Putin & Nukes | Attacks on Nuclear Plants | Immediate Nuclear Danger, and more

·  “Sanctions are not going to be enough. You need to have a major international response, where governments decide on their own accord that they can’t do business with Russia for a period of time until this is resolved. … So what we need is a suspension of business activity with Russia until Moscow ceases hostilities and withdraws its troops.”

·  “Ukraine has become the front line in a struggle, not just for which countries can or cannot be in NATO, or between democracies and autocracies, but in a struggle for maintaining a rules-based system in which the things that countries want are not taken by force. Every country in the world should be paying close attention to this. Yes, there may be countries like China and others who might think that this is permissible, but overall, most countries have benefited from the current international system in terms of trade and economic growth, from investment and an interdependent globalized world. This is pretty much the end of this. That’s what Russia has done.”

How International Law Applies to Attacks on Nuclear and Associated Facilities in Ukraine  (George M. Moore, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

·  “It is unlikely that an attack by the Russian Federation on a VVER reactor, unless it purposefully set out to create overwhelming damage, could trigger a scenario that would result in a large number of immediate radiation-induced deaths. Fatalities at Chernobyl were due to high doses received by first responders; Fukushima and 3 Mile Island resulted in no immediate deaths due to radiation. However, in each of these accidents some experts have predicted significant numbers of future cancer deaths and radiation-induced cancers, particularly thyroid cancer in children, as has been observed in exposures from Chernobyl.”

·  “Absent the driving force of burning graphite from the Chernobyl core, an attack on the VVERs would not likely result in widespread contamination on the scale of what occurred at Chernobyl. Note, however, that large economic consequences could result from an attack that seriously damaged a VVER. Significant economic loss and humanitarian impact would result even in the absence of fatalities and/or widespread contamination. The reactors themselves are billion-dollar investments and the loss would not result in a huge economic impact but would have a significant humanitarian cost from the loss of power production.”

·  “While the international legal system and international law provide norms that arguably forbid attacks like those already witnessed in Ukraine, the postwar international system will need to consider putting in place stronger legal measures and will need to consider how to enforce such measures. Hopefully, the Russian military will follow its own guidance with regard to humanitarian law and exercise future self-restraint with regard to not attacking nuclear and associated facilities in Ukraine. If so, we may be past the current danger point.”

On Russia’s Shelling of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant  (Matthew Bunn, Twitter thread)

·  “This is shockingly reckless, and a violation of multiple agreements. The member states of the IAEA unanimously agreed years ago that attacking a nuclear power plant ‘constitutes a violation of the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law and the Statute of the Agency,’ as IAEA DG [director general] Rafael Grossi has pointed out.”

·  “The most crucial thing for maintaining safety of a nuclear plant is keeping the core cooled. … If it’s not kept continuously cooled, bad things happen, as we saw at Fukushima.”

·  “That cooling requires off-site electricity to run the relevant pumps and so on. Because sometimes electricity goes down, all nuclear reactors have on-site diesel generators as a backup (and typically batteries that can last for a few hours). Shelling could cause what’s called ‘station blackout’ – if the off-site power goes down, and either the diesel generators don’t work or they run out of fuel.”

·  “The spent fuel pool, outside the heavily protected reactor building, is also an issue. If IT loses electricity, the water will eventually boil/evaporate away, the fuel would melt and make a nasty mess in the pool, which might NOT lead to a radioactive release, depending on the design of the fuel building. If the fuel building was shattered by shelling, then any fission products released from the melted fuel could get out into the surrounding countryside. Shelling could also cause a water leak that could lead to fuel melting, even if the electricity stayed on.”

·  “IF the fuel pool is really overstuffed with spent fuel, AND the hot fuel assemblies recently discharged from the reactor are stored next to each other (rather than interspersed throughout the pool) the fuel can get so hot it catches fire – that, plus a shattering of the building, is really the worst-case scenario. That could release a quantity of radioactivity even worse than Chernobyl, potentially.”

·  “Exactly under what circumstances fire would occur is hotly debated, as there is very little real data on the subject. … None of these plants are ‘walk-away safe.’ Nevertheless, the main hazard to Ukrainians today is bullets, shells and bombs, not radiation.”

The Most Immediate Nuclear Danger in Ukraine Isn’t Chernobyl  (James M. Acton, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)

·  “There is a small but real risk of inadvertent escalation, which could be sparked, for example, by an engagement between NATO and Russian aircraft on the border between Poland and Ukraine. The most immediate nuclear danger, however, comes from Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already stated that ‘Russian occupation forces are trying to seize’ the Chernobyl nuclear plant… Various storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste are located nearby. However, the bigger risk comes from the potential for fighting around Ukraine’s four active nuclear power plants, which contain 15 separate reactors and generated over half of the country’s electricity in 2020.”

·  “To put it simply, nuclear power plants are not designed for war zones. It seems exceedingly unlikely that Moscow would authorize deliberate attacks on these facilities, but they could nonetheless become targets in a war that will, in any case, disrupt their operations. … For Ukrainian nuclear power plant staff, merely traveling to work may be a dangerous act—making it potentially challenging to ensure the reactor can be operated safely. … Even if Moscow doesn’t authorize direct attacks against nuclear power plants, such attacks might occur anyway.”

·  “I set out these scenarios with some hesitation. The likelihood of a serious nuclear accident is probably quite small. Drawing attention to it risks a loss of focus on the certain consequences of Putin’s invasion—Ukraine’s loss of autonomy, the deliberate killing of its service members, the unintentional killing of its civilians and the war crimes that inevitably accompany any military operation of this scale.”

·  “Nonetheless, even if a nuclear accident is still quite unlikely, its effects could be severe and would add significantly to the long-term consequences of this invasion for Ukraine’s population. Moscow will be directly responsible for any nuclear accident that is caused, directly or indirectly, by its aggression. If it doesn’t want such an accident to be added to its growing list of crimes, it must take exceptional measures to avoid one.”

Nuclear Issues in the Ukraine Crisis  (Samuel M. Hickey and Monica Montgomery, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)

·  “Chernobyl is inside of a large exclusion zone—meaning the space is uninhabited—and its distance from major population centers would mitigate the consequences of a second nuclear accident. Still, there are two potential areas of concern.”

·  “The first is the shelling of the nuclear reactor that melted down back in 1986, the worst nuclear accident in history. However, in November 2016, the world’s largest movable metal structure was slid over Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant to contain further radiation leaks. It is reported that the containment structure is secure against tornadoes and covers gaps in the initial sarcophagus.”

·  “The second is the disturbance and dispersion of radiation in the ground. After Russia occupied Chernobyl, higher radiation measurements were taken, likely due to Russian trucks and tanks kicking up radiation [radioactive dust] in the ground. However, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog (the IAEA) confirmed that higher radiation measurements ‘do not pose any danger to the public.’ It is unlikely that Russia would intentionally target any reactors.”