Nuclear safety organisation says loss of pool would not necessarily be catastrophic, but would dramatically increase safety concerns
The cooling pond at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is in danger of collapse as a result of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam and the draining of its reservoir, according to a French nuclear safety organisation.
Since the collapse of the Kakhovka dam on Tuesday, its reservoir has been draining into the Dnipro River and the Black Sea beyond, and will soon drop below the water intakes used to pump water into an array of spray ponds that are used to cool the reactor cores and spent fuel at the site and the much bigger cooling pool used as a water reserve.“We are reaching this dead zone, which is 12.
“A drop in the Dnipro’s water level could lead to basin leakage, or even to the collapse of the surrounding dyke, due to the pressure exerted by the water contained in the basin,” it said. It added that Energoatom had conducted stress tests after the Fukushima nuclear disaster following a tsunami in 2011. Those tests, it said, estimated that the dike can “withstand a Dnipro level of 10 metres in the vicinity of the power plant”.
“If the dyke is destroyed as a result of the water pressure, there are other means to replenish the spray ponds, like pump trucks bringing water from the Dnipro or other water basin located nearby,” Herviou told the Guardian. The president of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said on Thursday that the current water supply at Zaporizhzhia is enough “to keep the nuclear power plant in a safe mode of operation”, but warned of the threat of Russian sabotage.
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