Like an economic drone, it has perforated the Chernobyl steel shield during the Ukrainian war

Eric Schmieman has worked for 15 years on the modern equivalent engineering of the great pyramid – building a giant protective shield for a damaged reactor to Chernobyl which would have protected the world from further repercussions from the worst nuclear disaster.

The steel shell, slipped in position on reactor n. 4 On the railway tracks in 2016, it is the largest mobile structure in the world. It is as high as a football field and weighs almost 40,000 tons. More than 45 countries and organizations passed almost $ 1.7 billion building it.

“We did many security analyzes, considering many bad things that could happen,” said Schmieman, 78 years old, a retired civil engineer of the Washington state who was a senior technical councilor of the project. “We considered earthquakes, tornado, heavy winds, 100 years snowfall, all types of things. We have not taken into consideration acts of war.”

February 14, A drone with a high explosive headboard which probably only cost $ 20,000 To produce a hole for the steel shell. Ukrainian officials said the Russians deliberately targeted the structure with a Shad 136 drone. The Kremlin denied responsibility.

While the initial fire was rapidly put out, a waterproof membrane within the isolation of the burnt arch and smoked for almost three weeks, said Artem Siryi, head of the department of operations for the structure, called the new safe confinement. Emergency operators in mountain arcling equipment had to throw holes in the external layer of the shield, hunting for fire and spraying water inside a structure designed to stay dry to prevent corrosion, said Ukrainian officials and international experts.

ON March 7thUkraine said that the fire officially extinct. But at that point, about half of the northern section of the shield had been damaged, Ukrainian officials said. The International Agency for Atomic Energy he said On March 13 that fires and steaming had caused “large damage, including on the northern side and to a lesser extent to the southern side of its roof”, according to an evaluation that Ukraine shared with the agency.

The radiation levels outside of Chernobyl are still normal, AIEA and Ukrainian nuclear regulators say. But it is not clear how the shield will be fixed, how much it will cost and how long it will take.

Repairs may take years, nuclear experts warn. This could delay a plan to dismantle the damaged reactor and safely dispose of the radioactive waste that should have started in the next five years. And there are risks for the fact that the steel shell begins to corrode – or that the Soviet engineers “sarcophagus” temporary built around the reactor almost 40 years ago, which is still inside the shell, deteriorate further.

“The reason why the international community has spent so much money and time to build this structure is because they know the scale of the threat radiologically inside,” said Shaun Burnie, Greenpeace’s nuclear specialist who visited the damaged reactor to Chernobyl after the drone attack.

“It is a huge intellectual result to build something that could protect Europe, Ukraine and the world from what it is inside,” he said. “And now the Russians have practically swept away a hole, both physically and metaphorically.”

Thursday, Greenpeace released a relationship To say that drones’ attack compromised the plans for the damaged reactor and that the shell no longer worked as expected. Jan Vande Putte, nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Ukraine, said that the entire shell could be removed, dismantled and replaced – a view echoed by Mr. Schmieman and Mr. Siryi. Aiea said that the shell confinement function was compromised and that the structure needed “large repair efforts”.

Both Russia and Ukraine have targeted the mutual energy infrastructure from the vast Moscow -scale invasion in February 2022, but both have also stopped the launch of important strokes in nuclear power plants.

Wednesday, as part of the negotiations on a potential ceased, Trump president He suggested that the United States assume Ukraine’s electrical and nuclear sites, claiming that this would help to protect them.

The drones continue to fly on Chernobyl almost every night, Siiryi said in an interview. “Their engine of the engine has become a family sound,” he added. Many were probably heading to Kiev, the capital of the country.

For people of a certain age, the explosion in Chernobyl in 1986, after years of intensity of nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States, was nightmare stuff. He sent a plume of radioactive material in the air, caused an emergency for public health throughout Europe and led many to question nuclear energy. The Soviets, which initially hid the extent of the disaster, quickly built the “sarcophagus” of emergency in concrete and steel to enclose the damaged reactor. The authorities also created a “exclusion area” of 1,000 square miles in which no one was allowed to live.

The financial statements of the official victims of the explosion was 31 years. But many other people got sick or in the end they died. Cancer rates, in particular for thyroid cancer cancer, have increased in areas strongly exposed to radiation.

The sarcophagus, which has become increasingly unstable, has never been thought to last. Understanding how to replace it took decades.

The confinement structure in Chernobyl on which Schmieman worked was an engineering and construction company, designed to protect the damaged reactor for 100 years. To minimize exposure to radiation, the structure was built at about a third of a mile away from the damaged reactor, then it moved to position. It has a thickness of about 40 feet, with an external shell and an internal shell that are both made of steel. The humidity level between the shells is maintained below 40 percent to prevent corrosion.

The external shell is the key to keeping the rainfall out, Schmieman said. The internal shell is designed to maintain radioactive dust inside the structure, especially when the cranes have already started Take apart The sarcophagus and the damaged reactor before securing waste in smaller containers.

By the end of this year, the specialists aimed to finish the initial plan that outlined the first stage of dismantling. “Unfortunately, it is no longer possible” because of the attack of drones, Siiryi said.

He said the experts were evaluating how the shell could be repaired and even if it could be. The workers should close the initial hole of 540 square feet from the drone. But they would also have to seal the small holes created by workers who try to turn off the fire. They should somehow repair the damaged membrane and isolation and any damaged internal structure. And they should have reduced the humidity deriving from hundreds of workers who spray high power pipes within the structure.

In this way the confinement shell is now probably not possible, the experts said, because the workers would be exposed to high levels of radiation from the inside. Moving the structure and therefore resolving it would also be demanding. What would protect the sarcophagus already unstable while that work was done?

“The full restoration of the structure is practically impossible,” said Siryi. “To approach it as much as possible to its original state – well, it would probably require hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Schmieman said that repairing the structure or building a new one would be extremely expensive. He temporarily suggested covering the holes – with something similar to the adhesive tape – therefore the ventilation system inside could begin to reduce humidity. “Do not immediately look for a quick and permanent solution for the large number of holes in the building, but looking for a quick way to reduce corrosion,” he said.

One thing that could help, said: Droni. Most of the war, Ukraine has developed drones technology faster than almost all other countries. Small drones – much smaller than the Shahed 136 who pierced the structure – could perhaps evaluate the damage inside the shell and even help to repair it.

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn Contributed relationships.