Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) is going to officially receive a fresh batch of uranium from the Russian contractor, Rosatom, at a formal “Graduation Ceremony” on Thursday (tomorrow, October 05, 2023). According to official sources, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin are expected to virtually join the historic ceremony to mark the occasion. Sources said Director General of the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, will hand over the fuel officially to the project authority in Rooppur project. Science and Technology Minister Architect Yeafesh Osman will preside over the function while Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will join the ceremony through video conference. Md. Ali Hossain, Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, said that all arrangements are ready for making the Graduation Ceremony a success. “We have made all necessary arrangements to mark the historic moment,” he told UNB. Earlier, the first batch of uranium, the nuclear fuel of the first unit of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, arrived in Bangladesh on September 28. The consignment of uranium arrived in Dhaka from Russia through a special air cargo and it was moved to the nuclear power plant site by road under heavy security the next day. The nuclear fuel was brought to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka by a special plane from a factory in Russia. Read: First batch of uranium for RNPP reaches Rooppur amid tight security The fuel was produced at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant (NCCP) in Russia, a subsidiary of Rosatom's fuel manufacturing company Tevel. Rosatom, as a Russian contractor, has been engaged in building the 2400 MW Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant with two units, each with the capacity of producing 1200 MW electricity. The nuclear reactor of the first unit of the power plant was loaded in October 2021 while reactor for second unit was installed in October 2022. The government conceived the idea of setting up the RNPP project in 2009 and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Russian Federation on May 13 in 2009 on the “Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy.” On January 15, 2013, an agreement regarding State Export Credit of US$ 500 million was signed for carrying out preparatory phase construction works of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant. The government signed a US$12.65 billion general contract (GC) in 2015 with the Russian Federation for building the nuclear power plant in Rooppur. Bangladesh signed a credit agreement with Russia to obtain $11.385 billion Russian credit for RNPP in July 2016. The credit covers 90 percent of the project cost. Read: Support truss installed at Unit-2 reactor building of Rooppur RNPP The Ministry of Science and Technology recently said that the first unit of the plant may come into operation in July 2024 and the second unit in July 2025. However, Project Director of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Project Dr. M Shawkat Akbar said that the government is expecting to commission the first unit of the RNPP in September next year and second unit in mid of 2025. Though the 1200 MW first unit of the nuclear power plant at Rooppur is expected to start production from next year, the Power Division and Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) are still in dark about the possible tariff of the electricity of the plant. According to sources at the Power Division, the officials of the BPDP sat in a number of meetings with the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) to discuss a possible power tariff of the plant, but they failed to get a clear picture in this regard. The BAEC has been implementing the RNPP project and the BPDB will purchase electricity from the Russian-aided plant under a long-term agreement. A top official of the BPDB, however, said that they have made a primary calculation on the basis of the data derived from the discussions with BAEC and reports in the newspaper and tariff of per unit electricity of the RNPP will be not less than Tk 10. According to some local experts' calculation the power tariff of the RNPP project will cross $0.08 -0.10 (8-10 US cents). Read more: Key stage completed in manufacture of RNPP’s first reactor pressure vessel One of the country's eminent power tariff experts, Mizanur Rahman, former Member of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), said the electricity tariff from the nuclear power project will be more than over $0.085 (8.5 Cents).

