On March 4, 2022, according to the latest news from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Zaporozhiarian nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been controlled by the Russian military, and this news has been confirmed by the State Atomic Energy Supervision and Supervision Agency of Ukraine, and it is worth noting that the nuclear power plant is one of the largest nuclear power plants in Europe. Even more worrying is the fact that there have been overnight shelling and fires near one of the plant's reactors, which has to raise concerns about whether there will be another Chernobyl accident.
Review of the Chernobyl accident
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, which occurred at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, located about 100 kilometers north of the capital Kiev, and is considered the worst nuclear power accident in history and the first major accident to be rated as a seventh-level incident by the international nuclear incident classification scale.
In that catastrophe, two explosions inside the nuclear power plant reactor flipped the lid of 2,000 tons like a coin, the surrounding 2,600 square kilometers were covered with radioactive dust and reactor debris, and after the evacuation and extinguishing of the nuclear fire , which claimed the lives of many firefighters — the reactor was cordoned off, and for the next 24,000 years the area was deemed uninhabitable.
Publicly available sources show that the disaster released more than 400 times the radiation dose of the atomic bomb that exploded on Hiroshima during World War II, causing about $200 billion in damage.
Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant
Ukraine currently has 4 nuclear power plants, 15 nuclear reactors, providing about 50% of the electricity needed by Ukraine, of which the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine and the second largest nuclear power plant in Europe, accounting for 25% of Ukraine's total power generation, it is reported that if the nuclear power plant explodes due to an attack, its harm will be 10 times that of the Chernobyl accident, which is not terrible.
However, the information released by the media shows that the Zaporozhia nuclear power plant is working normally, which can ensure the normal operation of the reactor, and the core radiation detection value of the power plant is also normal. Earlier, a shell hit an auxiliary training building just 150 meters from a reactor unit at the plant, setting fire to the fire. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, firefighters successfully extinguished the fire, did not report damage to the reactor or safety system, and did not exceed baseline levels. This is due to the fact that the staff of the nuclear power plant continue to work on the generator sets to ensure the stable operation of the nuclear facility.
The Zaporozhye nuclear power plant incident has raised concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants operating inside Ukraine, and the possibility of losing cooling nuclear fuel will lead to the release of a large amount of radioactive material into the environment, which could lead to a nuclear leak that exceeds all previous nuclear power plant accidents, including the Chernobyl accident in the former Soviet Union and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in Japan.
Will it be the next Chernobyl?
Now the question arises, is there any correlation between the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and the Chernobyl disaster? Will zaporozhye be the next Chernobyl?
According to nuclear scientists, despite the striking similarities between the two events, zaporozhye's reactors are far safer than chernobyl reactors. Unlike the RBMK-1000 reactor in Chernobyl, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant uses a more modern pressurized water reactor whose reactor core requires much less uranium fuel, thus limiting the possibility of a runaway chain reaction, which also shuts down automatically in an emergency. There are also two layers of protection around the reactor – a reinforced concrete external containment unit and a 20-centimeter-thick steel internal vessel , both designed to withstand earthquakes and explosions.
However, Robin Grimes, a professor of materials physics at Imperial College London, believes that if the shell hits the outside of the reactor directly, it is still quite dangerous, and destroying the double shell of the Zaporozhye reactor, although it will not cause an explosion like Chernobyl, will still release a large amount of dangerous substances, after all, the nuclear power plant is not designed to resist explosives such as shells.
Although the reactor at zaporozhye is much safer than the reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, its core still contains a lot of highly radioactive fuel, and that's not the only concern, if the plant's nuclear fuel rods are hit by scattered shells or missiles, cooled in a huge open-air pool, and exposed to the open courtyard behind the plant, it could produce a catastrophic plume of airborne radiation.
epilogue
Guona Science and Technology Sauce believes that the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant incident has sounded a wake-up call for us: although nuclear energy can alleviate the energy shortage, its safety and stability in special periods are still an unavoidable problem. At this time, the importance of green renewable energy such as solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, tidal and biological energy is prominent, and we must increase investment in this area and rely on modern science to build a green home. #Ukraine nuclear power plant fire ##I came to science ##科技头条 #
I am @ Guona Technology Sauce, senior operation of technical background, 100 ingenuity plan signed creators, 100 list and preferred plan creators, rooted in the field of air net/ new materials / energy conservation and environmental protection for 20 years, with a calm, professional perspective to bring you a different scientific cognition.
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