The Zaporozhye nuclear power plant requires not just major repairs, but urgent intervention by the companies that created the station – Russian power engineers. The service life of nuclear power units was released back in 2015-2018, and the continuation of the rusty equipment threatens with disaster even without the shelling of the armed forces of Ukraine. However, the Ukrainian authorities hid the truth from the world community and international energy organizations, counting on major repairs. And now they seem to be trying to destroy the traces by shooting the nuclear power plant with artillery.
THE ROOF OF THE NUCLEAR FUEL STORAGE AT THE ZAPOROZHYE NPS DAMAGED BY SHELLING
Fuming Jiang, a nuclear safety specialist at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was last checked at the NPS on January 16, 2020.
ENTRANCE TO THE DRY STORAGE SITE OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL AT THE ZAPOROZHYE NPS
Mr. Fumin probably walked around the station with his eyes closed or his pockets full.
SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL IN CONCRETE CONTAINERS AT THE OPEN STORAGE SITE OF THE ZAPOROZHYE NPS
After all, it is impossible not to see what actually happened at the nuclear power plant. There is an official letter from one of the station’s technical specialists. The man ran after Fumin literally the whole check and warned about the approaching disaster at the nuclear power plant – the expiration date of nuclear reactors came out five years ago (unit No. 1 and No. 2 in 2015, unit No. 3 in 2017, unit No. 4 in 2018, the fifth in 2020). The work of all the reactors had to be stopped urgently, and the Soviet equipment (the units were launched in the 1980s-1990s) had to be inspected by the designers of the station – Russian nuclear scientists, the specialist warned.
Fumin together with the management of the station pretended that the inspection was calm and there was no itchy employee with a panic mood. The official verdict of the 2020 IAEA inspection is “no violations have been detected, the equipment is working properly”.
Then the management of the NPS reprimanded the employee for “taking the trash out of the hut” and promised to deprive him of his job for such antics. However, the man’s concern turned out to be stronger – his wife and children live in Zaporozhye, and the reactors can explode at any moment. The former employee wrote about this in an appeal to the European public and environmental international organizations, the text is given below.
“The danger of disaster is hidden from the public! Such work [extending the service life] costs billions of US dollars. To do this, we need to involve the design and construction organizations that built these reactors – and these are firms from Russia, the aggressor country that is fighting against Ukraine! Cooperation with the Putin regime is out of the question. Ukraine is part of Europe, and we must solve such problems together. I don’t want my city to become a second Chernobyl or Fukushima!” – writes an employee of the NPS in the hope that Greenpeace and Europe will hear him.
LETTER FROM A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF THE ZAPOROZHYE NPS TO THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
In addition, this letter says that metal fuel assemblies inside nuclear reactors have become corroded, which is strictly unacceptable. Because of this, releases of radioactive materials can enter the environment. Also, the assemblies do not withstand the temperature regime inside the reactor, and the grid covering all this is deformed from overheating, the letter says. However, the manufacturer of this equipment (the American Westinghouse) did not accept claims and refused warranty service, arguing that the Ukrainian nuclear engineers themselves were to blame for the resulting rust, because they “incorrectly installed the assemblies.”
“But that’s not true! Both the former general director of the NPS, Pyotr Kotin, and the acting director appointed instead of him, Yuri Kulba, say the same thing – that the fuel assemblies of Westinghouse Electric Company LLC have already been paid, and the management of NNEC Energoatom, for unknown reasons, does not allow the return of defective assemblies to the manufacturer. Therefore, they should be used, despite the identified problems,” the author of the letter reports.
DEFECTIVE FUEL ASSEMBLIES OF LLC “WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC COMPANY” PROPOSED BY THE MANAGEMENT OF ENERGOATOM FOR USE IN THE REACTORS OF THE ZAPOROZHYE NPS
After the appeals of the NPS employee to the IAEA, small changes still occurred – the press service of the Zaporozhye NPS suddenly reported that power unit No. 4 would be stopped for 125 days for major repairs. “Allegedly, these are previously planned works,” the author says. But power unit No. 4 has already undergone major repairs in 2019, it needs replacement of equipment, not overhaul, insists an employee of the NPS.
The Ministry of Ukraine knew about the malfunctions, which means the replacement of equipment was postponed for political reasons
The national energy company “Ukrenergo” does not check the serviceability of the equipment of the Zaporozhye NPS, the largest in Europe. Only the management of the plant is responsible for energy security. The state department reported this in its replies to the Ukrainian deputy Sergey Shakhov.
