Latest news with #EricSchmieman
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Existing EBRD funds not enough to restore Chornobyl Nuclear Plant confinement after Russian attack, the Guardian reports
The reconstruction of the confinement that covers the fourth reactor of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant will require more financial investments than are currently available in the special fund of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Guardian reported on May 7, citing its sources. Russian forces struck the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant with a drone on Feb. 14, breaking through the confinement and creating a 15-meter hole in it. The attack also led to a fire, which took nearly three weeks to extinguish. "Not fixing it is not an option," Eric Schmieman, an American engineer who worked on the design and structure of the Chornobyl shelter for 15 years, told the Guardian. A complete repair would "cost a minimum of tens of millions of dollars and it could easily go to hundreds of millions,"with the repairs taking "months to years," according to Schmieman. Other sources familiar with the assessment echoed Schmieman's stance, adding that while the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has 25 million euros ($28 million) in funds for emergency work at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, "significantly more funding is required" to address the problems caused by the attack. According to the Guardian, the confinement will be restored by the governments of Western countries, including the U.K. The nearly $2.3 billion New Safe Confinement (NSC), consisting of two double arches, was completed in 2017. The structure covered the Soviet-era sarcophagus installed over the fourth reactor of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, where the accident occurred in 1986. Read also: Russia attacked Chornobyl Nuclear Plant in February, damaging confinement. Can it be fully restored? We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
New York Times
25-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
How a Cheap Drone Punctured Chernobyl's 40,000 Ton Shield
Eric Schmieman worked for 15 years on the modern engineering equivalent of the Great Pyramid — building a giant protective shield for a damaged reactor at Chernobyl that would protect the world from further fallout from the worst ever nuclear disaster. The steel shell, slid into place over Reactor No. 4 on railroad tracks in 2016, is the world's largest movable structure. It is as tall as a football field and weighs almost 40,000 tons. More than 45 countries and organizations spent almost $1.7 billion building it. 'We did a lot of safety analysis, considering a lot of bad things that could happen,' said Mr. Schmieman, 78, a retired civil engineer from Washington state who was a senior technical adviser on the project. 'We considered earthquakes, tornadoes, heavy winds, 100-year snowfalls, all kinds of things. We didn't consider acts of war.' On Feb. 14, a drone with a high-explosive warhead that likely cost as little as $20,000 to produce punched a hole in the steel shell. Ukrainian officials said the Russians deliberately targeted the structure with a Shahed 136 drone. The Kremlin has denied responsibility. While the initial fire was quickly put out, a waterproof membrane inside the insulation of the arch burned and smoldered for almost three weeks, said Artem Siryi, the head of the operations department for the structure, called the New Safe Confinement. Emergency workers in mountain-climbing equipment had to knock holes into the shield's outer layer, hunting for the fire, and spray water inside a structure designed to stay dry to prevent corrosion, Ukrainian officials and international experts said. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
