IAEA Director General to visit Zaporizhzhia NPP, Kyiv and Moscow

Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will soon visit the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) for the next rotation of agency experts, and will also go to Kyiv and Moscow to discuss nuclear safety issues.

Source: Grossi to journalists after the UN Security Council meeting on Thursday; Ukrinform news agency 

Quote: "It will be the 16th rotation of personnel, so I go with a number of experts," Grossi said. "I will be talking to the management there, the Russian management of the plant. I will be seeing how the issue of the water [for cooling the station] is being dealt with. You remember last summer there was the destruction of Nova Kakhovka dam."

Details: He noted that "that affected the capacity of the plant to take water from the Dnipro", and now "they are drilling for water around the perimeter of the plant".

Furthermore, Grossi intends to clarify the station's long-term plans, which involve an "attempt to restart one or more reactors", as "these issues that have profound nuclear safety implications".

He pointed out that the Zaporizhzhia NPP regularly faces the problem of losing the external power supply necessary for cooling the reactors.

When asked by journalists to assess the safety of the station on a ten-point scale, Grossi emphasised, "There are days when you are near 10 and there are days when nothing seems to happen. And the problem is this – the complete uncertainty because this is a war".

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