The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog is expressing growing anxiety about the safety of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, after the governor of the Russia-occupied area ordered the evacuation of a town where most plant staff live amid ongoing attacks in the area. The plant is near the front lines of fighting, and Ukrainian authorities on Sunday said that a 72-year-old woman was killed and three others were wounded when Russian forces fired more than 30 shells at Nikopol, a Ukrainian-held town neighboring the plant. “The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous," International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said in a warning that came Saturday before the latest report of attacks. “I’m extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant.” Grossi’s comments were prompted by an announcement Friday by Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed governor of the partially-occupied Zaporizhzhia province, that he had ordered the evacuation of civilians from 18 settlements in the area, including Enerhodar, which is located next to the power plant, which is Europe's largest. The settlements affected are about 50 to 70 kilometers (30 to 40 miles) from the front line of fighting between Ukraine and Russia, and Balitsky said that Ukraine had intensified attacks on the area in the past several days. The region is also widely seen as a likely area where Ukraine may focus its anticipated spring counteroffensive. The Ukrainian General Staff said Sunday that the evacuation of Enerhodar had already begun. According to an update posted on Facebook, the General Staff said the first residents evacuated were those who took Russian citizenship following the capture of the town by Moscow early in the war. They were being taken to the Russia-occupied Azov Sea coast, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) to the southeast. Grossi said that operating staff of the nuclear power plant, whose six reactors are currently all in shutdown mode, hadn't been evacuated as of Saturday but that most live in Enerhodar and the situation has contributed to “increasingly tense, stressful and challenging conditions for personnel and their families.” He added that IAEA experts at the nuclear site “are continuing to hear shelling on a regular basis.” “We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequence for the population and the environment,” Grossi said. “This major nuclear facility must be protected. I will continue to press for a commitment by all sides to achieve this vital objective.” Elsewhere, Russian shelling on Saturday and overnight killed six civilians and wounded four others in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to a Telegram update published Sunday by the local administration. Five civilians were wounded in the eastern Donetsk region, the epicenter of the fighting in recent months, local Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Sunday morning. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces overnight attacked the largest port in the Russia-occupied Crimean Peninsula with drones, a Kremlin-installed local official said on Telegram early Sunday. According to the post by Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol, 10 Ukrainian drones targeted the city, three of which were shot down by air defense systems. Razvozhayev said that there had been no damage.

Bangladesh has recently approved payment of USD $318 million for payment to Russia in the Chinese currency of yuan for construction of the Rooppur nuclear power plant.  A meeting held recently between the Economic Relations Division and Russian officials decided that the payment will be made in yuan at a Chinese bank account, Uttam Kumar Karmkar, head of the European affairs of Economic Relations Division (ERD), Ministry of Finance confirmed  to UNB. He said that the decision was taken to use the Chinese currency yuan for debt repayment at a meeting of the ERD last Thursday. Read more: Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project delayed by Russia-Ukraine War: Yeafesh Osman He said that although the decision has been taken to use Chinese currency to repay the loan, the transaction has not yet been completed. Payment details need to be clarified and resolved. Citing the diplomatic sensitivity of the matter, he declined to comment further. Dhaka's decision seems to have resolved the problem of making any payment to sanctions-hit Russia in the US dollar.  Read more: Return of Russian vessel carrying consignment for Rooppur won’t delay project work: Minister Last year, Western countries excluded Russia from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or SWIFT, one of the world's payment systems, due to its military invasion in Ukraine. The Rooppur nuclear power plant is being built in Bangladesh with a loan from Russia. But due to sanctions on Russia, it is not possible to pay in US dollars.  

Images captured by a robotic probe inside one of the three melted reactors at Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant showed exposed steel bars in the main supporting structure and parts of its thick external concrete wall missing, triggering concerns about its earthquake resistance in case of another major disaster. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, has been sending robotic probes inside the Unit 1 primary containment chamber since last year. The new findings released Tuesday were from the latest probe conducted at the end of March. An underwater remotely operated vehicle named ROV-A2 was sent inside the Unit 1 pedestal, a supporting structure right under the core. It came back with images seen for the first time since an earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant 12 years ago. The area inside the pedestal is where traces of the melted fuel can most likely be found. An approximately five-minute video — part of 39-hour-long images captured by the robot — showed that the 120-centimeter (3.9-foot) -thick concrete exterior of the pedestal was significantly damaged near its bottom, exposing the steel reinforcement inside. TEPCO spokesperson Keisuke Matsuo told reporters Tuesday that the steel reinforcement is largely intact but the company plans to further analyze data and images over the next couple of months to find out if and how the reactor's earthquake resistance can be improved. The images of the exposed steel reinforcement have triggered concerns about the reactor's safety. About 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three reactors. Robotic probes have provided some information, but the status of the melted debris is still largely unknown. The amount is about 10 times the damaged fuel that was removed in the cleanup of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the United States after its 1979 partial core meltdown. Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori urged TEPCO to “swiftly evaluate levels of earthquake resistance and provide information in a way prefectural residents can easily understand and relieve concern of the residents and people around the country.” The video taken by the robot also showed equipment that slipped down as well as other types of debris, possibly nuclear fuel that fell from the core and hardened, piling up as high as 40-50 centimeters (1.3-1.6 feet) from the bottom of the primary containment chamber, Matsuo said. The pile is lower than the mounds seen in images taken in previous internal probes at two other reactors, suggesting that the meltdowns in each reactor may have progressed differently, company officials said. Matsuo said the data collected from the latest probe will help experts come up with methods of removing the debris and analyze the 2011 meltdowns. TEPCO also plans to use the data to create a three-dimensional map of melted fuel and debris details, which would take about a year. Based on data collected from earlier probes and simulations, experts have said most of the melted fuel inside Unit 1 fell to the bottom of the primary containment chamber, but some might have even fallen through into the concrete foundation — a situation that makes the already daunting task of decommissioning extremely difficult. Trial removal of melted debris is expected to begin in Unit 2 later this year after a nearly two-year delay. Spent fuel removal from the Unit 1 reactor's cooling pool is to start in 2027 after a 10-year delay. Once all the spent fuel is removed from the pools, the focus is to turn in 2031 to taking melted debris out of the reactors.