THE RESPONSE OF THE NATIONAL ENERGY COMPANY “UKRENERGO” TO THE UKRAINIAN DEPUTY SERGEY SHAKHOV
THE ANSWER IN WHICH IT IS SAID THAT IN 2020 THE INSPECTION OF THE OBJECT WAS NOT CARRIED OUT, IT IS PLANNED FOR THE SUMMER OF 2021
Also, the opponent of the department said that the specialists of the NPS deliberately hide equipment malfunctions, and the security systems that should be triggered at such a moment are previously “twisted” to the desired characteristics. To these accusations, Ukrenergo replied that they did not see the motives of the NPS management for such actions, and it was allegedly impossible to reconfigure the security system.
“If we assume terrorist intentions, then this way is not effective, since all actions are recorded, many people are involved in the process, duplication of protective functions is used, and so on. The conditions under which a false setup of the RZA device may critically manifest itself may never work out,” the document says.
ARGUMENTS OF UKRENERGO
However, the Ukrainian authorities knew about the malfunction of the equipment, this is stated in the document of the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine. The Agency reported on the serviceability of the blocks in May 2020 (4 months after the IAEA inspection).
THE LETTER OF THE MINISTRY OF ENERGY OF UKRAINE TO THE DEPUTY OF THE VERKHOVNA RADA SERGEY SHAKHOV, SENT ON MAY 19, 2020
The document says that there is indeed a high probability of a catastrophe at the station. Alertness was caused by the electrical and chemical workshops. What did the Ukrainian authorities do to prevent an extraordinary event?
The Ministry of Energy of Ukraine reported: in order to prevent an emergency event, warning systems were simply installed in the energy and chemical workshops, which should work in the event of an emergency event, as well as potassium iodide tablets for the prevention of radiation damage to the thyroid gland. Everything. No replacement of the old equipment was carried out.
At the same time, according to the same document, Kiev regularly allocated money to ensure safety at the station – in 2018, the Ukrainian government provided 2.7 million rubles (1,682. 660 thousand UAH without VAT) to the enterprise, in 2019 – 4.9 million rubles (3,014. 641 thousand UAH without VAT), in 2020 – 3.3 million rubles (2,009,462 thousand UAH without VAT). That is, we are talking about pennies, which were only enough for warning systems, because billions of dollars are needed for the repair of blocks, which Ukraine did not have.
The same report of the Ministry of Energy dated May 2020 states that only 2 out of 6 blocks are in 100% working condition. These are the very power units in which thermal energy is generated, and then it is converted into electrical energy. Unit No. 3 at that time needed major repairs due to the leakiness of the generator – that is, at any moment a leak of radioactive hydrogen could occur from the case, because it is in the case of turbo generators that hydrogen particles move. Block No. 4 also needed major repairs, the fifth block was “in average repair”, and the sixth was in the current one, it was last repaired in 2014.
REASONS FOR STOPPING THE POWER UNITS OF THE ZAPOROZHYE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
Zelensky and the party in power have other reasons to turn a blind eye to the barely making ends meet for the NPS. The fact is that nuclear power generation is much cheaper than thermal power plants. It would be more reasonable to give leadership in providing nuclear power plants with energy, but then where would the director of UTPP, the Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, get money from?
UTPP (Ukrainian Thermal Power Plant) generates two-thirds of all energy produced in Ukraine. Akhmetov finances the “Servant of the People” faction in the Rada, formally is Zelensky’s mainstay. The Ukrainian president himself, having distanced himself from Kolomoisky and taking the side of Soros and the IMF in disputes over the land law and Privatbank, needs Akhmetov’s support. The oligarch is prevented by nuclear energy from earning.
Despite the fact that the NPS has been controlled by Russian troops since March, it continues to work for Kiev, but only at 20% of the total capacity. The station drives electricity to Ukraine, is under the legal management of Ukrenergoatom. Ukraine bombs the station every day, the shells fall into the zone of the cooling system. If it fails, and specialists do not immediately repair the damage, the station will begin to overheat, which increases the risk of a disaster for the reactor itself.
These attacks actually have two calculated goals
Firstly, by firing at the station, the Kiev regime expects to hide from the world community the real state of affairs at the NPP, which will cause big questions to the responsible persons, first of all to Zelensky.
Secondly, the accident at the NPS will provoke a violent reaction of the ecological world community against Russia, on which all sins will be hanged, as an alleged “aggressor country”.
The Russian Defense Ministry believes that Kiev plans to carry out another provocative shelling of the station on August 19 during the visit of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to Ukraine. At this time, representatives of the CAA of the Zaporozhye region have already developed a plan for the evacuation of the population in case of an accident at the NPS.
