Russia’s bombing maternity hospital accused of blocking evacuation of civilians in besieged cities

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Croce has condemned the attack. “Violation” One of the basic pillars of nuclear safety, but at this point this cut ensured that it did not, “Big Impact”.

Currently, 20,000 spent fuel assemblies are stored in the site’s storage pool. After being used in a reactor, the spent fuel is still radioactive and releases heat: it is then stored in a “pool” – a basin filled with water – that is cooled. If its radioactivity and thermal energy are sufficiently reduced, after a few years, it is usually transported to dry storage sites and replaced.

Pond water, which contains small amounts of radioactive isotopes, needs electricity to pump and clean and reintroduce cold water. Without energy, water would heat up and, in theory, begin to evaporate, as well as some radioactive isotopes present in the water.

At Chernobyl, however, spent fuel, converted to dry storage, had decades to cool. Due to the past after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, “The heat load of the swimming pool and the amount of cooling water is sufficient to remove the efficient heat without electricity”, IAEA promised. UN Nuclear “Gentreme” Evaluation “Understandable with the age of nuclear fuel”And that “Significantly reduces the risk of contamination inside the building”Reacted Twitter Claire Cargill, professor at the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom), is a specialist in the decomposition of nuclear materials.

In Note on the situation in Ukraine The Institute for Radiation Safety and Atomic Energy (IRSN), published on February 25, also explains that studies on the effects of total loss of pool cooling after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan show a slow increase. At the water temperature of the pool (up to about 60 செல் C) but did not expose the assemblies – i.e. the fuels are still ‘placed under water.

If at present the risk of radioactive leakage appears to be low, the condition of the plant is not worrisome. Remote transmission of data from radiation level monitoring systems is also blocked, so it is not possible to track what is happening at that location. On Tuesday, the IAEA reaffirmed its concern over the situation “Depression and especially difficult” Of the approximately 200 people working on the site, Russian armed forces have not been able to leave the area since the February 24 capture of the area.