Many are familiar with the devastation of the 1980s Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, the worst nuclear meltdown in human history. Only last year, the nuclear plant made headlines as threats of nuclear fission scambles scientists to neutralize the threat of radioactive leaks.
Today, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and facilities in the exclusion zone have been completely lost power and are disconnected from the electricity green according to an announcement by Ukraine's state energy company.
State of the Chernobyl Power Plant and Exclusion Zone
TOPSHOT - A picture shows a general view of the New Safe Confinement (NSC) new metal dome designed and built by French consortium Novarka encasing the destroyed reactor at Chernobyl plant on July 10, 2019, in Chernobyl. - Ukraine and its European partners on July 10 formally inaugurated a new metal dome encasing the destroyed reactor at the infamous Chernobyl plant, wrapping up a two-decade effort. Branded as the world's largest moveable metal structure, the so-called New Safe Confinement seals the remains of the fourth reactor at the nuclear plant that was the site of the massive Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Concerns have been mounting as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues reaching the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on February 24th. Russians seized the area taking about 210 staff hostage. Today, the plant has been completely disconnected from the electricity grid, with about 20,000 spent nuclear fuel units held within the plant's cooling tanks no longer receiving any active cooling.
Officials of Ukraine warn that the loss of power in Chernobyl could increase chances of nuclear material discharge and evaporation, giving off dangerous doses of radioactive material to the remaining personnel of the plant. However, some experts in nuclear energy caution that since the fuel rods are now 22 years old and much colder than they previously were, this event is highly unlikely.
Managing director of the Radiant Energy Fund, Mark Nelson wrote on Twitter that the 22-year-old spent fuel rods have little heat to dissipate. Adding that their heat is low enough that experts he's recently talked to believe that it will take weeks or months for the heat to dry out a pool of water. Even at that point, he believes that air circulation should be enough to dissipate any threat.
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Damages to the Chernobyl Power Plant
On the other hand, the Ukrainian State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection blames the power outages on the damage caused by the occupiers, however, as of now, there has yet to be independent verification of the cause.
Dmytro Kuleba, a Ukrainian foreign minister, says that the plant's reserve diesel generators hold up to 48-hour capacity, and have called for a ceasefire to fully restore the area's electricity, reports ScienceAlert.
Meanwhile, UN's International Atomic Energy Agency officials expressed increasing concerns for the Chernobyl staff's well-being after being hostage at the plant for two weeks. Workers typically leave the radioactive plant after the end of work hours but have now been forced to live on site.
On March 8, systems in place to monitor Chernobyl's nuclear material at radioactive waste facilities have stopped transmitting data to the UN's nuclear watchdog.
Safeguards are measures in place that the IAEA uses to track nuclear material and make sure it doesn't fall into wrong hands. With these now offline, the agency has no way of knowing the location of nuclear material and increasing the threat of it falling into the wrong hands.
In a statement, the IAEA says that the remote data transmission from monitoring systems installed at the Chernobyl NPP had been lost. Adding that workers forced to stay on-site have limited access to medicine, food, and water, with the situation only growing worse.
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