The U.N.’s nuclear panel is investigating reports that power has been restored at Ukraine’s former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, days after a blackout that raised concerns about the safety of the site’s spent fuel stores.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement Thursday that it was “looking for confirmation” that the lights were back on at Chernobyl after fighting Wednesday between Ukrainian and Russian forces damaged power lines near the defunct nuclear plant. That development comes after Kyiv informed IAEA Thursday that it had lost all communication with the site, the statement said.
IAEA said Wednesday that the blackout at Chernobyl posed “no critical impact on safety,” but that the situation violates one of the agency’s key safety requirements — an uninterrupted power supply. However, even without electricity Chernobyl’s spent fuel storage pool had a “sufficient” volume and heat load to keep the plant’s spent fuel rods from overheating, IAEA said.
As of Wednesday, the plant was running on backup power. Ukraine foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said Wednesday that Chernobyl’s backup generators could run for around 48 hours.
Prominent figures from across the nuclear power space sounded off this week to express their concern about the developments at Chernobyl.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a Tweet Wednesday that the Department of Energy “support[s]” IAEA’s assessment. “While there is no near-term risk to public health, these latest developments are another example of Russia’s extraordinarily reckless and dangerous actions,” Granholm said.
American Nuclear Society (ANS) CEO Craig Piercy said in a statement Wednesday that the power loss “is a serious matter but it does not pose a threat to the public.”
“Power, communications, and monitoring by the IAEA must be restored to Chernobyl at once,” Piercy said.
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists watchdog group, also sounded the alarm in a Tweet Wednesday morning, saying that there could potentially be a “serious condition” if backup power is lost. Despite that, Lyman noted that “because the spent fuel has cooled for a couple of decades there would be many days to intervene before the spent fuel was exposed.”
The power outage at Chernobyl followed by days fighting at another Ukrainian nuclear plant, Zaporizhzhia, that put the global nuclear community on alert.
Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) CEO Maria Korsnick said in a statement March 4 that the U.S. industry group “supports the creation of safe zones surrounding all nuclear power plants in Ukraine.”
“We urgently call for the cessation of violence at nuclear facilities,” Korsnick said.
NEI also supports a proposal from IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi to negotiate a framework between Russia and Ukraine to “uphold the principles of nuclear safety,” Korsnick said.
Russian forces had as of March 3 seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in eastern Ukraine as part of its military invasion of the country that started in late February. Although fighting caused a fire in a training building nearby the six-reactor plant, no radiological releases have occurred as of Friday.
In a Sunday report, the IAEA said that although Zaporizhzhia employees are currently operating the plant, management actions require approval from the stationed Russian commander and occupying forces have restricted communications access to the site.
Zaporizhzhia, located northwest of Mariupol along the Dnieper River, is also home to around 3,000 spent fuel rods kept in onsite dry storage. The plant’s six reactors were brought online between 1985 and 1995.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate on Monday reported that the “radiological situation” at a neutron source at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology in north-central Ukraine was “normal” after it “came under fire” by Russian military forces on Sunday. According to the inspectorate, personnel at the institute defueled the facility on Feb. 24, the day Russia’s 2022 military invasion of Ukraine began in earnest.
