Possible Environmental Consequences of Russia’s Taking Over of Ukraine’s Powerplants
The Chernobyl nuclear plant was seized by Russian troops on February 24th and despite not being particularly advantageous military wise, it’s important for “opening up different corridors for troop movement and controlling key terrain,” as Samantha Turner, a security fellow at the Truman National Security Project, has stated. Following the seizing of the Chernobyl power plant, Russia also took over the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant as of March 3rd. Taking over Chernobyl poses an advantage for Russia due to how its location, 130 km North of Kyiv, lays out an open path to Kyiv (1).
The operationalized maintenance of nuclear power plants is crucial for the safety of the environment and community, as well as the longitudinal supply of energy. Possible consequences of not following a proper maintenance procedure include the upheaval of potentially dangerous situations on-site and the failure of equipment or machinery used in generating power (2). There are three different activities within the maintenance process: the overhauling, repairing and replacement of numerous system components. The procedures can also be enhanced through trials, calibration, and in-service inspections (3). Having published safety standards for the handling of nuclear power, including its usage within power plants, the IAEA requires international consensus and inspection of the organizational and technical factors, within safety protocols, during the life cycle of a nuclear power plant. All in all, the regulation of nuclear power plants is quite complicated, requiring a large number of dedicated, knowledgeable, and disciplined staff with US nuclear power plants employing up to 700 workers (4).
In 1986, the Chernobyl power plant’s flawed reactor design and a series of errors, caused by the operators, resulted in a major explosion, blowing the 1,800 metric ton lid off one of the reactors (5). The impact of radiation had been 400 times more than that of the Hiroshima bomb. Unfortunately, 36 years later, the ‘exclusion zone’, an area of roughly 2,700 square kilometers surrounding the 30 km radius of the plant (see Figure 2), is still devoid of human life due to the high radiation levels. This is an example of how consequential not following the standard procedures of maintaining power plants could be for the environment.
As if in an echo of previous historical events, a part of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, the largest one in all of Europe, caught fire when Russian troops seized it. The U.N. nuclear chief stated that the projectile that hit Zaporizhzhya belonged to Russian forces. As a result, there had been concerns that the continuation of the fire might result in a nuclear explosion 10 times that of the Chernobyl explosion; fortunately, firefighters were able to put out the fire, and radiation levels returned to their normal state (6).
Although a largely adverse event was prevented with the Zaporizhzhya power plant, the IAEA’s Director General, Rafael Mariano Grossi, has claimed that while regular staff are responsible for operating the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, they now take orders from the commander of the Russian forces as a result of their recent seizure of the site (7). The management of the powerplant, including the 6 reactors, was also dependent on the allowance of the commander of the Russian forces. Following this news, Ukraine’s energy company has shared that the electric power supply, which was used for the cooling of the nuclear fuel in the Chernobyl complex, was disconnected on March 9 due to continued political turmoil. If the fuel had not been cooled enough to reach a ”passive state”, although still highly radioactive, the cutting off of power could yield in a highly hazardous explosion (8). However, the consequence of the power being cut off was the staff working continuously under Russian command; at least 100 workers have been unable to leave the power plant for more than 15 days. While protecting and maintaining the power plant is crucial for the world, the workers were likely facing both mental and physical strains; expecting them to work at full capacity would be inhumane.
Ukraine’s parliament reported that the gamma radiation levels had been elevated after Russia’s invasion of Chernobyl. Claire Corkhill, a radioactive waste materials professor from the University of Sheffield has been a member of the international clean-up effort at Chernobyl for the past six years; she voiced her worries about the possibility that the clean-up processes could be halted temporarily due to Russia’s invasion of the powerplant. She shared, ”thirty years have passed since the accident and we’ve still not cleaned everything up…it’s easily another 50-year programme,” where still, the elongated health risks of the radiation levels in Chernobyl are unknown (9).
In any case, political unrest near the power plants could damage earthen dams which retain a vast amount of chemical sludge, preventing catastrophic accidents due to the lack of dispersing. Another potential consequence is due to the carcinogenic dust from bombed buildings. These are simply a few of the long term threats that would result from war, possibly prolonging even decades following the end of the conflict.
While Russia may hope to find a safe place for its military forces or to benefit from its control over electricity generators, it seems that the long term impact on neither loss, the environment nor the workers, had been taken into account. The possible implications of the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant have been seemingly ignored; the invasion has been reckless and ignorant of the environmental consequences.
References
- https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-invasion-russian-forces-chernobyl-/31721240.html
- https://www.flyability.com/power-plant-maintenance
3. https://www.iaea.org/topics/operation-and-maintenance
