«I've packed my things, I'm ready to rush to the north!» Residents of Kursk are afraid of an explosion at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant

In recent days, Russian citizens living in the western and south-western regions have been in anxious expectation. After information began to spread in the domestic media and social networks that Kiev was preparing a provocation at the Zaporozhye NPP, preparing to fire at it to cause radiation contamination. For their part, the Ukrainian authorities accuse Russia of the same intentions, saying that the station is mined and an explosion may occur at any moment.

The wind is blowing now not in the direction of Russia, but everything can change!

It is clear that neither one nor the other adds optimism to the Russians, and they are seriously preparing for the worst. Here is what Lilia E., a resident of the Kursk region, wrote on the night of July 5 in her blog about this.:

«They're heating up on TV.

I think about how quickly the radioactive cloud spreads, given that you are 500 km from the epicenter.

The wind is blowing now not in the direction of Russia, but the south wind is not ice at all for the Kursk region. We are clearly under the Zaporozhye station.

My dad and I were watching the Rossiya24 news channel right now. They said in a matter-of-fact tone that on the night of July 5, Kiev was preparing a provocation by bombing the station. Only in Russia 24 said about it, on other channels silence.

They said that in the case of radiation infection, children suffer the most. Their thyroid glands are out of order. Сaution is the parent of safety. A bag with documents is in the trunk of the car. I'm keeping my fingers on the pulse until the degree of tension is lowered. I have prepared the documents and I'm ready to rush north at any moment».

Needless to say, this post has collected a huge number of comments, and mostly such as: «And I'm looking at the wind!», or such as: «Drink iodine. Up to 50 mg per day is possible for almost everyone. But only with selenium, say, 200 mcg per day. Yes, or it would be nice to start loading selenium a month before the start of iodine».

There definitely will be no second Chernobyl in Energodare

However, many doubt the reality of the radioactive threat, even if an explosion occurs:

— If you are talking about the NPP, then no radioactive cloud is expected there. The maximum is pollution of the territory of the station itself.

— All reactors are double-circuit, shut down. That is, nothing will happen to them. The spent nuclear fuel in the pool may explode, while the pollution will only be on the territory of the station. Everything. There will be no nuclear chain reaction there, it's not Chernobyl.

— You can't blow up the Zaporozhye NPP. There are 10 levels of protection there. Moreover, the reactors are stopped — it's just a scarecrow. You can collapse the outer contour, but it will do nothing. I have been to Chernobyl many times, even in the 4th block under the sarcophagus. It is impossible to create such a thing from the outside — only if you mess with the reactor itself. There are a lot of degrees of protection from external influences. Therefore, we disperse.

And here's what chemist Sergey Besarab writes in his channel about this:

«I won't calm you down, but I will give you a lift. What is the essence of my assumption. The fact that the undermining of the dam of the Kakhovskaya HPP (as a consequence, the shallowing of the Dnieper River basin) may be an element of the chain of events associated with minimizing damage in the event of an incident at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

There is no need to explain that all the reactors of the NPP are stopped, which means there are no temperatures or pressures inside the buildings. There is no physical force (yet) capable of first destroying uranium fuel in fuel rods, and then raising it into the atmosphere to a sufficient height. All the stories about mining stopped blocks are horror stories for modern children. In order to break through the confinement and the steel shell of the reactor, serious demolition specialists and no less serious shaped charges are needed. Cumulative for those who do not know, this is the one that is able to direct all the force of the explosion into a narrow cumulative jet, punch holes in concrete. Suppose I imagine the effect of such an explosion. The cumulative «needle» pierced through the reactor. The coolant with tritium and fuel fragments began to leave (more radioactive than at the Monticello nuclear power plant in the USA). But, as at Monticello, everything will be limited to the station itself. The main reason is the abundance of various protective devices that can delay such a flow of liquid radioactive waste.

Meanwhile, there are spent fuel cylinders very close by, moreover, there is no conventional fuel with an incomprehensible degree of production and, as a consequence, radioactivity, but quite predictable. It is important to note that both in the first and in the second case we are talking about heavy isotopes, no volatile aerosols of iodine-131, everything is heavy, flies weakly and is deposited purely around the industrial site of the station. There is no point in watching the wind in this case, it is more expedient to watch the water. And there is just no water, in order to actively promote the migration of heavy isotopes. Moreover, that the NPP is built on sandy, easily permeable soils, and that surface waters come very close (0-10 m) — i.e. as a consequence, in the event of a violation of the cooling of the combined-cycle reactors, an explosion is very, very possible. Was possible. Because after the explosion of the dam of the Kakhovskaya HPP, the surface waters went deep and thereby significantly reduced the likelihood of a «combined-cycle» Chernobyl.

Keep anti—aerosol respirators with you, and bottled water and packaged food in stock (how to properly decontaminate and pack — here. There will be no second Chernobyl. In the worst case scenario with the reclamation of territories, this is hundreds of millions of dollars of costs. Well, you can also forget about the Odessa bulls from the Black Sea…

P. S. But you will really need to be on your guard and prepare iodides if you hear the news that they decided to raise the power (for any blah-blah-blah purpose) at some of the power units that have been cut off from the power grid for a long time. Because in this case, the pressure/temperatures mentioned at the beginning of the article will appear».