The consignment meant for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) that had to be turned away from Bangladesh shores due to being carried by a US-sanctioned vessel, may ultimately be sent to their destination by road. This is based on indications that the Russian ship, instead of going all the way back with the vital equipment it was carrying, has hovered in the Bay of Bengal since the incident in late December. Now the BBC is reporting that it may be looking to unload its consignment at the Haldia port in West Bengal. India has been openly defying US sanctions on Russian ships since the start of the war in Ukraine. All Indian ports are thus open to Russia-flagged vessels, even those with sanctions on them. Read more: Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project delayed by Russia-Ukraine War: Yeafesh Osman The Russian-flagged ship arrived at the Mongla port channel at the end of December with goods destined for the Rooppur plant, Mongla Port Authority Secretary Kalachand Singh said. "We have learned that the cargo from the vessel can be unloaded at the Haldia port in India's West Bengal. From there, another vessel could carry the consignment for the Rooppur power plant and deliver it to a port of Bangladesh," he added. Sadhan Kumar, operations officer of Khulna Conveyor Shipping Lines, said: "Earlier shipments for Rooppur NPP were delivered by Russian and neutral, foreign-flagged vessels at the Mongla port. After the unloading of the cargoes at the port, they would be taken to Rooppur." Read More: Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant to get powerful reactors: Rosatom DG The sanctioned Russian ship Sparta III was scheduled to dock at the port in the southwestern part of the country and unload cargo destined for the Rooppur NPP in Pabna. But the authorities denied the ship permission to dock at the port after officials got a letter from the US Embassy in Dhaka saying that the ship was on a list of Russian ships sanctioned by the US.

Russian forces have installed multiple rocket launchers at Ukraine's shut-down Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Ukrainian officials claimed Thursday, raising fears Europe's largest atomic power station could be used as a base to fire on Ukrainian territory and heightening radiation dangers. Ukraine's nuclear company Energoatom said in a statement that Russian forces occupying the plant have placed several Grad multiple rocket launchers near one of its six nuclear reactors. It said the offensive systems are located at new “protective structures” the Russians secretly built, "violating all conditions for nuclear and radiation safety.” The claim could not be independently verified. The Soviet-built multiple rocket launchers are capable of firing rockets at ranges of up to 40 kilometers (25 miles), and Energoatom said they could enable Russian forces to hit the opposite bank of the Dnieper River, where each side blames the other for almost daily shelling in the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets. The plant is in a southern Ukrainian region the Kremlin has illegally annexed. The Zaporizhzhia station has been under Russian control since the war’s early days. Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of shelling the plant and risking a radiation release. Although the risk of a nuclear meltdown is greatly reduced because all six reactors have been shut down, experts have said a dangerous radiation release is still possible. The reactors were shut down because the fighting kept knocking out external power supplies needed to run the reactors' cooling systems and other safety systems. Read more: Ukraine leader defiant as drone strikes hit Russia again The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has stationed inspectors at the plant and has been trying to persuade both sides in the conflict to agree to a demilitarized zone around it. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the reported Grad installation. Ukraine has accused the Russians before of having heavy weapons at the plant. The Kremlin has said it needs to maintain control of the plant to defend it from alleged Ukrainian attacks. With renewed focus on the dangers at Zaporizhzhia in the war, dragging on past nine months, the Kremlin is sending new signals about how to end it. It said Thursday it’s up to Ukraine’s president to end the military conflict, suggesting terms that Kyiv has repeatedly rejected, while Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to press on with the fighting despite Western criticism. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that "(Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy knows when it may end. It may end tomorrow if he wishes so.” The Ukraine war has deteriorated relations between Russia and much of the rest of the world, but limited cooperation continues in some areas, such as exchanges of prisoners. On Thursday, in a dramatic swap that had been in the making for months, Russia freed American basketball star Brittney Griner while the United States released a jailed Russian arms dealer. The Kremlin has long said that Ukraine must accept Russian conditions to end the fighting. It has demanded that Kyiv recognize Crimea — a Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow illegally annexed in 2014 — as part of Russia and also accept Moscow’s other land gains in Ukraine. Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have repeatedly rejected those conditions, saying the war will end when the occupied territories are retaken or Russian forces leave them. In an acknowledgement that it’s taking longer than he expected to achieve his goals in the conflict, Putin said Wednesday that the fighting in Ukraine “could be a lengthy process” while describing Moscow's land gains as “a significant result for Russia." During a conference call with reporters, Peskov said Moscow wasn’t aiming to grab new land but will try to regain control of areas in Ukraine from which it withdrew just weeks after incorporating them into Russia in hastily called referendums — which Ukraine and the West reject as illegal shams. After earlier retreats from the Kyiv and Kharkiv areas, Russian troops last month left the city of Kherson and parts of the Kherson region, one of the four illegally annexed Ukrainian regions. Read more: Russian airfield hit, a day after drone strikes on bases Putin vowed Thursday to achieve the declared goals in Ukraine regardless of the Western reaction. “All we have to do is make a move and there is a lot of noise, chatter and outcry all across the universe. It will not stop us fulfilling combat tasks,” Putin said. He described Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities and other key infrastructure as a legitimate response to an Oct. 8 truck bombing of a key bridge linking Crimea with Russia’s mainland, and other attacks the Kremlin claimed Ukraine carried out. Putin also cited Ukraine’s move to halt water supplies to the areas in eastern Ukraine that Russia controlled. “There is a lot of noise now about our strikes on the energy infrastructure,” Putin said at a meeting with soldiers whom he decorated with the country’s top medals. “Yes, we are doing it. But who started it? Who struck the Crimean bridge? Who blew up power lines from the Kursk nuclear power station? Who is not supplying water to Donetsk?” While stopping short of publicly claiming credit for the attacks, Ukrainian officials welcome their results and hint at Ukrainian involvement. Heavy fighting continues, mostly in regions Russia annexed. Zelenskyy's office said 11 civilians were killed in Ukraine Wednesday. The Donetsk region has been the epicenter of the recent fighting. Russian artillery struck the town of Yampil during distribution of humanitarian aid to civilians, Ukrainian officials said. Buildings were damaged in Kurakhove, 35 kilometers (22 miles) west of the regional capital, Donetsk, officials said. More than ten cities and villages in the region were shelled, including the town of Bakhmut, which has remained in Ukrainian hands despite Moscow’s goal of capturing the entire annexed Donbas region bordering Russia.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today (Oct 19, 2022) inaugurated the installation of the second and final reactor at the country's first Rooppur nuclear power plant. The reactor pressure vessel was installed at the second unit of the 2,400 MW Rooppur nuclear power plant (RNPP). She joined the programme virtually from her official residence Ganabhaban while it was held in Ishwardi of the northern district of Pabna. The country’s lone nuclear power plant, being constructed at Rooppur in Ishwardi at a total cost of US$ 12.65 billion, has two units with a power generation capacity of 1200 MW each. Read: Bridge cranes installed at Unit 2 of Rooppur NPP In October last year, the prime minister  inaugurated the reactor pressure vessel of the plant's first unit. According to the Rosatom, the Russian contractor of the project, the VVER-1200 reactor vessel passed the input control in accordance with all regulatory requirements before its installation Wednesday. Rosatom officials said the operation to install the VVER-1200 reactor vessel of the second power unit in the design position was carried out in several stages. A Liebherr-11350 heavy crawler crane lifted the reactor vessel onto the transport portal of the power unit. Read PM to open installation of reactor pressure vessel at Rooppur Power Plant's 2nd unit Wednesday Then, on a special transport trolley, it was moved to the central hall of the reactor compartment. Further, with the help of a polar crane, the reactor vessel was turned into a vertical position and installed on a support ring in the reactor shaft. According to the RNPP officials, the first unit of the project has already made 70 per cent progress in physical work, and with the installation of the reactor pressure vessel at the second unit the project will have overall 53 percent of physical work completed. “With the installation of the reactor pressure vessel, the project’s second unit’s physical work will achieve over 45 per cent of the target”, Dr Md Shawkat Akbar, the project director in the country’s biggest scheme in power generation, told UNB on Tuesday. Read Fourth Russian shipment