Ukraine Nuclear Reactors at Risk of Meltdown

Although plenty of folks concerned about climate change champion nuclear power as an important part of the world’s energy mix, I continue to find the reliance on nuclear to be a bit short-sighted.

As I’ve written in the past, while it may not be politically correct, I have a hard time feeling comfortable with unstable regions building out their nuclear power capabilities.

This holds particularly true in certain parts of Africa and the Middle East, where stability is not a common occurrence. This also is a concern in Ukraine, where political forces are eager to relive the glory days of European dictators and mass murder. The result of this has been a new level of instability and violence that puts Ukraine’s 15 Soviet-style nuclear reactors at risk of failure or sabotage.

Remember Chernobyl?

About half of Ukraine’s energy needs are met by its nuclear reactors – all of which went online in the 1980s and are similar in design to the reactor that blew at Chernobyl.

But Michael Sailer of the German Nuclear Waste Management Commission told Deutsche Welle that beyond that normal risk associated with these older nuclear plants, in Ukraine, there is a potential for human error due to less motivated nuclear operators than elsewhere and the fact that the security features of these reactors are a lot weaker than those of modern reactors.

Of course, worries over human error and antiquated design seem to be less stressful for those who fear sabotage.

Writer and analyst Michael Knigge recently penned a piece on this, writing. . .

…it’s not just the maintenance of the technical infrastructure and the motivation of the engineers operating the reactors that has the experts worried. The continued fighting between government and pro-Russian forces including the seizure of buildings raises the risk that the country’s nuclear plants could also be drawn into the mix.

The older Soviet-style reactors are already less safe than those in Western Europe, Lothar Hahn, former director of the Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS), Germany’s leading nuclear safety research center, told DW. “But this is even overshadowed by the danger of sabotage or war. Then you would immediately have a dramatic situation on your hands.”

The experts did not want to describe possible sabotage or war scenarios on the record, but stressed that they consider this a real danger. “You don’t need an army, only 20 to 30 highly trained men,” said Hahn. “These things are totally incalculable.”

I know pro-nuclear types will criticize my take on this. And that’s fine.

But no matter how you slice it, despite the superior capacity factor of nuclear power, the more nuclear power plants the world develops, the less safe we all become.

Michael Sailer wrote. . .

Once you have decided to operate a nuclear power plant or like in this case a nuclear reactor park, you must guarantee you don’t have unstable social situations and you definitely can’t have a war.

Well, such a place doesn’t exist.

Ukraine Nuclear Reactors at Risk of Meltdown originally appeared in Green Chip Stocks. Green Chip Review is a free 2x-per-week newsletter, is the first advisory to focus exclusively on investments in alternative and renewable energies.