Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is the largest in the world. It is also the only one located in an active war zone – a situation of grave concern both to the Ukraine, its neighbouring countries, and the whole of Western Europe. Throughout the Russia’s war in Ukraine, the nuclear power plant has been exposed to heavy fighting, and has been subject to damage from shelling and gunfire.
It is imperative that all nuclear plants have a constant power to run pumps to keep the reactor core from overheating, even if the reactors have been shut down. Throughout the fighting the powerlines connecting the reactor have been damaged numerous times, resulting in disconnection from the grid, which then requires the emergency generators to operate in order to maintain power for cooling. The nuclear power plant has 20 diesel generators in total, and at times ALL generators have had to run in order to maintain safety at the plant. Of course, if the generators run out of fuel, they can no longer maintain the safety of the plant – the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant occurred as a result of lack of backup power caused by Tsunami damage, and resulted in three reactor meltdowns and serious nuclear contamination to the surrounding area, the sea, water supplies and the atmosphere. The Fukushima nuclear reactors have an output of 5306MW. By comparison, the Zaporizhia plant has an output of 5700MW, and Chernobyl 4000MW. Should the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant suffer meltdowns as a result of the war, a large area of Ukraine and Eastern Europe could be badly contaminated with nuclear material.
With the Ukrainian spring counter-offensive starting, grave concerns over the safety of this nuclear power plant continue.