for Rooppur arrives at Mongla Port The government undertook the project in 2009 and after a long discussion signed an $11.385 billion credit agreement with Russian Federation on July 26 in 2016 to implement the project through appointing the Russian state nuclear energy firm—Rosatom--as its contractor. In addition, on August 6, 2019, Bangladesh signed a nuclear fuel supply agreement with Russia for the project. Under the deal, the Russian state-owned nuclear fuel firm TVEL Joint Stock Company will supply nuclear fuel for the entire life span of the power plant. Read Rooppur NPP: Hydro-accumulators’ testing begins in Russia Each unit of the power plant will have to reload one-third of the total required nuclear fuel after every 18 months and the first, second and third reloads will be provided by the Russian firm free of cost. Each reloading of nuclear fuel will cost $62 million, equivalent to Tk 550 crore. Shawkat  informed that after the installation of the pressure vessel at the second unit, the major work that will remain unfinished include pre-operational testing and fuel loading. “We hope, we’ll perform these work by June next year”, he said adding, some more work will be required to be completed before commissioning the project. Read Manufacturing of hydro-accumulators of Rooppur NPP underway “Construction of power grid line and building of communication and security systems are among the important work required to be completed before mid 2024”, he said. The second half of the year 2024 is set to be the deadline to start commercial operation of the 1200 MW first unit of the nuclear power plant while the second unit in 2025, said  Shawkat, also managing director of the Nuclear Power Company Bangladesh Limited (NPCBL), a dedicated company to deal with nuclear power plant. Initially, a target was set to start the commercial operation of the first unit from 2022 and second unit from 2023 and then the target was deferred. Read Auxiliary reactor building construction at Rooppur unit-1 ends ahead of schedule Officials of the NPCBL said about 14,000 foreign workers from different western countries, including Russia and Belarus, are now engaged in the Rooppur nuclear power plant project under the contractor and its sub-contractors to execute different works.

Ukrainians are once again anxious and alarmed about the fate of a nuclear power plant in a land that was home to the world’s worst atomic accident in 1986 at Chernobyl. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, has been occupied by Russian forces since the early days of the war, and continued fighting near the facility has heightened fears of a catastrophe that could affect nearby towns in southern Ukraine — or potentially an even wider region. The government in Kyiv alleges Russia is essentially holding the Soviet-era nuclear plant hostage, storing weapons there and launching attacks from around it, while Moscow accuses Ukraine of recklessly firing on the facility, which is located in the city of Enerhodar. “Anybody who understands nuclear safety issues has been trembling for the last six months,” said Mycle Schneider, an independent policy consultant and coordinator of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Ukraine cannot simply shut down its nuclear plants during the war because it is heavily reliant on them, and its 15 reactors at four stations provide about half of its electricity. Still, an ongoing conflict near a working atomic plant is troubling for many experts who fear that a damaged facility could lead to a disaster. That fear is palpable just across the Dnieper River in Nikopol, where residents have been under nearly constant Russian shelling since July 12, with eight people killed, 850 buildings damaged and over the half the population of 100,000 fleeing the city. Liudmyla Shyshkina, a 74-year-old widow who lived within sight of the Zaporizhzhia plant before her apartment was bombarded and her husband killed, said she believes the Russians are capable of intentionally causing a nuclear disaster. Fighting in early March caused a brief fire at the plant’s training complex, which officials said did not result in the release of any radiation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia’s military actions there amount to “nuclear blackmail.” No civilian nuclear plant is designed for a wartime situation, although the buildings housing Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors are protected by reinforced concrete that could withstand an errant shell, experts say. The more immediate concern is that a disruption of electricity supply to the plant could knock out cooling systems that are essential for the safe operation of the reactors, and emergency diesel generators are sometimes unreliable. The pools where spent fuel rods are kept to be cooled also are vulnerable to shelling, which could cause the release of radioactive material. Kyiv told the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, that shelling earlier this week damaged transformers at a nearby conventional power plant, disrupting electricity supplies to the Zaporizhzhia plant for several hours. “These incidents show