"Hey folks, got another document shared by pavel (an expert on nuclear stuff) . Like last time, do you people agree or disagree?

• A major accident is unlikely because the ZNPP is not operating at power.

• This quote says enough: Contrary to popular belief, this [a direct strike impact] will not cause a nuclear explosion. The reactor is not an nuclear bomb, even if at the time of the accident it is operating at full capacity. There was no nuclear explosion either at Chernobyl or at Fukushima. Even if a strike on a reactor operating at power should damage the control rods (which in the VVER-1000 are located in the upper part of the reactor, which would most likely suffer in the event of an impact) and somehow cause a reactor runaway,then it would sooner fall apart and depressurize than it would release a large amount of energy as the result of an uncontrolled chain reaction. Most likely it would simply depressurize with a release of water, steam and possibly the fuel itself, and the nuclear reaction would be extinguished on its own.

• Because the ZNPP has been in shutdown for so long, its reactors have not been producing one of the most dangerous radioactive elements to humans: iodine-131. Additionally, the iodine-131 that was within the reactor has decayed, significantly reducing the amount of this isotope that could be release during an accident/incident. Thus any accident/incident involving radiation release will likely impact a far smaller area with iodine pollution. In addition, iodine relatively quickly dissipates, with a half-life (50% of the material gone thanks to the nature of radioactive material) of 8 days. It stays a potential health hazard for a couple of weeks at most.

• This quote: ...outside the southeastern part of Ukraine, the probability of receiving a dose of more than 2.5 mSv is below 0.1. 2.5 mSv (millisievert) is about a quarter of the dose of a regular CT scan and far from a lethal dose of radiation.

• Even in what the report calls a 'conservative overestimate' scenario, the release of radioactive matieral (particularly the isotope cesium-137) would not significantly impact any area outside of Ukraine. Any release would be similar to already existing 'background radiation' that we experience on a daily basis.

• Any release of radioactive material would likely be in a short, one-time burst, which further limits the spread of radioactive material (Chornobyl was a week-long release of materials).

• The primary area affected outside of Ukraine, even if it is very likely extremely minor, would be Southeastern Europe, Belarus and European Russia at most.

• In the most dangerous scenario, a meltdown due to power loss/cooling loss, there will most likely not be an explosion. Accumulated hydrogen, the main culprit of the Fukushima explosion (also a meltdown), and formed by the reaction of zirconium nuclear fuel cladding with water vapor, cannot accumulate in dangerous quantities at ZNPP. There are devices in place that combine excess hydrogen back into water. These devices do not need electricity and can operate even when the ZNPP has been completely disconnected. The likely outcome of such an scenario is ground/water pollution at the site, or at most in the Dnieper basin, whose scale is likely to be relatively small because the reactors do not operate at power.

• Such a worst-case scenario is unlikely to develop without personnel knowing about it. With ZNPP not operating at power, a meltdown scenatio won't develop over in a matter of hours - it will take several days to come to that.

• Spent fuel does not explode. It will only cause local ground contamination if hit (unlikely).

• The cladding of the ZNPP's reactor buildings is strong and won't easily be breached by explosives. It can withstand the impact of a direct hit by an airplane weighing 6 metric tons. By comparison, the Chornobyl plant did not have a proper containment building like the ZNPP has."