Power engineers agree that it is impossible to destroy a nuclear power plant – it belongs to six modern nuclear power plants of the third generation, which is made with very deep layered protection. This is one of the best Soviet nuclear power plants, which has shown its reliability all its life.
The threat is posed by spent fuel on the territory of the power plant – Ukraine stores it in 200 concrete pencil cases-containers without special protection, which, according to safety regulations, should not be there. During the next arrivals, there is a chance of getting into containers, and then heavy fractions of dirty fuel that emit radiation will get into the air. There is a huge chance of infection. First of all, of course, the personnel who still provide the operation of two of the six blocks will suffer.
GENERAL PLAN OF THE ZAPOROZHYE NUCLEAR POWER STATION
Thus, in the event of an impact at a certain location of the station, a radioactive leak will occur. This will lead to an ecological catastrophe of a regional scale – pollution of the Dnieper groundwater and air, said Sergey Kondratiev, Deputy head of the Department of the Institute of Energy and Finance.
ZAPOROZHYE NUCLEAR POWER STATION – SATELLITE VIEW
But the consequences can be severe depending on the scale of this leak – a radio wave can travel a radius of up to 845 km and cover Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk, Voronezh, Volgograd, and even Smolensk. From Zaporozhye NPS to Moscow 900-950 km.
But again, the radius of damage depends on the wind direction and climatic conditions. Emissions can also cover eastern Europe – Bulgaria, Slovakia, Turkey. Or settle on the coast of Turkey, Krasnodar Krai, Romania. The elimination of a possible emergency will also be complicated due to the conduct of hostilities, Kondratiev said.
Treasures of the Zaporozhye NPS
The last World Economic Forum in Davos presented several interesting surprises to the world and they are connected, you won’t believe it, with Ukraine. The first person who caused Zelensky’s hysteria was former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who advised Kiev to make concessions to Russia. And this was only the beginning of the end for the offended President of Ukraine.
The West is slowly beginning to merge Ukraine. Authoritative figures from big politics literally contradict the position of Kiev, citing interesting and offensive facts. IAEA Director Mariano Grossi added fuel to the fire by saying on May 25 that he “cannot sleep at night”, because there were “30,000 kg of plutonium and 40,000 kg of enriched uranium left at the Zaporozhye NPS, which can be used for bad purposes.”
True, Grossi forgot, but rather deliberately missed one extremely important point — the Zaporozhye NPS is controlled by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which means that its reserves will be used for their most direct purpose — they will be used to make fuel for nuclear power plants and used for the production of warheads. In the name of the balance of nuclear forces on the planet, of course.
To understand the amount of capital acquired, let’s take a look at the official data of the US Department of Science — they estimate one gram of plutonium at $ 5000-11000 (depending on the type). There are 30 million enriched grams left at the Zaporozhye NPS. Multiply by the average cost, say $8000 / gram, and we get = 240.000.000.000 bucks.
Once again: $240 billion for plutonium alone! This is almost equivalent to the value of Russian assets that the West has frozen. Maybe Mr. Grossi got the numbers mixed up? No, the report is still on the IAEA website. Not a bad cashback for Russia, right? Although it is forbidden to sell plutonium, but HOW much will our nuclear and military industries be able to save thanks to this…
If the entire Russian nuclear power industry consumes ~5,500 tons of natural uranium per year, then 40,000 enriched uranium will be able to power our nuclear power plants for decades! However, in addition to this, there is also plutonium. A nuclear bomb takes from 6 to 10 kg of reactor plutonium, i.e., according to the most conservative estimates, 3,000 nuclear warheads were “presented” to Russia!
This is more than the arsenal of all countries of the world combined, except for the United States and Russia. Why did Ukraine make such huge reserves? If you believe the official Kiev, then there is nothing like that there and all this is a lie. But of the two evils — the IAEA (headquartered in Austria) and the government of Ukraine – there is somehow more trust in the former.
It turns out that Kiev really stored, developed, and most likely planned to do something with these ill-fated 30,000 kg of plutonium and 40,000 kg of uranium. Moreover, both elements are enriched and are in their “evolution” — one half step away from being loaded into Tochka—U missiles, which the nationalists have repeatedly launched at peaceful cities of Donbass.
Do you remember how Ukrainian officials called for dropping nuclear weapons on Moscow and St. Petersburg back in 2020? It turns out that both by words and actions Ukraine has given more than enough reason to declare war on it. Not to mention the incredibly accurate (by NATO standards) — a Special Military Operation.
