• World
  • Apr 09

IAEA condemns drone strike on Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

• In a serious incident that endangered nuclear safety and security, drone strikes hit the site of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on April 7, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.  

• For the first time since November 2022, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was directly targeted in military action.

• It has been occupied by Russian forces since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

• Rafael Grossi, Director General of the IAEA, said the targeting marked a “major escalation” in the level of danger facing the power plant.

• He said it also represents a clear violation of the five basic principles for protecting the facility established by IAEA at the United Nations Security Council in May 2023.

• The military strikes were another stark reminder of persistent threats to the ZNPP and other nuclear facilities during the armed conflict, despite the IAEA’s efforts to reduce the risk of a severe accident that could harm people and the environment in Ukraine and beyond.

Nuclear reactors in Ukraine

• Ukraine’s nuclear power industry began in the 1970s, when it was still part of the Soviet Union. It now has 15 reactors at four power plants around the country. Two more reactors are under construction and the four at Chernobyl have been shut down.

• Together the reactors generate about half of the country’s electricity. That share is expected to grow until at least 2035, because Ukraine sees nuclear power as the most cost-effective source of low-carbon energy.

• Ukraine’s reactors are located in four separate plants. All 15 are water-water energy reactors, which means they are water cooled and water moderated.

• Four reactors are clustered in the Rivne plant, in northwest Ukraine near the Belarus border, and two are in the Khmelnytskyi plant, some 180 km  southeast of the Rivne site. 

• Three reactors are in the South Ukraine plant, some 170 km to the north of the port city of Odessa. 

• The remaining six reactors operate in the giant Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).

• The power plant is of strategic importance to Russia because it is only about 200 km from Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

• The now defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant sits some 108 km north of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. One of its four reactors exploded in 1986, spewing clouds of radiation across Europe. The site is still radioactive and a huge protective dome covers the destroyed reactor. 

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

• The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) has six Soviet-designed VVER-1000 V-320 water-cooled and water-moderated reactors containing Uranium 235. They were all built in the 1980s, though the sixth only came online in the mid-1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

• All but one of the reactors are in cold shutdown. Reactor unit 4 is in “hot shutdown”, mainly for heating purposes.

• External power lines essential to cooling nuclear fuel in the reactors are a softer potential target. Cooling fuel even in reactors in cold shutdown is necessary to prevent a nuclear meltdown.

• Since the war began the plant has lost all external power eight times, most recently in December last year, forcing it to rely on emergency diesel generators for power. Water is also needed to cool fuel.

• Pressurised water is used to transfer heat away from the reactors even when they are shut down, and pumped water is also used to cool down removed spent nuclear fuel from the reactors.

• Without enough water, or power to pump the water, the fuel could melt down and the zirconium cladding could release hydrogen, which can explode.

• Besides the reactors, there is also a dry spent fuel storage facility at the site for used nuclear fuel assemblies, and spent fuel pools at each reactor site that are used to cool down the used nuclear fuel.

• Without water supply to the pools, the water evaporates and the temperatures increase, risking a fire that could release a number of radioactive isotopes.

• An emission of hydrogen from a spent fuel pool caused an explosion at reactor 4 in Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

• A meltdown of the fuel could trigger a fire or explosion that could release a plume of radionuclides into the air which could then spread over a large area.

• The Chernobyl accident spread Iodine-131, Caesium-134, Strontium-90 and Caesium-137 across parts of northern Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, northern and central Europe.

• Nearly 8.4 million people in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine were exposed to radiation, according to the United Nations. 

International Atomic Energy Agency

• Widely known as the world’s ‘Atoms for Peace and Development’ organisation within the United Nations family, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the international centre for cooperation in the nuclear field. 

• The agency works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies, contributing to international peace and security and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

• The IAEA was created in 1957 in response to the deep fears and expectations generated by the discoveries and diverse uses of nuclear technology. The agency’s genesis was US President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 8, 1953.

• The US Ratification of the Statute by President Eisenhower on July 29, 1957, marks the official birth of the IAEA.

• In October 1957, the delegates to the First General Conference decided to establish the IAEA’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

• India is a founding member of IAEA.

• The IAEA has also two regional offices located in Toronto and Tokyo, as well as two liaison offices in New York City and Geneva. The agency runs laboratories specialised in nuclear technology in Vienna, Seibersdorf and Monaco.

• The IAEA’s policy-making bodies decide on the agency’s programmes and budgets. They comprise the General Conference of all Member States and the 35-member Board of Governors. 

• The General Conference convenes annually at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, typically in September. The Board meets five times per year, also in Vienna.

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