Worries grow about Ukraine nuke plant amid evacuations
Source: ABC News
Anxiety about the safety of Europe's largest nuclear power plant grew Sunday after the Moscow-installed governor of the Ukrainian region where it is located ordered civilian evacuations, including from the city where most plant workers live.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi has spent months trying to persuade Russian and Ukrainian officials to establish a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to prevent the war from causing a radiation leak.
The evacuations ordered by the Russia-backed governor of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia province, Yegeny Balitsky, raised fears that fighting in the area would intensify. Balitsky on Friday ordered civilians to leave 18 Russian-occupied communities, including Enerhodar, home to most of the plant staff.
More than 1,500 people had been evacuated from two unspecified cities in the region as of Sunday, Balitsky said. The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed the evacuation of Enerhodar was underway.
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/nuclear-watchdog-growingly-worried-ukraine-plant-safety-99148990
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It's called 'capacity' for a reason, and it's very different from power plants that run on some type of fuel. On average across a year-long period, it's probably going to be producing, like, 1600MW, if I were to guess based on other numbers I've seen.
When the wind is blowing 0 mph, then you need a coal or NG-fired power plant of similar capacity nearby. Solar/Wind power essentially cements in a perpetual reliance on Fossil Fuels. Sure it cuts down on how much coal/NG you use so that's helpful, but we'll never get off of them. Why do you think FF companies are often pushing Wind/Solar?
From the nuclear plant, the 1600MW is available on demand with no FF-powered backup. Virtually carbon-free after it's built.
BTW, air pollution from FF use is killing many, many thousands of people across the world each year. When was the last time you heard of anyone positively dying from their exposure to radioactivity outside of Chernobyl in 1986? Positively from exposure to nuclear waste ... I know of 0, world-wide. There's also a lot of research being done on cutting down and/or recycling the waste using different types of reactors, and developing nuclear technology that relies on fuels that don't take so long to break down/become largely unhazardous. And plant designs that are much cheaper to build.
Generally nukes are more expensive to build in the short term, and take longer, yes. But once you figure in all the costs of the externalities of running a solar/wind farm in the form of air pollution health damage/deaths and climate change damage/deaths from their FF-powered brethren that MUST EXIST for them to be viable?
We might find the numbers to be closer than we think.
You also have to factor in how LARGE of an area that farm is spread across, and the fact that there a limited viable locations in the country, and the fact that with every inch of cable the power has to cross, there is a power loss to heat. The % of the 'production' of the 3500MW by the time it reaches AZ is going to be a small fraction of what was produced at the source turbine. And it's the power available at the consumer location that's really what matters.
And all along that line, there must also be FF-powered plants to supplement power when output from the wind is low.
A entire nuclear plant can be built in area that's measured in square acres, and not very many of them. And if we continue to advance the tech to make them safer far enough, they could be built in a LOT more places that are physically closer to consumers, cutting down on transmission costs to the energy net at point of consumption. And requires no FF backups.
