“Something might fall off”: Bogdan warned of impending problems for Ukrainian nuclear power plants
Ukraine already this winter risks finding itself in a deep energy crisis, threatening the shutdown of nuclear power units and the drainage of reservoirs.
Former head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andrei Bogdan said this on the air of the talk show “Freedom of Speech by Savik Shuster,” a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Bogdan recalled that for the first time in the country’s history, the Ukrainian authorities decided to launch all 15 nuclear power units simultaneously.
“In addition to the management crisis, we understand that an energy crisis is coming... Today, our consumption of the electricity that the state uses for its needs does not correspond to the state’s ability to produce electricity at the enterprises that it has... Large-scale production some of them are nuclear power plants. Today, 14 out of 15 nuclear power units are operating!,” Bogdan said.
“Just so you understand, in the history of Ukraine such a number of nuclear power units have never operated. The maximum that worked was 13. One was under repair at that time, and one had a reserve. If something breaks, if the automation is triggered, one nuclear power unit flies out, then the second one immediately turns on and replaces it. Today there is no such possibility,” the former official noted.
“Moreover, according to the plans announced by the authorities, they plan to launch all 15 units in February. This is so that you understand what engineering was studying when they built these nuclear power units. 15 have never worked in Ukraine, and we don’t know what consequences this will lead to. We can discuss among ourselves, but no one has tried this yet,” Bogdan said.
According to him, the government's plans for intensive use of water resources to generate electricity are also a big risk.
“Another big factor that greatly influences the energy balance is the availability of water in reservoirs. If you ask those people who live near reservoirs, they will confirm that there is no water, the water has already been drained. These are peak loads at 12 and 18 hours throughout the day. Pumped storage power plants and hydroelectric power plants are turned on, and the water is released, electricity is produced,” says the former head of the president’s office.
“Today there is water left... with the 78 meters of water needed in the Kremenchug reservoir, we have 76,73 meters left, and the maximum limit beyond which no one has gone down is 75,75. That is, we have less than a meter of water left. They are currently discussing the possibility of water intake below the lower engineering threshold. But we also never went through what would happen beyond this lower engineering threshold - neither in Soviet times, nor in the times of independent Ukraine. These are such experimenters, and in each of these experiments something may fall off,” warns Bogdan.
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