Chernobyl leak fears after power line hit

RUSSIAN forces have damaged the high-voltage power line connecting Chernobyl to Kyiv and cut off electricity to the nuclear power plant, raising fears of radioactive leaks, it has been claimed.

The $2 billion (£1.5 billion) Chernobyl New Safe Confinement structure encloses the original reactors of the 1986 nuclear meltdown and there is still active fuel at the centre.

Energoatom, the organisation that runs Ukraine’s nuclear generators, including Chernobyl, said a lack of power will affect the cooling of spent nuclear fuel nearby.

These are fuel rods that were used to generate power before being put into storage and cooled with water since 2000 to keep them stable.

The water is pumped around the rods to soak up radiation. It is then filtered, cooled and reused. However, if the power is disconnected, this process will stop, leading to the water potentially evaporating and the rods warming.

However, Prof Geraldine Thomas of Imperial College London and director of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, said: “They will not be producing significant amounts of heat, making a release of radiation very unlikely.

“In the unlikely event of a release of any radiation, this would be only to the immediate local area, and therefore not pose any threat to western Europe – there would be no radioactive cloud.”

Dr Mark Wenman, reader in nuclear materials at Imperial College London, added that even without power, it would take “weeks” for the water to boil away.

“The fuel isn’t hot enough for a nuclear meltdown to occur but there could be contamination to the building,” added Prof Claire Corkhill, chair in nuclear material degradation at the University of Sheffield.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today that there is enough water “for effective heat removal without [the] need for electrical supply”, further easing concerns.

Ongoing fighting makes repair of the power lines impossible, and Dmytro Kuleb, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said Chernobyl has just 48 hours worth of diesel to run its backup generators.

However, Prof Corkhill said that there are additional implications and called the situation “pretty concerning”.

“The most hazardous material is buried deep down inside the basement of the reactor so switching off the power supply to that part of the decommissioning site won’t cause anything,” she said. “What’s more worrying is that, if the power is switched off, and they are unable to monitor [the reactor], then that is concerning.”

The Chernobyl New Safe Confinement unit, which was put in place in 2016, also has a cutting-edge air conditioning system that extracts heat and prevents condensation from forming.

“One of the problems with the old sarcophagus was that it’s very hot on the inside of the reactor,” Prof Corkhill said. “When that comes into contact with cold air outside and, as you know, Ukraine is not very warm, it forms condensation on the inside of the old sarcophagus roof and it essentially rains constantly.”

Water increases nuclear activity and condensation raises the likelihood of a “criticality accident”, Prof Corkhill said.