Romania has taken both reactors at its Cernavodă nuclear station offline after prolonged drought drove Danube River levels too low to reliably support cooling operations, removing a plant that normally supplies about one-fifth of the country’s electricity.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Romania has completely shut down its only nuclear power station after falling water levels in the Danube River made it increasingly difficult to provide the cooling water needed to operate the facility’s two reactors.
The shutdown at the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant follows weeks of efforts to preserve operations as drought conditions pushed parts of the Danube to their lowest levels in roughly 30 years.
Cernavodă’s two reactors normally generate about 20% of Romania’s electricity, making the loss of the plant a significant disruption to the country’s power system.
Romanian nuclear energy company Nuclearelectrica had already taken one of the plant’s reactors offline in July. On Thursday, it announced that the second reactor also had to be shut down “due to the significant and ongoing drop in the water level of the River Danube.”
According to the BBC, the plant is not expected to restart within the next 10 days.
“The Cernavodă plant, where two reactors produce about 20% of Romania’s electricity, is not expected to be restarted within the next 10 days,” the BBC reported.
Romanian authorities had attempted to avoid the complete shutdown by altering the river flow around the plant.
Earlier in the week, crews sank barges loaded with rocks into the Danube in an effort to increase the amount of water reaching Cernavodă’s cooling system.
“Earlier this week, authorities tried to increase the water flow to the plant – which uses the Danube for cooling – by sinking barges loaded with rocks in the river,” the BBC reported.
The water shortage is affecting other countries along the Danube as well.
Hungary has so far managed to keep its only nuclear station at Paks operating, although it also relies on the river for cooling.
“Neighboring Hungary has so far avoided a shutdown of its only nuclear plant in Paks, which also uses the Danube. The waters in Europe’s second-longest river have fallen to the lowest levels for 30 years in several countries,” according to the BBC.
Additional footage and commentary about the river conditions and plant shutdown were shared online.
The shutdown is only the second time drought has forced Cernavodă offline.
Euronews reported that the plant previously shut because of drought in 2003.
“The Cernavodă plant, which usually generates a fifth of Romania’s electricity, has been shut down just once before, in 2003, due to drought,” Euronews reported.
The station operates two 700-megawatt reactors.
Romania had been trying to keep at least one of them running as the river continued to fall.
“The national nuclear energy company Nuclearelectrica had already shut down one of the plant’s two reactors last month and announced on Thursday that it needed to shut the second as well ‘due to the significant and ongoing drop in the water level of the River Danube’,” Euronews reported.
Authorities budgeted more than €2 million for emergency measures intended to redirect more river water toward the plant.
Those efforts included plans to blast apart a rock obstruction and sink four rock-filled barges into the Danube in an effort to modify the river flow.
“Romania had been trying to avert a complete shutdown of the plant’s two 700MW reactors. It had budgeted more than €2 million to try to divert the Danube’s flow in order to maintain cooling of the reactors, including blowing up a rock and sinking four barges filled with rocks into the river,” Euronews reported.
A separate social media post documented the developing situation.
The Cernavodă shutdown comes during a summer in which parts of Europe have faced both wildfires and severe drought, with falling river levels creating additional pressure on transportation and energy infrastructure.
For Romania, the immediate consequence is the temporary loss of a nuclear plant responsible for roughly one-fifth of national electricity production.
The situation also demonstrates the vulnerability of nuclear stations that depend on rivers for cooling when prolonged drought sharply reduces available water.
Hungary’s Paks nuclear station remains operational for now, but it relies on the same river system as the Danube continues to run at historically low levels across several European countries.
Romanian authorities have not indicated that Cernavodă will restart before river conditions improve sufficiently to support safe cooling operations, with current expectations pointing to at least a 10-day shutdown.
Original article
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