Symbolic imageHungary shuts its only nuclear plant as Danube falls to record low
Hungary powered down the Paks nuclear plant on Sunday, the first full halt in its 44-year history, after record-low Danube levels cut off cooling water. The plant supplies nearly half of the country's electricity.
What happened
- Paks had cut output since Monday; one of four units went offline Thursday, a second was reduced by half.
- Output fell from a normal 2,000 megawatts to 965 on Friday and 240 overnight, before the full halt.
- A decree effective 19:00 on Saturday, 1 August lets Hungary disconnect large industrial consumers that ignore ordered cuts.
- Al Jazeera reports minus 134cm at Paks forces a shutdown, with levels heading toward 144cm; the 2018 record was 98cm.
- More than 100 Hungarian cities and villages are under water-use restrictions; households were asked to save power in the evening.
The view from outside
Telesur reports Bulgaria's Kozloduy plant is running at full load because its reactors are not cooled with river water, and cites HVG.hu that Hungary has import capacity of 3,600 to 3,800 megawatts. Al Jazeera cites the World Weather Attribution group linking the temperatures to human-caused climate change.
What could happen next
- Restart depends on rain in the Danube basin; Budapest estimates about a week, the Guardian reports the outage could last weeks.
- A malfunction at the Szazhalombatta gas-fired plant is worsening the grid shortage, the government said.
- Romania shut a Cernavoda reactor and announced a second; those outages could last one to two weeks.
- No significant rain is forecast; Danube cargo traffic has nearly halted, and Slovakia has offered help.