{"id":26950,"date":"2017-10-17T07:33:26","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T12:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26950"},"modified":"2017-10-17T07:33:26","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T12:33:26","slug":"get-ready-for-a-new-chernobyl-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26950","title":{"rendered":"Get Ready for a New Chernobyl in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Get Ready for a New Chernobyl in Ukraine<\/a><\/h3>\n

With the onset of winter and the increasing strain on Ukraine\u2019s energy system, the threat of a new nuclear disaster in Central Europe is becoming more than just a theoretical danger. According to analysts from <\/span>Energy Research & Social Science<\/span><\/a><\/u> (ERSS), <\/span>there is<\/b><\/span> an 80% probability of a \u201cserious accident\u201d at one of Ukraine\u2019s nuclear power plants before the year 2020. <\/b><\/span>This is due both to the increased burden on the nuclear plants caused by the widespread shutdowns of Ukraine\u2019s thermal power plants (the raw material they consumed \u2013 coal from the Donbass \u2013 is in critically short supply) and also because of the severe physical deterioration of their Soviet-era nuclear equipment and the catastrophic underfunding of this industry.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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Should such an incident occur, the EU would not only be faced with the potential environmental consequences, but also \u2013 given the recent introduction of visa-free travel \u2013 a large-scale exodus of Ukrainians out of contaminated areas. <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start by taking a brief tour of the Ukrainian nuclear industry:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ukraine currently has<\/span> four operating nuclear power plants<\/b><\/span>: the <\/span>Zaporizhia<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/u> (the largest in Europe, with six reactors and a combined power output of 6,000 MW), the <\/span>Rivne<\/b><\/span><\/u><\/a> <\/b>(four reactors and a combined power output of 2,880 MW), the <\/span>Khmelnitskiy<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/u> (two reactors and a combined power output of 2,000 MW), and the <\/span>South Ukraine<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/u> <\/b>(three reactors and a combined power output of 3,000 MW):<\/span><\/p>\n

The<\/span> Chernobyl<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/u> plant with its four reactors was finally shut down for good in 2000.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the 15 nuclear reactors currently operating in Ukraine, 12 were brought online during the Soviet era, prior to 1990. All of them rely on the classic type of <\/span>VVER nuclear reactors<\/span><\/a><\/u> that were designed during the 1960s and 1970s at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. Those reactors should have a maximum life expectancy of 30 years. But as of today, <\/span>10 of the 15 reactors operating in Ukraine have already outlasted their expected service life.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get Ready for a New Chernobyl in Ukraine With the onset of winter and the increasing strain on Ukraine\u2019s energy system, the threat of a new nuclear disaster in Central Europe is becoming more than just a theoretical danger. According to analysts from Energy Research & Social Science (ERSS), there is an 80% probability of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16553,579,5004,16011,821],"class_list":["post-26950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-energy-research-and-social-science","tag-nuclear-power","tag-nuclear-reactors","tag-oriental-review","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26951,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26950\/revisions\/26951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}