Category: IAEA

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team of experts completed a nuclear security mission at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station (KKNPS) in Japan today, which was carried out at the request of the country’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The nine-day mission, conducted from 25 March to 2 April 2024, aimed to assess the enhancement of the physical protection measures at the KKNPS, Japan’s largest nuclear facility with seven reactors, and to provide further advice as necessary to the facility’s operator.

A physical protection system comprises people, procedures and equipment to provide defence in depth to address threats and to protect against both unauthorized removal of nuclear material and sabotage of nuclear material or facilities.

The five-person team assessed and observed physical protection measures against the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material as amended, and relevant IAEA Nuclear Security Guidance documents. They visited the KKNPS in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, and met with staff of the facility’s operator, TEPCO. The team included experts from Finland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, as well as one IAEA staff member.

The team observed the facility management’s commitment to improving nuclear security and identified continuous improvements in several areas of the KKNPS physical protection system since 2018, when the IAEA conducted an International Physical Protection Advisory Service (IPPAS) Follow-up Mission in Japan, including a site visit at KKNPS. Most of the improvements have been completed, and some requiring significant resources and time to complete are either under implementation or planned to be implemented. The team provided TEPCO recommendations and suggestions for further improvements.

“Critical infrastructure, such as nuclear facilities, requires robust physical protection measures, as part of a national nuclear security regime supported by a legislative and regulatory framework and nuclear security culture,” said Elena Buglova, Director of the IAEA’s Division of Nuclear Security. “The IAEA expert missions are intended to assist the requesting States in establishing and further strengthening their national nuclear security regimes, including the physical protection against theft, sabotage or unauthorized use of nuclear and other radioactive material.”

“The findings provided by the experts of the Expert Mission team are very important and will be used further to enhance nuclear security of our plant in line with the IAEA international standards. Based on the advice given by the IAEA experts, TEPCO is committed to continuously improve our security measures by establishing a strong security culture to sustain this current security enhancement effort and prevent it from declining again in the future. Also, we will further strengthen the prevention measures against internal threat and continue our improvement aiming towards a better physical protection system, including intrusion detection. This Expert Mission has also provided us a great opportunity to learn about international good practices. We will continue to improve towards a plant, which our local region can trust and feel safe about,” said KKNPS Superintendent Takeyuki Inagaki of TEPCO.

The team presented its draft report of findings to TEPCO. The final report will be ready in the next few weeks. 

Background

The KKNPS houses seven boiling water reactors with a total gross electrical capacity of 8212 MW(e). It is located between Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village on the coast of the Sea of Japan of the Niigata Prefecture. Since 2012, the plant has been offline, after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident led to the shutdown of all nuclear plants in Japan.

In 2014, Japan accepted the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM). The CPPNM establishes legal obligations for Parties regarding the physical protection of nuclear material used for peaceful purposes. The Amendment strengthens the original CPPNM by establishing States’ obligations to protect nuclear facilities and material in peaceful domestic use, storage and transport.

The responsibility for nuclear security within a State rests entirely with the State. The IAEA provides support on nuclear security, upon request from Member States, by offering peer review missions and advisory services, guidance documents, e-learning courses, training courses and workshops. The IAEA conducted an IPPAS mission in Japan in 2015 and a follow-up IPPAS mission in 2018.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

The conflict is continuing to endanger nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, with military activity taking place near the country’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in the south, air raid alarms sounding at several sites, and shelling knocking out off-site power at a research facility in the north-east, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today.

“For more than two years now, nuclear safety and security in Ukraine has been in constant jeopardy. We remain determined to do everything we can to help minimize the risk of a nuclear accident that could harm people and the environment, not only in Ukraine,” Director General Grossi said.

“So far, we have managed to stabilise the situation but, as we have seen again this past week, nuclear safety and security in Ukraine remains extremely vulnerable. We cannot afford to let our guard down at any time,” he said.

At the ZNPP, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant (NPP), the IAEA experts stationed at the site have continued to hear explosions every day over the past week, at different distances from the plant. Several times, the sounds appeared to come from near the site, presumably from outgoing artillery fire, the experts said. Nearby small arms fire was heard during the night of 22 March, and again yesterday. In addition, an air raid alarm went off at the site yesterday, delaying the IAEA team’s planned visit to the ZNPP’s dry spent fuel facility until later in the day.

