PrairiePundit

 National Review: The nuclear power plant at risk of severe damage in the middle of the Russia–Ukraine war lost connection to its remaining external power line and is receiving energy from a reserve line, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Saturday. The power plant, located in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, had previously lost connection to its three other external power lines during the war, and is now being supplied energy solely from thermal power plant, the IAEA said in a statement . If the plant is sufficiently damaged, nuclear waste from the plant, around twice the size of Chernobyl, could spread across Europe. Russia and Ukraine have pointed fingers regarding whose troops are damaging the plant, with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky calling the attacks “Russian nuclear terror.” IAEA experts arrived to the plant on Thursday after warning that “every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, and “what is at stake is extremely serious and extr...

 Daily Beast: Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after suffering “acute radiation sickness” from contaminated soil, according to Ukrainian officials. The troops, who dug trenches in a contaminated Red Forest near the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, are now reportedly being treated in a special medical facility in Gomel, Belarus. The forest is so named because thousands of pine trees turned red during the 1986 nuclear disaster. The area is considered so highly toxic that not even highly specialized Chernobyl workers are allowed to enter the zone. Energoatom, the Ukrainian agency in charge of the country’s nuclear power stations, said the Russian soldiers had panicked and fled. “It has been confirmed that the occupiers who seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and other facilities in the Exclusion Zone set off in two columns towards Ukraine’s border with Belarus. The occupiers announce...

 National Review: Ukrainian officials on Wednesday sounded alarms after Russian forces cut off the power supply to the Chernobyl nuclear plant , warning that the blackout could cause uncooled spent fuel assemblies to release radioactive substances into the environment. Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company Energoatom said in a Telegram post that the 750 kV Chernobyl-Kyiv high-voltage line is currently disconnected “due to damage by the occupiers,” cutting off electricity needed to cool 20,000 spent fuel assemblies at the plant. Energoatom warned that the warming of the spent nuclear fuel could cause a “radioactive cloud” that winds could send to other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and Europe. Continued fighting has made it impossible to carry out repairs and restore power, the company said. Ukrainian foreign affairs minister Dmytro Kuleba called for a ceasefire to complete the repairs on Wednesday. “The only electrical grid supplying the Chornobyl NPP and all its nuclear faci...

 Washington Examiner: A  major Ukrainian nuclear power plant near  Kyiv  was ablaze, and firefighters were watching helplessly as  Russian forces  shelled it, sparking fears of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian and U.S. officials issued assurances that no elevated radiation levels had been detected, and Ukraine's State Emergency Service  posted to Telegram  to say that around 5:20 a.m., roughly 40 firefighters "responded to the fire at the training building of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant." An hour later, the "fire at the Zaporizhzhia NPP training building in Enerhodar  was extinguished . There are no dead or injured,” the emergency service said in another statement  reported by CNN . Ukrainian authorities also reported that  Russian military forces  had occupied the plant. The Zaporizhzhia plant in the city of Enerhodar, which supplies a quarter of Ukraine's power, is one of the...

Independent: Man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen

Image via Wikipedia Houston Chronicle: In a move decried by environmentalists, state regulators decided late Thursday to schedule a vote that could allow three dozen states to dump radioactive waste in Texas . The Texas Compact Commission set a Jan. 4 meeting to decide whether to expand how much low-level radioactive waste could be processed at a dump in remote Andrews County , in far West Texas . The announcement came as environmentalists and critics on the commission accused regulators and a politically connected company of rushing the proposal past Texans who are too focused on the holidays to even notice. The public comment period on the proposal ends Sunday. The timing could also be designed to get support from two commissioners from Vermont, which has an agreement to deposit waste at the facility. "It's too much, too soon, too fast," said Bob Gregory , a commissioner who opposes the expansion plan. "This whole thing is absurd. Why are we having a comm...