Statement
The National Commission for Radiation Protection of Ukraine (NCRPU)
The Chornobyl Exclusion Zone is now occupied by Russian troops.
The most dangerous nuclear facility in the world is in the hands of the Russian maniac Putin. As you know, the 4th power unit of the Chornobyl NPP exploded in 1986. It has been covered with Sarcophagus and recently with a new safe Confinement. In 1986, only 3-4% of the irradiated nuclear fuel was released into the environment; the rest was localized inside the Sarcophagus. But even this relatively small emission led to global pollution of vast territories not only in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, but also in most Western and Northern European countries. Radioactive particles of the Chornobyl origin were scattered around the world and were detected in the air by Japanese researchers.
The part of the nuclear fuel, which remained in the damaged power unit (> 96%), has undergone fundamental changes over the past 35 years. Due to the radioactive decay of Plutonium-241, the content of one of the most dangerous from the medical and biological point of view isotope of Americium-241 has increased in more than 400 times. Radiation destruction and dispersion of the irradiated nuclear fuel led to formation of hundreds of tons of dusty high- volatile particles. Each particle if being inhaled can cause death.
Now the Russian troops are very close to the Zaporizhzhia NPP (city of Energodar). Radioactive nuclides formed as a result of electricity generation at the NPP are mainly contained in the spent nuclear fuel stored in special repositories on the territory of the NPP’s industrial sites. The Ukrainian Government planned that since 2020 Ukraine would stop sending the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from the Ukrainian nuclear power plants to Russia for recycling, and store it in a centralized repository of the spent nuclear fuel in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.
For 20 years from 2001, the Zaporizhzhia NPP has been used as a dry storage facility. Each year from the VVER-1000 (PVR of 1000 MVt capacity) reactor, 42 fuel assemblyis unloaded, which makes 17 tons. The specific activity of one assembly after 3-year exposure is 3 • 1016 Bq/T. During one year, 5.1 • 1017 Bq of radioactive materials come from each of the six reactors. From this activity 8.16 • 1016 Bq accounts for 137Cs and 5,95 • 1016 Bq for 90Sr.
Simple calculation shows:
The SNF from the 6 VVER-1000 reactors of the Zaporizhzhia NPP accumulated in thedry repository during 20 years, contains more than 6 • 1019 Bq of long-lived radionuclides including 9 • 1018 Bq 137Cs and 7 • 1018 Bq 90Sr. This is over 30 times more than it has been accumulated in the IVth power unit of the Chornobyl NPP at the time of the accident. This is 100 times more than the amount of 137Cs and 700 times more than that of 90Sr that was released from the Chernobyl NPP emergency unit as a result of the accident in 1986.
Putin does not need to fire nuclear missiles. Putin today can make a thousand of Chornobyls just shooting into the nuclear objects and destroy all Europe!!! It might reach America. NATO has enough weapon to protect the world from nuclear missiles. But it is will not be able to protect it from a radioactive cloud. This is evidenced by the experience of the Chornobyl and Fukushima.
NCRPU appeals to the World Scientific Community:
In the name of Europe and the world, close the sky over Ukraine! Do not give the maniac to destroy the life on Earth.
Head of NCRPU,
Academician of the National Academy of Sciences
People’s Deputy of Ukraine
Oleksandr Kopylenko