Ukraine Power Plants - Part 2 3

[bones206]

Thought it would be a good time to start a fresh thread, since recent developments have put everyone on alert again.

Part 1: thread815-492582

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

yep and I got the units and amounts wrong, It's a colossal amount of fuel required per day which would be nearly impossible to get through a war zone.

 

[RedSnake]

They are shutting down the last power unit No. 6, for safety reasons.

https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraines-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-halts-operations-energoatom-2022-09-11/?taid=631d79a451baff0001726522&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter[/URL]]Energoatom said that on Saturday it restored to operational capacity a communications line to the power system, which it said had been damaged by Russian shelling, allowing the plant to be powered by Ukraine's energy system.

"Therefore, a decision was made to shut down power unit No. 6 and transfer it to the safest state - cold shutdown," it said.
It said the risk of further damage to the line "remains high", which would force the plant to be "powered by diesel generators, the duration of which is limited by the technological resource and the amount of available diesel fuel."

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Those that know how many days until the trans nuclides have done there thing and washed out and cooling load reduces?

 

[electricpete]

There are a variety of isotopes. The short lived isotopes tend to cause the most radioactivity (decays per second) immediately after shutdown but they also decay away the fastest. Over time the decays per second decrease and the isotope profile shifts towards longer lived isotopes at lower activity levels. So the risk of very high activity levels of some of the short lived elements decreases substantially during the first days and weeks. But it's all relative and the severity of any event depends on how much of what's left ends up being released. I suspect a full release/dispersal of the remaining isotopes (for example due to a bomb) would still be quite nasty for years, decades or centuries after termination of power operations.

There is an isotope of Iodine that is important after some nuclear events (Chernobyl) due to its mobility and its tendency to be absorbed biologically. I don't recall the isotope or the half life or whether it is a direct fission product or part of some fission product decay chain.

Aside from reduction in the source term (isotopes that produce radiactivity), there is also a corresponding reduction over time in heat produced by their decay. According to wiki "Quantitatively, at the moment of reactor shutdown, decay heat from these radioactive sources is still 6.5% of the previous core power if the reactor has had a long and steady power history. About 1 hour after shutdown, the decay heat will be about 1.5% of the previous core power. After a day, the decay heat falls to 0.4%, and after a week, it will be only 0.2%". Less heat means the cooling requirements become less stringent / less critical over time.

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(2B)+(2B)' ?

 

[JohnRBaker]

There is an isotope of Iodine that is important after some nuclear events (Chernobyl) due to its mobility and its tendency to be absorbed biologically.

The reason radioactive Iodine is so much of a concern IS because Iodine is absorbed by the body as it's a mineral that plays a critical role in controlling your metabolism and the body cannot produce it on it's own, so it has to come from an external source, usually in your food. Generally speaking, most other radioactive isotopes which could be released during a nuclear accident, unless the body either ingests it or it remains in contact with the body for long periods of time, there usually isn't a problem if you can keep yourself and your environment clean because the body will not naturally try to absorb the radioactive material, but not Iodine, as mentioned above.

Now, this brings us to why they give Iodine tablets to people who might be exposed to radioactive materiel. It seems that the body takes in and stores Iodine in the Thyroid glands, but the body has an interesting defense mechanism. If you're given a high dose of Iodine, it will ONLY retain as much as the Thyroid glands can hold and then the body will STOP absorbing any additional amounts completely. Even if you ingest it in food or drink, if your body has reached its limit for Iodine absorption, any additional Iodine will be immediately flushed from the body, and even if it was radioactive, it will not have been in your body long enough to have done any harm, since the body has ONLY one mechanism for the absorption and retention of Iodine, radioactive or otherwise.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[electricpete]

Energoatom said that on Saturday it restored to operational capacity a communications line to the power system, which it said had been damaged by Russian shelling, allowing the plant to be powered by Ukraine's energy system.

"Therefore, a decision was made to shut down power unit No. 6 and transfer it to the safest state - cold shutdown," it said.
It said the risk of further damage to the line "remains high", which would force the plant to be "powered by diesel generators, the duration of which is limited by the technological resource and the amount of available diesel fuel.

I missed that. Interesting. Apparently the Ukranian authorities determined the safety risk of operating that last reactor (in the wartime environment) outweighed the safety benefit of the power it was providing. Whereas reliable supply of diesel fuel was required before primarily as a contingency, it is now required as only significant source of power (beyond batteries with limited capacity)


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(2B)+(2B)' ?

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

they are on a link to the thermal station, with the diesel gens as last resort. So, if anyone blows up the switching station at the thermal plant again the whole lot goes up a few days later.

It's just another layer of blackmail between the two sides. Russian experts will no doubt be saying keep away from that thing now if we screw this up we are looking at our own prime grain fields becoming poisoned. Which to be honest I don't think will change anything

 

[electricpete]

> they are on a link to the thermal station, with the diesel gens as last resort.

Ok thanks. That makes more sense. I was surprised when I thought (incorrectly) they were deliberately taking down their last source of power before the diesels.

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(2B)+(2B)' ?

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

That line and switching station has been down 3-4 times. The Russians keep targeting hell out of it. Initially I think it was to give them an excuse to connect it to the Russian grid through Crimea but after Ukraine completely killed the Switching in Crimea that was impossible.

its quite likely the troops there are going to get surrounded so huge potential for things to go very wrong very quickly.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Seems they have been targeting electricity infrastructure since they announced they are shutting the reactor down.

