Grossi, Putin meet to discuss Ukraine nuclear plant concerns

March 6, 2024, 3:03PMNuclear News
Vladimir Putin (left), Rafael Mariano Grossi (right), with Alexey Likhachev (Image: Kremlin.ru)

International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi visited Russia this week to discuss the “future operational status” of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Officials: Sole power source to Ukraine plant damaged in shelling

February 22, 2024, 12:01PMNuclear News
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. (Photo: DOE)

Russian shelling is being blamed for damage to the single remaining power source to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, located on the front lines of the ongoing military conflict.

“After another attack by the Russians, the line that provided the energy supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station was damaged,” Ukraine's power grid operator Ukrenergo said in a February 21 statement.

IAEA: Zaporizhzhia shores up backup electricity sources

January 4, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has taken action to ensure an immediate supply of backup electricity at the site in case the main external power line is lost.

Amid Ukraine's ongoing military conflict with Russia, Zaporizhzhia has experienced frequent power cuts. Since August 2022, the plant has suffered eight events with a complete loss of off-site power, according to a statement from International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

IAEA director general: “Cause for concern” over North Korea’s nuclear program

January 3, 2024, 9:31AMNuclear News

Grossi

Recent observations have indicated that warm water has been discharged near the light water reactor at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center in North Korea, which is consistent with the purported commissioning of the LWR—a process that takes time for any new reactor—and suggests that the reactor has now reached criticality.

“The LWR, like any nuclear reactor, can produce plutonium in its irradiated fuel, which can be separated during reprocessing, so this is cause for concern,” said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. “It remains the case that without access to the facility, the agency cannot confirm its operational status.”

Safety concern: Grossi went on to say that the agency does not have sufficient information to make an assessment about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea site, but that nuclear safety remains the paramount issue when starting a new reactor. Agency inspectors have had no access to North Korea since they were expelled in 2009.

IAEA holds its annual nuclear law training program

November 20, 2023, 9:30AMNuclear News
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi welcomes participants at the annual session of the IAEA’s Nuclear Law Institute. (Photo: Dean Calma/IAEA)

As countries increasingly plan to adopt or expand nuclear energy to their energy grids, the importance of national and international nuclear law was underscored in recent remarks by Rafael Mariano Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general.

Drone attack damages Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi site

October 27, 2023, 7:02AMNuclear News
Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in Ukraine. (Photo: Wikimedia)

Explosions near the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in western Ukraine early Wednesday shattered windows at the facility and temporarily cut off power to some off-site radiation monitoring stations, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on October 25.

Nuclear’s fortunes looking up, says IAEA

October 11, 2023, 3:01PMNuclear News
IAEA director general Grossi delivers the opening plenary at the Second International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power. (Photo: IAEA)

The International Atomic Energy Agency has released the 2023 edition of its annual look at nuclear’s prospects in the coming decades—Energy, Electricity and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050—revising its global growth projections upward for a third consecutive year.

IAEA unveils training center for nuclear security

October 9, 2023, 7:00AMNuclear News
The IAEA’s new nuclear security training center. (Photo: Katy Laffan/IAEA)

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, officially opened the IAEA Nuclear Security Training and Demonstration Centre during an October 3 ceremony at the agency’s Seibersdorf laboratories in Austria. Representatives of 45 countries and territories were in attendance.

Mines spotted at Zaporizhzhia site periphery

July 25, 2023, 3:00PMNuclear News

During a walkdown at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on July 23, a team of International Atomic Energy Agency experts reported seeing “some” directional antipersonnel mines in a buffer zone between the Russian-occupied site’s internal and external perimeter barriers, the agency announced yesterday.

No evidence yet of explosives planted at Zaporizhzhia, says IAEA

July 6, 2023, 3:00PMNuclear News

International Atomic Energy Agency experts at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have so far been unable to verify recent claims by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russia may have planted explosives at the site to “simulate an attack.”

Destruction of Ukrainian dam threatens Zaporizhzhia

June 6, 2023, 3:00PMNuclear News

A Soviet-era dam downstream from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine collapsed last evening, causing the water level of the Kakhovka Reservoir north of the dam to drop and raising new concerns over the already jeopardized safety of the Russian-occupied nuclear facility, Europe’s largest. The reservoir supplies water for, among other things, Zaporizhzhia’s cooling systems.

