“Due to power surges, the New Safe Confinement — the key structure that isolates the destroyed 4th reactor of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and prevents the release of radioactive materials into the environment — was left without electricity,” the Energy Ministry said.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20251001202906/https://kyivindependent.com/chornobyl-nuclear-plant-loses-power-after-russian-attack-on-nearby-town-energy-ministry-says/
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Someone smarter then me tell me why this is hopefully better than it sounds
It’s fucked, the best I can do is to say that there isn’t immediate threat of the radioactive materials getting out unless the older Shelter Structure collapses and that forces the materials out with New Safe Confinement not being able to prevent it since it was already damaged by Russian drone earlier in the war.
I cant say I have any intelligence, but it is my uneducated understanding power disruptions to the new safe confinement should be fine? It means they cant detect new problems, but the main confinement is made of concrete? and doesn’t “need” power?
Now, power cut to the active nuclear power plant, which seems to also be noted in this article, well, nuclear power plants need power to keep cool, and hearing a nuclear power plant relying on failing diesel generators to prevent a meltdown…or worse, that is concerning.
You don’t need electricity for a physical barrier to contain material
Wrong. The heat exchanger pad underneath the elephant’s foot (gigantic blob of radioactive material) needs to be continuously cooled or it will melt through anything below it and contaminate the water that flows underneath. Guess what they use to pump the water to cool it?
That would require complete removal of all energy sources - which clearly hasn’t occurred and even then it would take weeks for a major problem to emerge. No need to fearmonger, it’s already serious enough as it is. There are additional backup measures for cooling previously used that don’t require electricity too.
Still interesting, I personally didn’t realise the elephant’s foot needed active measures at all. I didn’t see anything about that when I re-read the wiki page on it.
The elephant’s foot no longer requires active cooling, but I think the spent fuel rod pool does
