Nuclear agency chief warns against restarting Ukraine plant

It will not be safe to restart Russia's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine while war rages around it, despite Moscow's hopes of torching the complex, US nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday ( 3).

Grossi held a meeting with Russia on the issue last week after officials including President Vladimir Putin told him that Moscow hopes to restart Europe's largest nuclear plant, where the six reactors are now closed, as recommended by the Agency. International Atomic Energy Association for security reasons.

“The idea, of course, is to start over at some point. They are not planning to decommission this nuclear plant. So that's what drives the need to have a discussion about this,” Grossi said at a news conference on the first day of a quarterly meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors.

Russia said after last week's meeting that it is not planning to restart the plant. Grossi said some important steps need to be taken before it can be safely restarted.

“In terms of what needs to happen…, there shouldn’t be any bombing or any activity like that,” Grossi said.

“So there must be a more stable guarantee of external power supply. This requires repairs, major repairs of existing lines, which at the moment, and because of military activity, are very difficult to predict.”

Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for periodic bombings that knocked out the plant's power lines. Last month, the plant was attacked by drones that struck a reactor in the worst incident since November 2022, although nuclear safety was not compromised, the IAEA said at the time.

“The attacks and frequent disconnection of off-site power lines due to military activity are creating a serious situation,” Grossi said in a statement to the Vienna-based IAEA Board on Monday (3).

External power is essential to prevent a potentially catastrophic meltdown at a nuclear plant like the one in Zaporizhzhia, since it is necessary to cool the fuel in the reactors even when those reactors are shut down.

Zaporizhzhia is currently dependent on one of its four main power lines and a backup line for external power. Since Russia seized the plant weeks after invading Ukraine in February 2022, the plant has lost all external power eight times, forcing it to rely on emergency diesel generators for power.

Source: CNN Brasil

You may also like