IAEA issues report on nuclear safety and security in Ukraine

February 24, 2023, 6:16AMANS Nuclear Cafe
The IAEA team of of nuclear safety, security, and safeguards experts inspecting damage last year at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. (Photo: Dean Calma/IAEA)

As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, the International Atomic Energy Agency has released Nuclear Safety, Security and Safeguards in Ukraine, an overview of the conflict’s impact on the beleaguered nation’s nuclear facilities and of the agency’s actions to lessen the likelihood of a nuclear accident.

IAEA support teams sent to bolster Ukrainian power plants

January 18, 2023, 3:00PMNuclear News
The Rivne nuclear power plant in western Ukraine, home to four VVER pressurized water reactors. (Photo: Victor Korniyenko/Wikipedia)

In what it is calling a “major expansion” of its efforts to prevent a severe nuclear accident befalling Ukraine, the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday announced that it is deploying teams of nuclear security and safety experts this week to the beleaguered nation’s nuclear power plants and the Chernobyl site. (The agency has already stationed a team of experts at Ukraine’s largest nuclear facility, the six-unit Zaporizhzhia plant, which has been under Russian military occupation since last March.)

Zaporizhzhia the focus of Grossi interview

December 1, 2022, 3:00PMANS Nuclear Cafe

Grossi

The ongoing, tense situation surrounding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was the subject of a recent interview with International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi when he appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes program.

The Zaporizhzhia facility is in an area of Ukraine that became occupied by Russian forces in late February 2022. Though Ukrainian staff remain at the now mostly idle plant, artillery shells have repeatedly landed at and near the plant over the past several months, with Ukrainian officials—along with many Western media outlets—blaming Russia, while Russian officials and media blame Ukraine.

Action from the IAEA: Following months of negotiations with both sides, inspectors from the IAEA, led by Grossi, finally visited the site in late August and early September, and the agency has been monitoring the situation since then with an observation mission at the site. In the interview, which aired on November 20, Grossi did not attribute blame for the shelling to either side.

IAEA projects increase in nuclear’s growth for second year in a row

September 29, 2022, 7:00AMANS Nuclear Cafe

The International Atomic Energy Agency, for the second successive year, has revised upward its annual projections of nuclear power’s potential growth over the coming decades as an electricity provider.

In the just-released 42nd edition of Energy, Electricity and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050, the IAEA has increased its high-case scenario for nuclear by 10 percent over last year’s report. (In 2021, the agency revised upward its annual projections for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident.)

According to the high-case scenario, world nuclear generating capacity more than doubles to 873 GWe by 2050, compared with current levels of about 390 GWe—an addition of 81 GWe to last year’s projection. In the low-case scenario, generating capacity remains essentially flat.

IAEA mission to Zaporizhzhia finally launched

August 30, 2022, 9:30AMNuclear News
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi (center) with his team of nuclear safety, security, and safeguards experts at the Vienna International Airport on August 29, prior to their departure for Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. (Photo: Dean Calma/IAEA)

After months of urgent entreaties to both the Ukrainian and Russian governments to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency access to the embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi yesterday set off for the facility, accompanied by a team of nuclear security, safety, and safeguards experts.

Zaporizhzhia-5 and -6 disconnected from grid

August 25, 2022, 4:29PMNuclear News
The Zaporizhzhia plant (Image: Energoatom)

Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear plant operator, is reporting that Units 5 and 6 at the Zaporizhzhia plant—currently the facility’s only operational reactors—were disconnected from the country’s power grid early in the morning of August 25.

The Zaporizhzhia site has been under the control of the Russian military since March 4, just days after Russia commenced its invasion of Ukraine.

Update on Ukraine

August 22, 2022, 3:00PMNuclear News
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. (Photo: Ralf1969, Wikimedia Commons)

The latest news on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant—under occupation by the Russian military since early March—sparks some hope, but also more anxiety.

The good: This morning, Russia requested that the United Nations Security Council hold a meeting tomorrow on the situation at the six-unit pressurized water reactor plant, according to RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency. The RIA report cited a post via the Telegram messaging app from Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s first deputy minister at the UN. In the post, Polyansky said the meeting is scheduled for “22:00 Moscow time on August 23.”

Grossi highlights the importance of nuclear energy at World Economic Forum

May 31, 2022, 9:30AMANS Nuclear Cafe
Rafael Mariano Grossi speaks on a panel at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. (Photo: WEF)

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has authored an article for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held last week in Davos, Switzerland.

Update on Ukraine

April 29, 2022, 12:00PMNuclear News
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, thanks IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi for the agency’s support, including its April 26 mission to Chernobyl. (Photo: IAEA)

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, led a mission to Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant this week to address ongoing radiological safety concerns at the shuttered site following five weeks (February 24–March 31) of Russian military occupation.