why the IAEA must be able to send a mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant very soon,” said the agency’s head, Rafael Mariano Grossi, adding that he expected that to happen “within the next few days, if ongoing negotiations succeed.” At a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday, U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo urged the withdrawal of all military personnel and equipment from the plant and an agreement on a demilitarized zone around it. Currently only one of the plant’s four power lines connecting it to the grid is operational, the agency said. External power is essential not just to cool the two reactors still in operation but also the spent radioactive fuel stored in special facilities onsite. Read: 22 reported killed in Independence Day attack in Ukraine “If we lose the last one, we are at the total mercy of emergency power generators,” said Najmedin Meshkati, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California. He and Schneider expressed concern that the occupation of the plant by Russian forces is also hampering safety inspections and the replacement of critical parts, and is putting severe strain on hundreds of Ukrainian staff who operate the facility. “Human error probability will be increased manifold by fatigue,” said Meshkati, who was part of a committee appointed by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to identify lessons from the 2011 nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant. “Fatigue and stress are unfortunately two big safety factors.” If an incident at the Zaporizhzhia plant were to release significant amounts of radiation, the scale and location of the contamination would be determined largely by the weather, said Paul Dorfman, a nuclear safety expert at the University of Sussex who has advised the British and Irish governments. The massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the Fukushima plant destroyed cooling systems which triggered meltdowns in three of its reactors. Much of the contaminated material was blown out to sea, limiting the damage. The April 26, 1986, explosion and fire at one of four reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear plant north of Kyiv sent a cloud of radioactive material across a wide swath of Europe and beyond. In addition to fueling anti-nuclear sentiment in many countries, the disaster left deep psychological scars on Ukrainians. Zaporizhzhia’s reactors are of a different model than those at Chernobyl, but unfavorable winds could still spread radioactive contamination in any direction, Dorfman said. “If something really went wrong, then we have a full-scale radiological catastrophe that could reach Europe, go as far as the Middle East, and certainly could reach Russia, but the most significant contamination would be in the immediate area,” he said.   That’s why Nikopol’s emergency services department takes radiation measurements every hour since the Russian invasion began. Before that, it was every four hours.

Six more ships carrying agricultural cargo held up by the war in Ukraine received authorization Sunday to leave the country’s Black Sea coast as analysts warned that Russia was moving troops and equipment in the direction of the southern port cities to stave off a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Ukraine and Russia also accused each other of shelling Europe's largest nuclear power plant. The loaded vessels were cleared to depart from Chornomorsk and Odesa, according to the Joint Coordination Center, which oversees an international deal intended to get some 20 million tons of grain out of Ukraine to feed millions going hungry in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations signed the agreements last month to create a 111-nautical-mile sea corridor that would allow cargo ships to travel safely out of ports that Russia’s military had blockaded and through waters that Ukraine’s military had mined. Implementation of the deal, which is in effect for four months, has proceeded slowly since the first ship embarked on Aug. 1. Four of the carriers cleared Sunday to leave Ukraine were transporting more than 219,000 tons of corn. The fifth was carrying more than 6,600 tons of sunflower oil and the sixth 11,000 tons of soya, the Joint Coordination Center said. Three other cargo ships that left Friday passed their inspections and received clearance Sunday to pass through Turkey’s Bosporus Strait on the way to their final destinations, the Center said. However, the vessel that left Ukraine last Monday with great fanfare as the first under the grain exports deal had its scheduled arrival in Lebanon delayed Sunday, according to a Lebanese Cabinet minister and the Ukraine Embassy. The cause of the delay was not immediately clear. Ukrainian officials were initially skeptical of a grain export deal, citing suspicions that Moscow would try to exploit shipping activity to mass troops offshore or send long-range missiles from the Black Sea, as it has done multiple times during the war. The agreements call for ships to leave Ukraine under military escort and to undergo inspections to make sure