during the winter for heat, rather than using it for non heat electricity. nuclear has the ability to scale up over the coming decade really faster than any other way, other than relying on petro dictators for fossil fuels. but seth, i m wondering what sort of timescales are we talking about here? because nuclear power stations notoriously take years to build. and, let s be frank, they can cost a fortune. well, firstly, what we re talking about when we re talking about keeping plants open that are slated to close soon is something that can be done immediately. and then we could look at plants that have been closed relatively recently, particularly in germany, that perhaps could be reopened, and other plants that over the coming couple of years might have been slated to close that could either keep operating or actually go through power uprates to increase the amount of power that come out of existing plants. and when we look at the reasons why nuclear plants have been delayed, have gon
electricity. nuclear has the ability to scale up over the coming decade really faster than any other way other than relying on petro dictators for fossil fuels. but seth, i m wondering what sort of timescales are we talking about here? because nuclear power stations notoriously take years to build. and let s be frank, they can cost a fortune. well, what we re talking about when we re talking about keeping plants open that are slated to close soon is something that can be done immediately. and then we could look at plants that have been closed relatively recently, particularly in germany, that perhaps could be reopened and other plants that over the coming couple of years might have been slated to close that could either keep operating or actually go through power up rates to increase the amount of power that come out of existing plants. and when we look at the reasons why nuclear plants have been delayed, have gone over budget, they re not due to the nuclear part of the reactor.
or outgoing in zaporizhzhia. we ve seen the nuclear power stations across the country disconnected from the national grid. they have been reconnected. that s problematic because that means cooling systems have to rely on local diesel generators themselves vulnerable to break down, fuel outages or attack. that is something the international atomic energy authority has been extremely anxious about. and, of course, you have zaporizhzhia nuclear power station just down the river from where i am which is in russian hands being used by the russians as a fire base and regularly there are exchanges of artillery fire close to and sometimes hitting facilities in that nuclear power station. from the ordinary ukrainian perspective, they are trying to get by. cities like kherson, which are in total blackout because the russians destroyed the generating capacity in that city have also now been suffering from bombardment by the russians from the other side of the river
sam. it is an ongoing issue. it is an ongoing campaign according to the ukraine government, the russians have done at least seven of these mass missiles, the most expensive and sophisticated missiles if the russian army armory, arguably. many of them fired from aircraft many miles away, they re capable of krcruising at high levels. most were shot down. the ukrainians are asking for more and more air defenses to try to prevent more of these attacks because with every attack that happens, they do recover, but recovery becomes that much harder and it is already effecting neighboring state of moldova, that experienced 50% blackout yesterday as a consequence of this. there are cities, there is more light here in zaporizhzhia but the danger is to the nuclear power stations. if they lose incoming power, then their cooling systems when
are deactivating the cores in the reactors. that would be very, very difficult, indeed, but what happens is that when the national infrastructure of electricity is attacked in this way, the cooling system for those nuclear reactors gets compromised and they have to switch to diesel generators that are on site and, of course, they are vulnerable to break down, fuel supply and so on. if they fail, then you could go into a meltdown so for the first time in 40 years the nuclear power stations across the country which supply 50% of ukraine s power, electrical power was shut down in this wave upon wave of cruise missiles that slammed into targets right across the country. most were shot down, i have to say, erica, but those that get through are clearly part of an ongoing campaign, the seventh wave, the government says of attempts by the russians to break the back, the civilian back of the war effort here in