Hungary Restarts Nuclear Reactor Despite Drought Forcing Power Cuts In Europe

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief reporting from Budapest, Hungary

BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Hungary said Saturday it had begun restarting one of three nuclear reactors shut down because of record-low water levels in the Danube River, while neighboring Romania and Bulgaria also struggled to maintain nuclear power production amid a severe regional drought.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said the restart of Unit 3 at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant began Saturday evening after rising Danube levels and emergency engineering measures improved the supply of cooling water to the facility.

Paks has four reactors with a combined capacity of about 2,000 megawatts and normally generates around 40 percent of Hungary’s electricity. At the height of the crisis, three reactors were shut down while the remaining unit continued operating at sharply reduced capacity.

Successive heat waves and prolonged drought have driven Danube levels to historic lows, affecting electricity production and putting additional pressure on regional power grids.

NUCLEAR POWER HIT

The crisis has spread downstream. Romania’s Cernavodă nuclear power plant remained shut after historically low Danube levels disrupted its cooling-water supply, prompting authorities to declare an energy-related state of emergency for August.

Romania’s National Committee for Emergency Situations approved emergency dredging and construction of a river structure to divert more water toward the plant’s cooling-water intake. Authorities also ordered water releases from reservoirs along the Olt River and prepared high-capacity pumps if needed.

In Bulgaria, the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant reduced output from one of its two 1,000-megawatt reactors by about 120 megawatts because of falling Danube levels. The plant, which supplies roughly 35 percent of Bulgaria’s electricity, said it was the first drought-related reduction of this kind in its 52-year operating history.

Low Danube levels have also sharply reduced hydropower production elsewhere in the region, including Serbia, highlighting the vulnerability of electricity infrastructure dependent on Europe’s major rivers.

HUNGARY DRYING OUT

Hungary is experiencing one of its worst droughts in years, with shrinking rivers, wetlands and lakes. Lake Garancsi, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Budapest and once popular for swimming, fishing and ice skating, has largely dried up, leaving much of its former lake bed cracked and exposed.

Magyar’s government has promised a comprehensive water-conservation program, saying inadequate water retention and aging infrastructure have worsened the country’s vulnerability to drought. The prime minister has said water management will be placed “on new footing.”

At Paks, authorities have taken extraordinary measures to maintain sufficient cooling water, including sinking large barges in the Danube and constructing an underwater riverbed barrier designed to channel more water toward the plant’s intake pumps.

The emergency measures have allowed authorities to begin restoring nuclear generation, but the regional crisis has underscored how falling river levels can simultaneously affect nuclear plants, hydropower facilities and other energy infrastructure.

CLIMATE CONCERNS

Several scientists and environmental experts have linked the record-low water levels to extreme heat, prolonged drought and changing precipitation patterns associated with climate change, while others have stressed that decades of poor water management have worsened Hungary’s water shortages.

Despite differences over the relative causes, experts broadly agree that increasingly severe fluctuations in river levels are likely to put growing pressure on the region’s water resources and energy supplies.

Latest Worthy News