How to solve the Zaporizhzhya NPP crisis - an expert proposal

The whole world has been watching with deep concern what has happened and is happening in and around the Zaporizhzhya NPP in Ukraine during the events of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

To be clear: armed attacks and threatening to attack civilian nuclear facilities are contrary to the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This - wherever it happens - is unacceptable and must be strongly condemned.

The situation that has now developed at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant violates the fundamental rules of the nuclear industry. It also makes impossible to work professionally in the field of nuclear safety, physical protection and safeguards of the given nuclear facility. In addition to the risk of direct physical impact, it increases the possibility of human error by orders of magnitude.

Nuclear power plants are designed to withstand a range of external and internal hazards, which are taken into account in determining their design basis, but they are not designed to store large quantities of ammunition or to be regularly shelled by artillery. Artillery attacks on the nuclear power plant site, or the stockpiling of large quantities of explosives and munitions on the plant site, or the laying of mines by any party, create additional risks for which these facilities are not designed. At the Zaporizhzhya NPP, a situation has now arisen which is most certainly not covered by the plant's licences. The critical situation must be eliminated and the risks at the plant must be reduced to normal levels as soon as possible.

No responsible government, authority or operator should behave in a way that deliberately creates and deliberately maintains a significantly higher than normal risk condition which is beyond the design basis of the facility.

View of Zaporizhzhya NPP with 6 nuclear units and a thermal power plant in the background

(Source of picture: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Ralf1969)

The IAEA Safety Fundamentals (SF-1) clearly states that „The fundamental safety objective is to protect people and the environment from harmful effects of ionizing radiation.” In line with this, one of the first provisions of the atomic act of all countries using nuclear energy is that nuclear safety shall have priority over all other factors.

Taking the above into account, in my view the following steps would be logical and appropriate in the present situation from a technical and nuclear safety point of view:

1. If the parties involved in the conflict consider that an artillery attack on the Zaporizhzhya NPP from either side cannot be ruled out, all reactors shall be shut down immediately and brought to a safe cold shutdown state. This will reduce by many orders of magnitude the amount of radioactivity present in the reactors and which could be released in the event of an accident, thus reducing the potential environmental consequences.
2. The Ukrainian authorities should revoke or suspend the operating licences of all six units. The large quantities of explosives and artillery equipment reportedly present on the site are an external hazard for which the units were certainly not designed.
3. The Ukrainian operators of the plant are not free from external influence, as Russian military and Rosatom technical staff are also present at the plant, so the organisational conditions for the safe operation of the plant are hardly met. This also supports the view that the units should be shut down. Normally, any modification of the management system of a nuclear installation should be preceded by a safety analysis and regulatory approval. If this has not been done here, the plant is operating outside the conditions laid down in its operating licence, which is contrary to international standards and legal requirements and therefore not permissible.
4. An extraordinary stress test of the Zaporizhzhya NPP is necessary, taking into account the consequences of the new external hazards and the organisational change. Since both the Russian and Ukrainian sides have made public statements threatening a large accident, the units should only be restarted responsibly once the stress test of the units has been successfully completed and the necessary technical and administrative corrective measures have been taken to ensure that the plant returns to its normal operating conditions.
5. The early admission of an expert mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency is important, would greatly increase transparency and help to assess the situation accurately, but would not in itself be a substitute for the above steps.

Knowing the international regulatory practice in nuclear safety and the design principles of nuclear installations, the above measures would ensure that risks are reduced to acceptable levels.

In addition to the above, it would be necessary for the involved parties to refrain from any artillery and military activities around the Zaporizhzhya NPP. Artillery and explosives should be removed from the facility and restored to a condition consistent with its design basis. Let it be clear: the situation that has now been created at the Zaporizhzhya NPP is contrary to the rules and principles of the nuclear industry and is in serious violation of both Ukrainian and Russian nuclear safety regulations.

At the same time, it is necessary to state that an accident of Chernobyl type and Chernobyl magnitude cannot occur at the Zaporizhzhya NPP for physical and technological reasons. Threatening with an accident of this magnitude is certainly aimed at frightening the European public and political decision-makers, and is political in nature and not based on technical grounds.

To sum up, the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant is currently operating outside the conditions taken into account in its design and licensing, which does not comply with nuclear safety rules. In the present situation, the above five steps could ensure that the nuclear safety risks associated with the plant are reduced to the normal levels set out in the rules and legislation, as soon as possible.

Nuclear safety has priority over all other aspects! 

 (The above is my own expert opinion, not an institutional position)