Despite such challenges, the IAEA team has continued to conduct regular walkdowns across the site over the past week, including a visit to the reactor building of unit 5 to observe the water level in the spent fuel pool, the operation of spent fuel cooling pumps, two steam generators and the safety systems rooms. No leaks of fluid or traces of boric acid were observed. The team also saw operating pumps and other equipment in the turbine hall of unit 4, observed the testing of an emergency diesel generator in the same unit, and visited electrical rooms of the safety systems in units 4 and 5.

Throughout the walkdowns conducted over the past week, the IAEA team did not observe any concerns related to nuclear safety. However, the ZNPP has still not provided timely and appropriate access for the IAEA experts to all areas that are important to nuclear safety and security, including some parts of the turbine halls, the isolation gate of the ZNPP cooling pond and the 330 kV open switchyard at the nearby Zaporizhzhia Thermal Power Plant. The IAEA is aware of social media reports and images related to the presence of troops and vehicles inside one of the turbine halls at the ZNPP. The presence of such vehicles in ZNPP turbine halls has been reported in previous updates by the Director General.

The maintenance activities on parts of the safety system of unit 1 have not yet resumed after the ZNPP decided to postpone them again last week. However, other scheduled maintenance work is being performed elsewhere at the ZNPP.

The IAEA experts were informed that the ZNPP has begun draining one of the sprinkler ponds of unit 5 in order to clean it, which is expected to take around three weeks, after which a sprinkler pond of unit 6 will also be cleaned. The two units are among the five at the ZNPP which are in cold shutdown, while reactor unit 4 is in hot shutdown to generate steam for heating.  

In the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, on 22 March, a research and development facility used, up until the start of the war, to produce radioisotopes for medical and industrial applications lost its external power due to shelling, according to the Ukrainian nuclear regulator. The facility now relies on emergency diesel generators. Additionally, the IAEA was informed that all on-site radiation levels remain normal.

The subcritical Neutron Source installation, located in the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT), was transferred to a deep sub-critical state at the start of the conflict, and its radioactive inventory is low. In November 2022, an IAEA safeguards and nuclear security expert mission found that the facility had been heavily damaged by shelling, but without any indication of radiological release or diversion of declared nuclear material.

“Due to the nature of this facility, which has been shutdown since the start of the armed conflict, we do not currently anticipate a situation that could have any implications to public safety. But, clearly, leaving a nuclear installation without off-site power is not normal and once again demonstrates the risks from this war to nuclear safety. We will continue to monitor the situation at the facility,” Director General Grossi said.

The IAEA experts at the Khmelnytskyy, Rivne and South Ukraine NPPs as well as at the Chornobyl site have reported that nuclear safety and security continues to be maintained, despite multiple air raid alarms over the past week. Maintenance in the turbine hall of unit 2 at the Khmelnytskyy NPP is progressing well, and unit 4 at the Rivne NPP is in planned outage. The IAEA experts at the Chornobyl site were rotated this week.

The IAEA continued to deliver equipment needed to maintain nuclear safety and security in Ukraine. This week, the Rivne NPP received a portable X-ray device for non-destructive testing at the site that was procured with funding from the United Kingdom. It was the 42nd delivery of equipment to Ukraine since the start of the conflict, with such assistance now totalling more than 9 million euro.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) lost the connection to its last remaining main power line for almost five hours today amid reports of widespread military action in Ukraine, once again highlighting ever-present dangers to nuclear safety and security during the conflict, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

The ZNPP stopped receiving power from the 750 kilovolt (kV) power line around 6:10am local time, IAEA experts stationed at the site reported. It was not immediately clear what had caused the disconnection, but the plant was informed that a short circuit of the power line occurred around 95 km from the site, on the other side of the Dnipro river.

As no physical damage to the 750 kV line was identified, it was reconnected at 11:02am. The ZNPP has repeatedly lost power over the past two years due to military-related events at varying distances away from the site.

