Ukraine strains to safely operate nuclear power plants while under Russian invasion

autotldr Bot , 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

---

“Never such case has happened before actually,” said Petro Kotin, who spoke to journalists recently in a room deep inside the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in central Ukraine.

In 2011, a tsunami in Japan destroyed the power supply to three reactors at the Fukushima plant, triggering a nuclear accident that still poses major environmental challenges.

But Edwin Lyman, a physicist and director of the nuclear power safety program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Ukraine is taking a calculated risk.

Lyman noted the conflict in Ukraine has been volatile and unpredictable — not an ideal environment for managing the complex technical support network and supply chain required to operate atomic reactors safely.

But in a statement on Sept. 1, the IAEA warned that Russian troops are refusing to let the agency’s team examine key parts of the complex to determine whether mines or other military explosives have been placed in sensitive areas.

“The IAEA experts continue to hear explosions and the sounds of military activity taking place some distance away,” the statement also said, adding that a drone hit a nearby residential building on Aug. 23.

---

The original article contains 907 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!