Kind: captions
Language: en
ukraine is home to both the largest
nuclear power plant in europe and the
site of the largest nuclear power plant
disaster in history
there are 15 active nuclear reactors at
four sites across ukraine and these
plants generate about half of the
country's energy and now ukraine is in a
full-blown war
we're learning firsthand that civilian
nuclear power and
war conventional war do not go together
the largest power plant in europe caught
fire as a result of shelling by russian
troops and now that plant and chernobyl
are both under russian control as
russian forces take control of nuclear
power plants in ukraine
concern is growing for the staff that
keeps those facilities operating safely
they're just humans and every
technological system relies on a human
operator the duress and the
psychological pressure that these people
are operating under you know
carrying out really really very highly
responsible very
very crucial tasks of keeping the
operation of these power plants safe all
the while worrying how their families
are doing back in town another concern
is nuclear power plants in ukraine
losing power
and in turn losing the ability to keep
the core
and the pools where spent radioactive
fuel are stored cool and stable
people might think it's paradoxical but
nuclear power plants generally rely on
electrical power from the grid
to power their safety systems under
normal circumstances what keeps me up at
night is that this now that this is a
war zone
should electricity be cut off now that
could be a problem
nuclear power plants generate
electricity through nuclear fission when
unstable uranium atoms are broken up
into smaller atoms releasing heat
nuclear fission takes place in the core
of the reactor long rods of nuclear fuel
containing uranium are submerged in
water that water will heat up because of
the contact with the hot fuel and it is
used to generate steam which then is
used to pack our turbine and produce
electricity the whole idea about the
safe operation of a nuclear reactor is
that you want to control the intensity
of that reaction you really don't want
it to go amok right because then
really bad things can happen
to keep the nuclear fuel from getting
too hot
water is constantly pumped through the
core of the reactor and through the
pools where spent fuel is stored
but at chernobyl the spent fuel has been
cooling for years
and is not likely to be hot enough to
pose an immediate threat if the plant
loses power
but the active plants pose bigger risks
if electricity is cut off going to those
plants we'll have something that we saw
in fukushima when the tsunami cut off
electricity that's what caused the
meltdown of those three reactors in
fukushima was the loss of electricity
that pumps water and it keeps these
plants going in 2011 a tsunami cut off
electricity to a nuclear power plant in
japan
causing three of its cores to melt down
the loss of power resulted in a number
of explosions that released
radioactivity into the atmosphere and
pacific ocean
forcing thousands of people to evacuate
if the core does melt then it generates
radioactive gases as well as hydrogen
which not to mention increased steam
pressure from boiling water all of which
put pressure on the reactive vessel and
the containment and could lead to
radioactive releases into the
environment nuclear reactors are usually
enclosed in a steel or concrete
structure meant to contain radioactivity
in the event of a disaster
the cores are designed to withstand
certain types of external events for
instance hurricane force winds those
aren't designed
necessarily to withstand a military
grade explosives
but the bigger threat is potentially to
the support structures needed for the
electrical and cooling systems
like the backup generators these plants
rely on in case of a power outage so
should there be a power outage or the
reactor should be disconnected from the
main grid there are diesel generators
that are supposed to kick in
these 15 nuclear reactors
four nuclear power plants finding
themselves in the middle of a large
scale armed conflict of a full-blown war
none of the safety and security
procedures have been designed with that
kind of set of threats in mind it's not
clear how long backup generators can
sustain a nuclear power plant with
on-site fuel but if it is something
sustained then eventually you run out of
diesel i mean a myriad of things could
possibly go wrong
still it's not likely that a nuclear
event today would be to the same scale
of the chernobyl disaster in 1986.
the chernobyl nuclear plant was designed
in a way unlike much of the nuclear
power plants today
and the reactors did not have a
containment structure chernobyl is more
severe for that kind of release to occur
in the marine today is less likely but
you could have something more like
fukushima where you had more limited but
significant local contamination out 23
miles away from the site pretty heavy
contamination chernobyl's last reactor
was shut down in 2000 but the site still
contains highly radioactive material
that crews monitor the 19 mile radius
around chernobyl is saturated with
radiation
and experts are concerned that increased
activity or a fire could spur another
radiological event a fire would be
you know not inconceivable fire could
cause real damage for the soldiers who
are there in an immediate area fighting
but also potentially harmful doses for
people who are downwind
there was a spike in radiation levels at
chernobyl following russian seizure
reports are that this is dust brought
from the tanks you know the tanks
lift up a lot of dust and this
radioactive materials that are stored in
the ground become available for the
monitors to pick up but i'm not sure
that seems like 30 times higher seems
like an awful lot of dust we talk about
radioactive nuclear cleanup but that's a
euphemism all you can do is try to put
the radioactivity someplace where it
doesn't circulate
so it can decay
the unstable forms of the chemicals that
release radiation known as radioactive
isotopes become more stable and release
less radiation over time
but it can take a staggering amount of
time for nuclear waste to decay
when you're thinking about mitigating
the consequences of a nuclear accident
and dealing with kind of the slew of
radioactive isotopes and things
contaminated with them whether it's
water or soil you're talking at a time
scale oftentimes
that defies our
human
kind of lifetimes right the time that
they remain still active and hazardous
depending on the isotopes could be up to
tens of thousands of years
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