 

[RedSnake]

https://twitter.com/iaeaorg/status/1569750816570875912[/URL]]Separately today, as part of continuing IAEA-led support for nuclear safety and security in #Ukraine, DG
@RafaelMGrossi said a second major assistance shipment had arrived in the country, including radiation monitoring and personal protective equipment.

https://twitter.com/iaeaorg/status/1569750808551653376[/URL]]Ukrainian engineers have made further headway in repairing vital power infrastructure in vicinity of #Zaporizhzhya NPP, providing plant with renewed access to a third back-up power line. This means all three back-up power lines to #ZNPP have been restored.

https://bit.ly/3RF6tis

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein

 

[TugboatEng]

Europe is back to burning coal, Ukraine is close to nuclear disaster, USA has dumped $60 billion on the fire. How many have died? What is it worth to keep a corrupt government in power?

Remember, these are USSR built plants.

 

[hokie66]

Tug,
The objective is not to keep the corrupt Putin government in power.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

He isn't meaning that.

Basically all the ex Soviet states governments have a fairly high level of corruption which is getting slowly reduced steadily in some and in others it's a surface visual exercise.

Alot of is because the old Soviets with all the contacts kept most of the industry and government processes. These are quite often family jobs. Or they pass them round a select group of friends in the old Soviet social groups.

He wants to stop giving Ukraine any help, the Russians can the go in and genocide the none compliant Ukrainians. It's basically history repeating itself between Russia and Ukraine. Stalin culled them by starvation and it happen before that as well. Basically every 100 years Russia kills them off and restores the slave master relationship.

Tug is objecting to the personal cost of killing this cyclic killing off the Ukrainian population. Yes there will be hundreds of thousands been killed. But realistically even if you let Russia get its way the same number if not vastly more would be killed.

I might add a sizable minority in Europe completely agree with him. In Germany and a couple of other countries it's a majority.

Alot of this revolves around the old families and friends of Russia were getting pushed out to try and decrease the cultural corruption of Russian life. It's quite funny to be honest that all the corruption dating back decades is coming to the surface. That won't actually change anything in Russia the never change tatical methods. Ukrainians do.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

As I have said before there is really not much difference between Ukrainians and Russians they are culturally violent nasty hard corrupt people.

The building of these site's were they are was for a reason. Proper Russians are unsuited to that sort of work. Plus because maint is just not done culturally they only run things until they fail they fix with the minimal amount of cost and effort. Human life is one of the cheapest things in Russia. The breaking something that kills people doesn't stir any emotional response. They just do a minimal fix and run it again until it breaks and kills yet more. Preferred option is to have the plants in the slave states and not kill proper Russians.

Which is why all the western abandoned industry will have a very short lifespan.

Anyway it's hitting tugs pocket plus a load of Germans so they would be quite happy to just let Russia go in kill off half the population, rape all the women so they have Russian baby's and restock the slave population. Which has been happening for 100's of years.

 

[electricpete]

> Europe is back to burning coal, Ukraine is close to nuclear disaster, USA has dumped $60 billion on the fire. How many have died? What is it worth to keep a corrupt government in power?

I think most westerners would judge Russia as far more corrupt than Ukraine at least in terms of democratic measures like fairness of elections, free speech policies, and treatment of dissenters. And also Russia is of course the aggressor in this war which further undermines their position from a moral standpoint.

Regardless of how we might feel about these types of arguments (which is no doubt subject to opinion and propaganda on either side), we could simply ask practically whether it makes sense to invest so much money and economic pain (including disruption of European energy supply) into supporting Ukraine's defense. It is arguably in our security self interest if we can prevent the aggressive actions of Russia from being successful / rewarded. But up until recently that aim seems to have been somewhat futile as the prospects of substantially altering the outcome seemed bleak and our efforts only seemed to have expanded the duration of the conflict and the extent of the human suffering. However in the last week with the unexpected success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the inevitability of the outcome seems to have shifted and accordingly any practical argument for withdrawing Ukraine support has diminished substantially imo.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for such comments. My apologies for any role I am playing in derailing this thread.


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(2B)+(2B)' ?

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Thing is it will not stop after Ukraine unless they fail.

It will just be a time period to rearm then the next ex Soviet state will have the same done to it.

So it's better to get the pain over and done with once than repeat for the next 20 years. Plus Ukraine is the only one that has any chance

 

[electricpete]

> its quite likely the troops there are going to get surrounded so huge potential for things to go very wrong very quickly

I'd assume Putin would not do anything that would give Europeans more reason to intervene further on behalf of Ukraine. His soldiers might not be on exactly the same page and if they feel backed into a corner I can imagine them desperately making a threat, but I'd assume they wouldn't follow through because they'd lose all leverage and make their own situation worse if they followed through. And I'd assume Ukranian military strategy might take some of that into account and offer them alternatives for trapped soldiers.

Yeah that was a lot of assumptions required along the way... that's never a good thing!

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(2B)+(2B)' ?

 

[RedSnake]

Well the Russians that occupied Chernobyl left on there own when the rest pulled back, so maybe that can happen here too.


“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.“
Albert Einstein