While the 750 kV line was unavailable, the ZNPP continued to receive the external electricity it needs for reactor cooling and other essential functions from its only remaining back-up 330 kV power line, which itself was only restored in mid-March after an outage of more than three weeks. All 20 emergency diesel generators remain available in standby mode, in case of a total loss of off-site power. Before the war, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant (NPP) had access to ten off-site power lines, four 750 kV and six 330 kV lines.

The IAEA experts at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant (SUNPP) reported that it too temporarily lost connection to one 750 kV and one 330 kV power line. It continued to have access to other power lines and remained in operation, albeit it at a reduced power output until the 750 kV line was reconnected.

“We are reminded once again about the very real dangers the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant – as well as Ukraine’s other nuclear power plants – are continuing to face every day as long as this devastating war continues. Once again, the off-site power situation at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant has been hanging by a thread,” Director General Grossi said.

Today’s power cut and reports of military action in Ukraine came after the ZNPP earlier this week postponed planned maintenance of some of its reactor safety systems due to the “general situation in the plant’s surroundings”, without elaborating. Also this week, the IAEA experts at the ZNPP reported hearing an increased number of daily explosions occurring at different distances from the site, including what appeared to be outgoing artillery and machine gun fire from areas outside the ZNPP perimeter.

It was the second time in recent weeks that the ZNPP postponed some maintenance at the site, adding to concerns about nuclear safety and security there, Director General Grossi said.

Routine maintenance work on the safety systems of reactor unit 1 was first delayed when the ZNPP last month lost the connection to its only remaining back-up power line. After the 330 kV line was restored last week, the plant had intended to resume this work and conducted the necessary preparatory tests, before it decided on Wednesday to postpone it again.

After this decision, one of the unit’s safety trains that had been taken off-line and tested ahead of the planned maintenance work was put back into service again. ZNPP reactors each have three separate and independent redundant systems – known as safety trains – comprising their safety systems. However, maintenance on the same unit’s power transformer had already begun and it remains electrically isolated, though the unit can still receive off-site power.

“The world’s attention is rightly focused on the continued danger of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant being hit or losing its off-site power. But there are several other challenging areas that we must continue to monitor closely to help prevent the risk of a nuclear accident, including maintenance, as well as staffing and the availability of spare parts. They all form part of our deep concern regarding nuclear safety and security at the plant,” Director General Grossi said.

Before this week’s postponement decision, the IAEA experts had been informed that extended maintenance periods were being planned for units 1, 2 and 6 of the ZNPP during 2024.

The further postponement of maintenance activities has the potential to adversely affect the implementation of the ZNPP’s preventive maintenance plan for this year. Director General Grossi said in a report to the IAEA Board of Governors last month that the “situation in respect of maintenance activities, should it continue, is expected to have implications for nuclear safety over time, due to degradation of the safety systems and components”.

Over the past week, the IAEA team conducted walkdowns of the six main control rooms, of the unit 6 reactor hall and safety systems rooms, as well as the emergency feedwater pumps and tanks of the same unit and unit 1, and observed the scheduled testing of several emergency diesel generators. The team also visited the turbine hall of unit 5, where the experts were able to visit all levels of the hall but were restricted from viewing the western part of the hall. The IAEA experts did not observe any nuclear safety issues during these walkdowns.

The IAEA experts were informed that the four diesel steam generators had been shut down following the processing of around 1200 cubic metres of liquid waste and borated water.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the IAEA experts at the Khmelnytskyy and Rivne NPPs as well as at the Chornobyl site have reported that nuclear safety and security continues to be maintained, despite multiple air raid alarms throughout the week. Maintenance in the turbine hall of unit 2 at the Khmelnytskyy NPP is ongoing, and unit 4 at the Rivne NPP is in planned outage.

This week the Agency organised the 41st delivery of equipment to Ukraine as part of its comprehensive assistance programme for maintaining nuclear safety and security in the country. The State Emergency Services of Ukraine and its Special Aviation Detachment of the Operative-Rescue Service of Civil Protection received radiation detection and monitoring equipment, including related accessories such as portable power supplies, data acquisition systems and similar items. The equipment was donated by the National Nuclear Security Administration of the US Department of Energy.