Russian forces seized Europe's largest nuclear facility, the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, after their shelling set the Administration building ablaze.
The biggest nuclear power station in Europe is 50 km away. There are two smokestacks at a coal plant.
The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine said that technicians were still working at the Zaporozhye facility, which is 343 miles southeast of Kyiv.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the fire had not affected essential equipment and that the surrounding radiation levels were not changed. The Energy Department has seen no elevated radiation readings.
The reactor is being safely shut down and protected by robust containment structures.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in a video message that an explosion at the Zaporozhye plant could cause a catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl.
This could not possibly happen since Chernobyl didn't do that much damage and the reactor are not as different as they could be. Chernobyl was a dual-purpose weapons reactor with no containment structure, and operated with a positive void coefficient, which resulted in a meltdown and explosion. It was designed to make plutonium for weapons.
The Zaporozhye reactor is a light pressurized water reactor that uses water as the moderator and has a containment structure that can be used as a missile shield.
The chances of an explosion, a nuclear meltdown or a radioactive release at Zaporozhye are low according to Tony Irwin, an associate professor at the Australian National University who operated nuclear power plants in the UK for three decades. The water that keeps the reactor cool is on a separate circuit in the second reactor, which supplies the power to the turbine and the outside.
These reactors have emergency cooling systems. They have a passive system, high-pressure injection systems, and low-pressure injection systems.
Being surrounded by a Russian army is not likely to cause Chernobyl.
The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman accused the Ukrainians of being behind the fire at the plant.
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It looks like Russia is coercing Ukrainian officials to wash their hands of Russia's actions, at one point forcing the Mayor of Enerhodar to put out an awkward video statement on Telegram calling on Ukrainians not to provoke Russian troops in the area. A grimacing Orlov suggested that Russian troops had fired blanks.
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There are 15 nuclear power plants and the old Chernobyl site in the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The safety systems of the six reactor were not affected by shelling, and there was no release of radioactive material. He said that the radiation monitoring systems are functional.
No changes in the radiation situation have been registered according to the SNRIU. Units 2 and 3 were disconnected from the grid and the nuclear installations were being cooled down as unit 1 was already down for maintenance. Unit 4 is powered by 825 MW of power. Units 5 and 6 are cooling down. There were no dead or injured staff at the power plant.
Russian missiles hit and damaged two radioactive waste-disposal sites, but there was no release of radioactivity.
The subject of nuclear safety is brought up. There is not much you can do against a sustained assault by the second most powerful army in the world led by ego maniacs. I believe that Russia doesn't want to cause nuclear accidents in the Ukranian as Russia itself would be impacted in more ways than one.
This invasion speaks of severe cognitive impairment.
The sarcophagus will hold the melted down reactor and other radioactive materials.
The fear of nuclear is brought up in the response to Zaporozhye and Chernobyl. President Zelensky's warning of the end of Europe may be one of the reasons the reactor were not targeted. Russia wants to control the country's energy and power infrastructure.
The general level of concern about the fate of these reactor is not justified by the potential for harm. The case in point is Chernobyl. Bullets from Russian guns are the only thing that will kill anyone.
More people have died from the Russian invasion than from the Chernobyl accident, and more people have fled than ever before.
The recent slight increase in radioactivity at Chernobyl is caused by slightly contaminated dirt and materials being stirred up by trucks and activities associated with the invasion.
The public and elected officials can be forgiven for not knowing the difference between an operating nuclear reactor and one that has been dead for 35 years.
The Chernobyl incident happened at Reactor Unit 4. The foolish operators and bad design of the reactor caused a meltdown at high temperatures and the release of radioactive materials.
The present-day Chernobyl has no chain reactions. The two actually hot radionuclides, Cs-137 and Sr-90, decay away over the next 200 years, and there are no high temperatures. They have been through one of their 30-year half-lives.
The material left from the melted core doesn't generate much heat. The same as seven old-fashioned 100 watt light bulbs per fuel bundle equivalent. If the waste is encased in rock or cement, it can get hot enough to boil water, but not enough to cause an explosion.
If hit by a missile, the material would only chunk and spread out around the immediate vicinity of Chernobyl, not spread over Europe or Ukraine.
The 1986 meltdown didn't do that.
The Chernobyl Forum was established by the IAEA in 2003 to provide an authoritative consensus on the impact of the original 1986 meltdown. The long-term mental health effects were the only significant public health consequence of the accident outside of Chernobyl. Not enough radioactive materials were spread outside the immediate area of Chernobyl to have long-term health effects.
Europe was unaffected by Chernobyl.
The United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Environment Program, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank were members of the forum. The governments of Russia, Russia, and Ukraine were members of the Forum.
The maximum deaths were summarized by Dr. William Burchill, former President of the American Nuclear Society.
There were 2 non-radiation deaths.
There were 28 deaths from radiation within 4 months.
19 deaths from radiation over the next 20 years are within the normal incidence of cancer mortality in this group, which is 1% per year.
Radiation is thought to be the cause of 9 late child deaths.
340,000 people were evacuated after the accident.
The horses in the Chernobyl exclusion zone thrived in the absence of humans. GENYA SAVILOV.
This was from an operating nuclear reactor, not the dead thing that is Chernobyl today. The harm is much greater for the present invasion than it is for the 1986 Chernobyl event.
More than six Chernobyl events.
We need to make sure that Chernobyl and the other Ukrainian reactor remain safe.
The invasion is killing people and destroying a society. It is worse than any nuclear accident could ever be.
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