they carry only grain, fertilizer or food and not any other commodities. Inbound cargo vessels are checked to ensure they are not carrying weapons. Read:Ukraine grain headed for Lebanon under wartime deal delayed In a weekend analysis, Britain's Defense Ministry said the Russian invasion that started Feb. 24 “is about to enter a new phase” in which the fighting would shift to a roughly 350-kilometer (217-mile) front line extending from near the city of Zaporizhzhia to Russian-occupied Kherson. That area includes the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station which came under fire late Saturday. Each side accused the other of the attack. Ukraine’s nuclear power plant operator, Energoatom, said Russian shelling damaged three radiation monitors around the storage facility for spent nuclear fuels and that one worker was injured. Russian news agencies, citing the separatist-run administration of the plant, said Ukrainian forces fired those shells. Russian forces have occupied the power station for months. Russian soldiers there took shelter in bunkers before Saturday’s attack, according to Energoatom. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently warned that the way the plant was being run and the fighting going on around it posed grave health and environmental threats. For the last four months of the war, Russia has concentrated on capturing the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists have controlled some territory as self-proclaimed republics for eight years. Russian forces have made gradual headway in the region while launching missile and rocket attacks to curtail the movements of Ukrainian fighters elsewhere. The Russians “are continuing to accumulate large quantities of military equipment” in a town across the Dnieper River from Russian-held Kherson, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. Citing local Ukrainian officials, it said the preparations appeared designed to defend logistics routes to the city and establish defensive positions on the river’s left bank. Kherson came under Russian control early in the war and Ukrainian officials have vowed to retake it. It is just 227 kilometers (141 miles) from Odesa, home to Ukraine’s biggest port, so the conflict escalating there could have repercussions for the international grain deal. The city of Mykolaiv, a shipbuilding center that Russian forces bombard daily, is even closer to Odesa. The Mykolaiv region’s governor, Vitaliy Kim, said an industrial facility on the regional capital’s outskirts came under fire early Sunday. Over the past day, five civilians were killed by Russian and separatist firing on cities in the Donetsk region, the part of Donbas still under Ukrainian control, the regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, reported. He and Ukrainian government officials have repeatedly urged civilians to evacuate.

Installation of internals into half bodies hydro-accumulators for unit-2 of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant has begun in Petrozavodsk Branch of AEM-Technologies in Russia.According to a press release of Rosatom, the Russian contractor of the Rooppur NPP, the half bodies were also manufactured in the same facility. These accumulators are part of passive core flooding system (PCFS).Eight hydro-accumulators are to be installed in each unit of the plant. Read: Despite surplus electricity, contracts of 10 rental power plants extended in four monthsEach hydro-accumulator has a capacity of 120 cubic meters is made of stainless steel. It has three shells and two heads. Ladders and maintenance platforms as well as other internals are installed into the body.PCFS refers to the second level of NPP passive safety systems.It is intended for removal of the residual heat of the coolant in reactor’s primary circuit. Read Rooppur NPP: Installation of outer containment dome at unit-1 in OctoberAn aqueous boric acid solution heated to a temperature of approximately 60 degrees Celsius is stored inside the hydro- accumulators during operation of the plant.If the pressure in the primary circuit falls below a certain level due to some accident, the fluid automatically flows into the reactor and the active core is cooled down.Rooppur NPP is being designed and constructed under a Russian project. Read Belarus national found dead at Rooppur Nuke Plant areaThe Engineering Division of Rosatom State Corporation is responsible for design and construction of the facility.The plant will consist of two power units with VVER-type reactors which life cycle is 60 years with a possibility to extend the life cycle by another 20 years. The capacity of each unit will be 1200 MW. AEM-Technologies is manufacturing the major equipment of the reactor hall for two power units. Read: Mild heat wave sweeps over four districtsAccording to Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, the implementing authority of the RNPP, the first unit of the power plant was scheduled to start operation in 2022 and second one in 2024.But recently the first unit’s operation of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant was rescheduled to 2024 and second unit to 2025.