Russian forces’ occupation of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine is the first military-provoked crisis at a civilian power plant in the annals of nuclear energy. This situation requires leadership and ideas urgently. Disaster mitigation and military strategy must be balanced in order to avoid dire consequences.
In recent weeks, Russia and Ukraine have accused one another of shelling the plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since early March. Fires caused by shelling have disrupted power lines to the facility, causing the last working reactor at the plant to be disconnected from the grid on September 5th. The occupation of ZNPP has riled the international community, provoking concern about a nuclear disaster, harkening back to the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine in 1986.
In late August the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN watchdog, conducted a long-awaited visit to the site. The inspectors who went are heroes and reports from the agency’s director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, are positive. An IAEA report on September 6th declared that damage to radioactive material storage areas apparently involves low level radioactive waste and unused reactor fuel. Although troubling, this material would not be a radiation threat outside the facility. Even so, the IAEA’s operational role must be expanded to mitigate the consequences of an intentional or unintentional event at ZNPP.
The nuclear complex in Zaporizhia is enormous—the largest such facility in Europe. Its six reactors supply almost half of Ukraine’s nuclear energy and one-fifth of all its electricity. At this stage it is impossible to know Russia’s specific plans, but the ZNPP is a strategic military and political asset that Russia can exploit to its advantage.
There are unique characteristics to any extreme crisis. Yet some common guidelines will serve leaders well as they develop a tailored response to the takeover of ZNPP. First, leaders must imagine the unimaginable. Second, actions must be implemented faster than the progression of the accident. Third, organisations must expand their response capabilities. Last, leaders must find a way to act despite the fog of war.
Expanding the IAEA’s operational role should involve implementing lessons learned in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan in 2011. Authorities must get ahead of any crisis before it is too late to act. We’ve seen the costs of delay with our reactions to covid-19 and Fukushima. It is too late to worry about the hostile takeover of ZNNP now. The IAEA must work instead on imagining a severe future accident at the site. The IAEA must focus on prevention, detection, communication and mitigation at ZNPP.
The possible threats range from minor to catastrophic. Given the robust nature of the ZNPP design, which is similar to that of Western reactors—and different from the RBMK-type reactors at Chernobyl—there is little chance of a significant accident. The newer Soviet-designed VVER reactors shut down if cooling water is lost, unlike the RBMK, which accelerates fission reaction. For the VVER reactors, there is no graphite to burn. They have a robust containment (unlike the RBMK, the VVER has five feet of heavily reinforced concrete), and the spent nuclear fuel pools are located inside the containment. At Fukushima, there were also explosions; however, they were not like the Chernobyl explosions. They were caused by a byproduct of the accident (hydrogen) and did not occur in the reactor; Chernobyl was a reactor explosion.
The most conceivable threats at ZNPP concern the dry cask storage installation. This is known as an independent spent-fuel storage installation (ISFSI). According to a Ukrainian submission to the IAEA in 2017, 3,354 spent batches of nuclear fuel rods, known as assemblies, were at the plant’s ISFSI. Given the robust nature of the storage canisters, the dry cask storage installation is not itself in containment. Therefore, severe damage to one or more of the ISFSI canisters could hamper access to the facility. Such damage could lead to difficulties in keeping the spent fuel in the containment and the reactors sufficiently supplied with cooling water. In addition, should there be a loss of electrical power, emergency diesel generators could operate. Still, they would need to be replenished with diesel fuel during a long-term loss of electricity. Another possible threat is a military miscalculation or an intentional hostile act to harm the facility.
As we analyse the imaginable scenarios, a case for bounding the area emerges. Lithuania has volunteered as peacekeepers for such a plan. The international nuclear community should accept a ten-mile (16km) protection zone around nuclear plants for an immediate hazard to the population and 50 miles for ingestion hazards. This bounding held for the Fukushima accident. Radiation may be detected at greater distance, but there would be no long-term hazard.
In prevention, diplomacy is of paramount importance. Ideally the IAEA would continue to have a role at the plant. The next diplomatic step is to get a deal between Russia and Ukraine over the plant’s safety, perhaps akin to the agreement made in July between the countries to allow grain exports to resume. Possibly Turkey, which successfully negotiated that agreement, could repeat its diplomatic success with a nuclear agreement.
When it comes to detection, remote and local radiation-detection instrumentation is needed. At Fukushima, satellite thermal images were constantly available, as drones and aircraft with radiation detection systems were used. The IAEA should prepare for large-scale aerial radiation-monitoring. Instrumentation from other nuclear plants in the area can and is used to provide information on radiation coming from ZNPP. Data from private radiation-monitoring networks nearby, such as SaveEcoBot and others, should be made public. The EU also has an online radiation map system that includes Ukraine. All these sources should be consulted to boost detection capabilities.
A lesson from the Fukushima accident was that a lack of information fed worldwide fear. It caused leaders to make irrational decisions that made it harder to cope with the accident and which slowed the response to it. The world needs a trustworthy data source. Improved detection methods should allow the IAEA to convey the reactors’ status and any release continuously.
When it comes to mitigation, a neutral “staging area” must be established. With Fukushima, the Japanese used one (called J-Village) beyond the ten-mile protection zone to stockpile equipment that could rescue the reactors. Staging areas provide backup systems that can be airlifted to the scene of an accident anywhere. A staging area near ZNPP must stockpile sand for airlifting to the ISFIS pad, thereby reducing the radiation emissions should one or more of the canisters be damaged. In addition, the facility could house a standby group of operators (from a neutral country) to take operational control if ZNPP is evacuated—something similar to the rapid response force used by the French nuclear industry.
We will learn lessons from ZNPP. They will inform our actions should something similar happen in another conflict—as the situation at ZNPP has opened the door to a new military strategy. The IAEA should prepare for an event at the facility. It should also lead the international nuclear community to prevent similar harmful acts at other nuclear power plants.
Charles Casto led joint efforts by America’s government and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Japan for a year following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. Dr Casto then served as the American government’s lead nuclear representative. Dr Casto became an NRC Regional Administrator, overseeing 23 reactors in eight states in America.