International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Grossi said after visiting Russia’s Kursk nuclear power station on Tuesday (27 August) that there was a risk of a nuclear accident and the situation was serious.
“The danger or possibility of a nuclear accident has emerged near here,” Grossi told reporters, referring to the fact that fighting is taking place in the surrounding Kursk region.
Grossi told a news conference that the site was still operating very close to normal conditions, but this meant that the situation regarding its security was even more serious.
On social media, Grossi said: “Preventing a nuclear accident in this terrible war is vital & attacking any NPP is unacceptable, no matter the location.”
He had earlier said he was taking “very seriously” the risk that the facility could be damaged during Ukraine’s incursion into the region.
Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said: “The IAEA Director General could witness the impact of the strikes launched by Ukraine against the industrial site of the Kursk NPP and had an opportunity to assess the nuclear safety risks posed by attacks on the facility.”
The IAEA said the results of the visit are planned to be discussed by Grossi and Alexey Likhachev, director-general of state nuclear corporation Rosatom, “in the near future”.
Russian state nuclear operator Rosenergoatom said Grossi had been able to satisfy himself that Kursk’s Unit 3 reactor was working at planned capacity, while Unit 4 has been undergoing scheduled maintenance since Sunday. He was also shown a new reactor block that is under construction, it said.
Units 3 and 4 are the only operational units at Kursk. Both are 925-MW RBMK units that began operation in 1984 and 1986. Units 1 and 2, also 925-MW RBMKs, have been permanently shut down.
Two new units, Kursk 2-1 and 2-2, are under construction. They are the first nuclear plants in Russia to use the Generation III+ VVER-TOI pressurised water reactor technology.
Questions Over RBMK Reactor Technology
The RBMK technology for Kursk-3 and -4 uses the same outdated Soviet design that operated at Chernobyl.
Unlike modern units, the design does not have a pressure-proof steel and concrete containment dome that backs up core safety systems and is designed to contain radiation in the event of an accident.
The Kursk-3 and -4 containments have been upgraded since the 1986 Chernobyl accident as far as technically and economically feasible. In particular, controlled reactor building venting has been supplemented to avoid pressure buildup in the case of a loss of cooling accident. The risk of a positive void effect* in of the event of a scram has been mitigated.
However, protection of the reactor building walls against attacks from outside has not been improved.
Grossi told a news conference that the plants were “extremely fragile” because they had no effective protective dome.
The IAEA said it had been told by Russia on 22 August that the remains of a drone were found within the territory of the power plant.
The drone fragments were reported to have been found roughly 100 metres from the plant’s spent fuel nuclear storage facility. The IAEA was informed that the drone was “suppressed” in the early morning of 22 August.
Grossi recently told the Financial Times in an interview that the Kursk station was “technically within artillery range” of Ukrainian positions. “And since there is combat, I’m very concerned.”
* The void coefficient in the RBMK is positive. What this means is that when there is an increase of steam in the core – a “void” of neutron-absorbing water – the reactivity of the reactor will increase. In contrast, a reactor with a negative void coefficient will decrease in reactivity, as seen in most Western reactors.
Rafael Grossi in a control room at the Kursk nuclear power station on 27 August. Courtesy IAEA.
