JEREMY GORDON | OPINION
and the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.” In fact, despite everything that happened, safety was never significantly degraded at Chernobyl or at Zaporizizhia, which continues power generation in an uneasy and unsatisfactory mode of compromise between Energoatom staff and paranoid Russian forces. However, there remains a perception that the plant was on the edge of catastrophe and could be again. Ukraine’s exaggerations encouraging this have been
made for entirely understandable reasons. Zelensky wants the world’s outrage — and its fear of radiation — to boost support for a proposed No-Fly Zone over the country as well as 30km perimeters around nuclear power plants. Ukraine is not going to stop wanting those things, as this conflict continues and other nuclear sites are drawn into it.
Longstanding issue Nuclear was an issue well before the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin uses exports of oil and gas to fund his country and its military, and for a decade he has been building nuclear at home so that he can export more gas to Europe. It was surely a part of Putin’s calculation that Europe would not be able to live without his gas, and that he could threaten to cut supply if he needed to. All this has been obvious for a long time, but finally
Europe (and Germany in particular) is having to examine its options to stop relying on Russian energy exports — first oil and gas, then coal and then potentially Russian uranium, conversion, enrichment and even planned nuclear power plants.
On the day the conflict started, Swedish utility Vattenfall announced that no deliveries of Russian uranium would be made to its power plants until further notice and nor would it place any new orders. The next day, Finland’s Minister for Economic Affairs, Mika Lintila, said the new Hanhikivi power plant “will at least be significantly delayed”. These will not be the only impacts on Rosatom, which had been the nuclear industry’s most successful exporter.
Information vacuum As this huge crisis slowly unfolded the industry left an information vacuum, to be filled by wild speculation and anti-nuclear organisations. The owners of nuclear power plants worldwide showed zero public solidarity with Energoatom, even while it was under military attack. Only a diverse group of independent advocates organised themselves to provide informed commentary as a response. To look at the homepage and social media of the World
Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), the organisation exclusively focused on operational nuclear safety, you would not have thought anything at all was happening in Ukraine, even days after Zaporizhizhia had been seized. You would not have thought there had been tanks at Chernobyl, nor that the scene could be repeated at other nuclear power plants.
No wonder that a Ukrainian advisor at WANO’s Moscow
Centre sent an explosive resignation email condemning WANO leadership. As forces gathered to seize Zaporizhzhia, he wrote: “Why are you silent when there is a real threat to the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, when Russian troops are bombing and firing missiles at Ukrainian cities? Where are your protests?” WANO had been sharing confirmed information between its members and its Moscow Centre started sharing factual
As this huge crisis slowly unfolded the industry left an information vacuum, to be filled by wild speculation and anti-nuclear organisations. The owners of nuclear power plants worldwide showed zero public solidarity with Energoatom, even while it was under military attack
updates publicly the day after Zaporizhizhia was attacked. On 7 March WANO said it had activated its Crisis Information Centre. [The website homepage has since been updated]. The extensive activities of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) do not offer a free pass for the industry. The agency’s role is to represent the collective interests of all its member states, particularly in terms of safety and non-proliferation. While it is doing extremely important work to support SNRIU and to negotiate a stable operating solution for Ukrainian nuclear power plants, it must at the same time be under pressure to repeat potentially exaggerated Ukrainian narratives. Now that Zaporizhzhia is in the hands of Russia’s military,
new possibilities arise. Energoatom has warned that it expects Russian forces to bring fake journalists to falsely report that plans for a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb were found at the power plant. Energoatom even warned that nuclear workers would be forced at gunpoint to thank Russia for ‘exposing’ this. Is this more hyperbole, or an accurate forecast of the next crisis? Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons is an area
where IAEA speaks with authority and clarity, and it already has. Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told a press conference: “This issue for us is very clear. We do not have any information that would question the non-proliferation credentials of Ukraine. We continue our safeguards operation and we do not have any information that there is any deviation of material, any undeclared material or any activities leading to the development of nuclear weapons.” The global industry must demand with one voice that
there be no more fighting at nuclear power plants and that the principles of nuclear safety be fully respected. If sites change hands, it must take place according to a protocol that ensures operational safety is maintained. Industry must stick up for the Ukrainian nuclear workers
facing appalling conditions and the threat of attack at their workplace. It must publicly put its full support behind Grossi and the IAEA as they resolve questions on non- proliferation. Lastly, the nuclear industry must stop hiding and field a serious, unified response to purposeful stoking of public fear. There has so far been no significant damage to nuclear plants and only marginal reduction in nuclear safety. But the first two weeks of fighting have already made clear that Russia ignores the rules of war and that both countries’ governments are prepared to spread disinformation about nuclear when they think they will get an advantage. Nuclear power is taking considerable reputational
damage, while the terms of the future energy debate shift around it. Like it or not, the peaceful nuclear power industry is a battlefield in this war and there is no way its leaders can pretend otherwise or opt out. ■
www.neimagazine.com | April 2022 | 13
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