about the possible dangers. what is critical for a safe operation of a nuclear reactor is the functioning of a cooling system of a reactor core. so if you can imagine, it s a sort of big pool in to which the fuel rod s inserted. and it has to have a constant supply of cold water to keep that core and that nuclear fuel at a certain temperature. and of course that system relies on a supply of water. that supply of water depends on the functioning of the pumps that pump that water to the core and the pumps rely on electricity. there are backup electricity systems should the main power grid go out. that s standard for every nuclear power plant. those are diesel generators that and then there is also batteries for redundancy. but in a full-scale invasion in
send u.s. forces into ukraine. here to discuss, democratic congresswoman elaine luria of virginia, the vice chair of the house armed services committee. congresswoman, good to see you. you served as a navy officer for 20 years operating nuclear reactors as an engineer. what is your biggest fear when you hear that russian troops have now taken over and are controlling the site of the chernobyl nuclear disaster? jake, thanks for having me again. you know, the site of the chernobyl disaster that happened in 1986, there s a lot of contamination, a lot of very difficult work went into encasing essentially that exploded reactor core into a sarcophagus, essentially encased in concrete. but the site itself could potentially be weaponized in essence, if there were an attempt to break open that
these systems could be compromised, and then we really have to worry that that there could be a serious accident. right. and and to that point, how can a scenario like this be perhaps better mitigated? i think only one reactor of the six was running. if the reactors aren t running, are they safe or safer? or or not? well, even as a controlled shutdown of the reactor, it s not like you just click a switch and it s off. the fuel remains in the core for some time, for several weeks actually, until it s cool enough to take out and transport to a spent-fuel pool that s normally outside of the reactor building. and actually, spent fuel pools are underestimated. there are points of vulnerability in in the safety and security of a nuclear power plant. um, there the fuel there is
mind. they re meant to be able to withstand plausible incidents, an airplane crash, for example. one thing we learned at the fukushima disaster is that it is not just the safety of the reanterreant reactor itself. the power supply was compromised, the cooling systems that usually keep the reactor and the fuel cool weren t able to operate and so the reactor core melted down. so there are these are complicated systems there is a lot that could go wrong. a meltdown here as you see on the map, this reactor is on the river. so really an ecological disaster if the radioactive material got into the river and could flow into the black sea. and fukushima, there were traces of radioactivity all the way in california across the ocean. so the risks are real. playing with fire, right. playing with the fire in the middle of a war. matthew, thank you so much.
the nature of operating a nuclear power plant safely is inconsistent with military operation. correct me if i m wrong. i read that there will that pools of water with spent fuel rods at the zaporizhzhia power plant and is that your understanding as well and i would assume that in a if there is a fire fight going on, or bombs falling or shelling, if there are large pools of waters with spent fuel rods, that would be concerning. so every nuclear reactor has spent fuel pools right next door to the reactor core, where spent fuel that is no longer used for energy production is moved from the reactor core to the spent fuel port during refuelling. the good news is these pools are inside these very heavily