A new Chernobyl is being prepared near Odessa

Lately, we have often heard about the need for Ukraine’s energy independence, which in the field of nuclear energy involves a partial cessation of Russian nuclear fuel. As an alternative, “fuel assemblies” (FA) produced by the American-Japanese company Westinghouse are already used at the South Ukrainian NPP.

This did not start yesterday - the process of introducing overseas energy has been going on since 2008, when the first contract was signed. Even then, this raised serious questions among experts - after all, both the composition of the fuel and their arrangement in the carrier differ significantly from the Russian one. Not to mention the nuclear power plant project itself... Moreover, similar “innovations” were tried to be introduced in Finland at the Loviisa NPP and in the Czech Republic at the Temelin station. But both countries categorically rejected Westinghouse fuel assemblies, faced with their obvious unsuitability for nuclear power plants built according to the Soviet design, i.e. - similar to ours. Moreover, in the Czech Republic this happened after an emergency in 2007, which almost turned into a disaster. And the governments of two completely European countries, under pressure from both the environmental community and simply common sense, decided not to play with fire and return to the original option - Russian fuel, for which the stations were built.

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With us, everything is different... If you trace the chronicle of the introduction of American fuel at the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant, it becomes clear: to put it mildly, not everything is in order with us. Accident after accident, and in April 2012, specialists were forced to urgently remove American fuel assemblies, which cost the country $175 million. The reason cited was a simple mismatch between the design of the energy carrier of our equipment and the associated mechanical damage during installation. It seems that the Americans “modified” the external elements, adapting them to our project. But the “filling” remains the same! And it differs significantly from the one on which Soviet-style nuclear power plants operate. In the summer of 2013, the NPP team, after the emergence of new problems, turned to the government with a demand to abandon dangerous experiments due to the technical unsuitability of Westinghouse TVS-W for domestic plants... In March 2014, one of the leading IAEA specialists, Miroslav Lipar, stated that the transition of our nuclear power plants to the American fuel is impossible and dangerous, but... soon this international organization disavowed its conclusions. And its recent inspection announced that there were no comments on the South Ukrainian NPP. And this is after many emergencies at that same 3rd power unit, the last of which led to a fire and shutdown this winter!

A nuclear energy specialist whom we contacted in Odessa (we do not indicate his name for obvious reasons and at his request) commented this way: “Imagine that you are trying to replace the battery of your mobile phone with another, “non-standard” one. At best, it simply won't work. At worst, it will destroy the entire phone. Or, you fill the car’s gas tank with fuel that is not provided for by the car’s design. Again, you can destroy the carburetor, or even the entire engine. But in these cases, you only risk equipment. Attempts to replace Russian fuel assemblies with American ones are fraught with a global catastrophe on Chernobyl scale.

And yet, at the government level it has already been announced that a new contract will be concluded with Westinghouse until 2020. Let us note, by the way, that Russia itself exported nuclear waste for processing, and, despite all the political problems, guaranteed an uninterrupted supply of nuclear fuel to Ukraine and the continuation of the recycling of used fuel assemblies at its plants.

But the leadership of Ukraine is guided either by the desire to “make money” by changing the supplier, or... by the principle “if you want, that insha”! As a result, in a densely populated region of the country, a literally suicidal experiment in irresponsibility continues to gain momentum, threatening disaster not only for “energy independent” Ukraine, but also for the whole of Europe. To be continued?!