians blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric powerfulness presumption demonstrates that the Russians person nary qualms astir creating man-made disasters connected earth,” Kotin said successful an interrogation connected Ukrainian television. “They tin bash the aforesaid connected the territory of Zaporizhzhya NPP [nuclear powerfulness plant]. The consequences volition beryllium precise bad.”

“The Zaporizhzhia atomic powerfulness works is heavy mined – some the interior and the entree roads to it,” helium said. “We presently person nary accusation astir whether the Russians person mined the plant’s equipment. This volition go known aft the works is liberated.”

Edwin Lyman, a physicist and manager of atomic powerfulness information astatine the Union of Concerned Scientists, said: “Anything that challenges the integrity of the cooling pond would origin complications and necessitate alternate means of getting h2o to the spray ponds, arsenic the insubstantial points out.

“My main interest astatine the infinitesimal is the expanding fragility of the tract and the uncertainty regarding the quality of the reduced and stressed unit to header with a semipermanent exigency situation.”