With the onset of winter and the growing pressure on Ukraine's energy system, the threat of a new nuclear disaster in central Europe is becoming more than just a theoretical danger. Analysts at Energy Research & Social Science (ERSS) said that by 2020 there is an 80 percent chance of a "serious accident" at one of Ukraine's nuclear power plants, and called for preparations for a new Chernobyl.
The Federal News Agency presents its readers with a translation of the article Get Ready for a New Chernobyl in Ukraine, published by Global Research.
Experts associate such an event both with an increase in the load on nuclear power plants caused by frequent shutdowns of the operation of Ukrainian thermal power plants (after all, the raw material they use is coal from Donbass), and with serious physical deterioration of nuclear equipment of the Soviet period and catastrophic underfunding of this industry.
In the event of such an incident, the EU would not only have to face serious potential environmental consequences, but also, given the recent introduction of a visa-free regime, a massive exodus of Ukrainians from contaminated areas.
Currently, there are four nuclear power plants operating in Ukraine: Zaporozhye (the largest in Europe, six reactors and a total capacity of 6,000 MW), Rivne (four reactors and a total capacity of 2880 MW), Khmelnitsky (two reactors and a total capacity of 2000 MW), as well as "Yuzhno-Ukraine" (three reactors and a total capacity of 3000 MW). In 2000, the Chernobyl plant with four reactors was finally closed.
Of the 15 nuclear reactors currently operating in Ukraine, 12 were commissioned during the Soviet era, before 1990. They all rely on the classic type of VVER nuclear reactors that were developed in the 1960s and 1970s at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. These reactors are expected to have a maximum service life of 30 years. But today 10 out of 15 reactors operating on the territory of Ukraine have long passed this period.
And all this time, the load on collapsing reactors is constantly increasing due to a sharp decrease in the availability of coal reserves from Donbass (by mid-2017, electricity production at Ukrainian thermal power plants fell to almost half of production in 2013 - ed.). According to Energoatom, the state-owned company that operates nuclear power plants in Ukraine, in 2016 these plants operated at only 65.5% of their total capacity, but by January 2017, already at 77.6%. In the first half of 2017, more than 45 billion kWh of electricity was produced at nuclear power plants in Ukraine (an increase of 13% compared to 2016).
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Today, the Ukrainian authorities are desperately squeezing the last juice out of their Soviet-era nuclear facilities. The situation is exacerbated by political pressure from Ukrainian energy officials to find a replacement for nuclear fuel produced by the Russian company TVEL. Thus, in a number of reactors, they repeatedly attempted to use fuel produced by the American-Japanese corporation Westinghouse Electric Company.
It's amazing how Ukrainians completely ignored the painful experience of the Czechs. Back in 1996, the Czech nuclear power plant Temelin, built by the USSR, signed a contract with Westinghouse. After American fuel was first used at the reactor, the plant was forced to refuel the reactors many times ahead of schedule after discovering numerous defects. Scientists at Westinghouse were unable to fix this problem. In addition to the threat of a nuclear accident, the cost of generating electricity has increased significantly. As a result, after another major accident in January 2007, the Czech Republic refused to buy fuel from the United States, and by 2010 Temelin had completely returned to using Russian TVEL products.
Nevertheless, Ukraine has been experimenting with American counterparts of Russian fuel assemblies since 2005 and has a lot of bad experience. In 2013, after a thorough inspection and detection of numerous defects and malfunctions, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine imposed a complete ban on the use of American fuel at Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
However, the events of 2014 forced Ukraine to re-consider the use of American counterparts. In April 2014, Kiev decided to make another attempt. The media reported that American fuel was loaded into reactor No. 3 at the South-Ukrainian nuclear power plant, into reactor No. 5 at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, and also into reactor No. 2 at the South-Ukrainian nuclear power plant. The consequences were dire.
In February 2016, there was an emergency shutdown of reactor No. 3 at the South-Ukrainian NPP due to an increase in the level of refrigerant in the steam generator. As local residents reported on social media, the area around the nuclear power plant was immediately cordoned off by the military. And on March 23, 2016, all activities at the South Ukrainian nuclear power plant were completely suspended for the whole day.
CyberBerkut documents
The anonymous hacker group CyberBerkut obtained access to documents from government agencies in Austria, Romania, Moldova, Belarus, as well as Greenpeace and the Bankwatch network of environmental organizations, dated summer 2017. The information received is indeed causing concern about Energoatom's plans to extend the operation of old reactors.
Kiev independently decided to extend the operation of the reactors back in 2015, but only in 2017 did Ukraine decide to send this program to upgrade nuclear power plants to its neighboring countries and international environmental organizations for study.
This was a simultaneous violation of two UN conventions, according to which signatories must obtain state and intergovernmental approval before (not after) starting work at a nuclear power plant: the Environmental Impact Assessment Convention (1991 Espoo Convention - ed.) And Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998 Aarhus Convention).
However, apparently, Ukrainians do not feel remorse: in response to the indignation of European countries, Kiev responded with insolence. Ukrainian experts seem to believe that there are not enough qualified specialists in the governments of the EU countries to correctly assess the Ukrainian nuclear program.
In addition, serious concerns are raised by the fact that the Ukrainian state authorities responsible for nuclear energy have not yet developed methods for disposing of spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste. Officials in Kiev either shy away from answering these questions, or play fools: "Do we have to keep records of all cases?" (referred to in relation to the accumulation of radioactive waste and related cases of leukemia in children - ed.).
Author: Alexey Gromov