Journalists found an operating nuclear reactor in the center of Kyiv
The Institute of Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine decided to introduce Ukrainian journalists to the work of one of the nuclear reactors, because many do not realize that there is one of them in Kyiv.
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This is stated in a report from the Kyiv agency UNN.
“Since 1960, a specialized institute has been operating in Kyiv, in one of the buildings there is a nuclear reactor. An inconspicuous building, decorated with Soviet symbols of the “peaceful atom”, located on the capital’s Avenue of Science. In the distance you can see a pipe - this is a particle accelerator, “Kiev-style hadron collider”. Now it does not work because it “eats” a lot of energy - 10 MW. For comparison: this would be enough to fully provide electricity to more than 2 apartments,” the publication says.
“In general, the reactor should and can operate 400 thousand hours a year. During the Soviet Union, the reactor operated 3-4 thousand hours a year. This amounts to about one hundred hours a week. Last year we didn’t work at all, but this year we only worked 50 hours. In order to put the reactor into operation, a lot of money is needed, about 12 million UAH for both water and fuel, but, unfortunately, no one is funding it,” the agency quotes the deputy chief engineer of the reactor, Valery Shevel.
According to him, previously about 100 people worked at the reactor and there was a separate research center, but now they have created a scientific department for nuclear research, where about 60 people work, of which 10 are researchers.
“Its diameter is up to three meters, height – up to five. It is surrounded by a meter thick concrete wall. A metal bridge leads to the lid. At the top you can see a heavy steel plug weighing about a ton (it is lifted using a crane). This plug closes the hole through which the rods are loaded manually using special rods,” says the deputy chief engineer.
According to the engineer, reactors of this series are quite successful, and are still used in many CIS countries to this day. When developing it, scientists took into account the possibility of an accident. In the event of sabotage, failure or other unforeseen circumstances, the pipeline will immediately rupture - all the water will go into the soil, where through special channels the contaminated water will flow into special sewers with a capacity of up to 350 cubic meters.
All processes occurring in the reactor are monitored from the control panel.
“It is believed that there will be no serious consequences. We have a clearly defined sanitary protection zone within a radius of 300 m; there should be no residential buildings here, but as you may have noticed, developers are still building residential buildings,” said Shevel.
In general, the institute produces short-lived isotopes for the needs of medicine and industry, and studies the effect of radiation on the designs of industrial nuclear power plants. In industry they are used to check the quality of welds, and in medicine - to detect tumors in the human body.
“We can only provide them to hospitals in Kyiv and the region, since the decay period of isotopes is only 5 hours,” explained the deputy chief engineer.
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