ANS Rapid Response Taskforce on Ukraine

A man killed in a car bomb last week in Enerhodar, Ukraine, may have been targeted because of his ties to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The International Atomic Energy Agency received information from both the Russian Federation and Ukraine about the suspected assassination, which occurred in the town where most of the plant staff live, said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

Kasparov

More than 80 percent of the territory that has been surveyed around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant “can be returned to agricultural production,” said Valery Kashparov, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Agricultural Radiology (UIAR) of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine.

Kashparov’s team of researchers reported in a recent article in New Scientist the results of its radiation surveys of areas around the site of the 1986 nuclear power plant accident. The group concluded that radiation measurements on much of the land are now below levels regarded as unsafe by Ukrainian regulators.

Decades of research: Kashparov, who has been with the UIAR since 1998, has spent the past 37 years conducting research related to Chernobyl, focusing on the physical-chemical and nuclear-physical properties of radioactive fallout in the area.

The military conflict with Russia that began in February 2022 has left Ukraine with “dangerous instability” of its national grid, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

Following a meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on September 3, Grossi promised to take a more proactive stance in protecting the country’s energy infrastructure—especially where nuclear safety is vulnerable. During recent months there have been numerous missile and drone attacks, with some directly causing the disconnection of several nuclear power plants.

Thick, black smoke pouring from one of the cooling towers at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant over the weekend raised alarm about safety at the facility as the military conflict with Russia continues.

On-site staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency witnessed the smoke and reported hearing multiple explosions at Zaporizhzhia, which is the largest nuclear plant in Europe and one of the largest worldwide.

The water level in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant cooling pond continues to decrease, creating a serious safety threat.

“If this trend continues, ZNPP staff confirmed that it will soon become challenging to pump water from the pond. Maintaining the level of the pond is made more difficult by the hot summer weather,” said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an update issued August 2.

Security watchdogs with the International Atomic Energy Association are reporting continuing issues at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant due to the military invasion from Russia.

IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said in his weekly briefing on Ukraine that Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant staff experienced another power outage in the nearby city of Enerhodar—where most of the workers live—and a shortage of tap water that has also affected the plant.

Turkey may be closer to moving ahead in a partnership with Russia for its second nuclear plant, Sinop, a proposed four-reactor facility on the Black Sea coast.

An external radiation monitoring station was taken out by shelling and fire near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine the last week of June.

This brings the total to four of the plant’s 14 radiation monitoring sites that are out of commission, further reducing the effectiveness of its off-site capability to detect and measure any radioactive release during an emergency, said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi was in Switzerland last week to talk with insurance executives at the Nuclear Pools’ Forum about the potential of nuclear power.

Power generation from nuclear fission as a clean and stable source of electricity has secured the interest of policymakers and industry leaders around the globe. Last fall, the United States spearheaded a pledge at COP28 to get countries to agree to triple nuclear capacity worldwide, and recently the members of the Group of 7 (G7) nations that currently use nuclear power have reaffirmed their pledges to invest in that power source to cut carbon emissions.

As of this writing, U.S. policymakers are trying to make good on that promise by passing legislation to support nuclear power, funding the domestic fuel supply chain, and working to pass the ADVANCE Act. On top of the support from Washington, D.C., power-hungry industries like data centers and chemical engineering are looking to secure stable, carbon-free power directly from power plants.