Danube Nuclear Crisis Deepens As Hungary Questions Russian Expansion (Worthy News In-Depth)

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

BUDAPEST/BUCHAREST (Worthy News) – Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar has cast doubt on a controversial Russian-led expansion of Hungary’s only nuclear power plant after record-low levels of the Danube River nearly forced its existing reactors into a complete shutdown.

The concerns gained new urgency Thursday when neighboring Romania began shutting down its last operating nuclear reactor after emergency attempts to redirect Danube water failed to provide enough cooling water. Romania’s other reactor was already shut down, leaving the country without nuclear-generated electricity and intensifying regional energy concerns.

Romania, where the two reactors normally provide about one-fifth of the nation’s electricity, has declared a state of energy emergency for August and urged companies and households to reduce consumption. Authorities have activated a 330-megawatt lignite-fired power plant while relying on increased wind generation, available hydropower and electricity imports to compensate for the nuclear shutdown.

In Hungary, Magyar said the worsening drought raised “questions” about the environmental permit and cooling arrangements for two additional reactors planned at the Paks nuclear power plant as part of a project led by Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom.

The expansion, known as Paks II, was agreed with Moscow in 2014 under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government without an international competitive tender and has long been controversial because of Hungary’s energy ties with Russia.

RUSSIAN NUCLEAR PROJECT QUESTIONED

Magyar also pointed to years of delays and mounting costs, saying the project’s price was now estimated at about twice its original 12.5 billion euros  ($14.4 billion).

His intervention potentially adds another complication to one of Russia’s most politically sensitive nuclear projects within the European Union.

Magyar said Thursday that his government was still auditing Paks II and would decide what to do with the project only after that review was completed.

He also expressed skepticism about assurances that Rosatom would adhere to the agreement reached with the previous Orbán government, noting that, under the original timetable, Paks II should already have been operating by 2024.

Magyar stressed that his government would only proceed with an investment that met Hungary’s interests in terms of cost-effectiveness, safety and environmental protection.

DANUBE AT CRITICAL LEVELS

The debate comes as Hungary itself struggles to keep its existing nuclear facility operating.

Earlier this month, the country was forced to reduce output at its 2-gigawatt Paks plant to just over 10 percent of capacity, narrowly avoiding the facility’s first complete shutdown in its 44-year history. Output has since recovered to about 25 percent, with only one of its four reactors operating.

Paks normally provides around 40 percent of Hungary’s electricity generation, making its continued operation crucial for the country’s energy supplies.

Magyar said Thursday that the Danube had begun falling again and warned that the situation represented an energy security, economic and budgetary crisis.

With significant rainfall not expected in the river’s catchment area, his government has begun emergency engineering works between Paks and Dunaszentbenedek to ensure sufficient cooling water continues to flow to the plant.

BARGES READY TO SINK

The government is constructing a submerged riverbed sill, a dam-like structure designed to slow the river and raise the water level upstream around the nuclear plant’s cooling-water intake.

About 145,000 cubic meters of rock are expected to be used in the project, which Magyar said would cost about 6.165 billion forints, roughly $19 million. The money is being redirected from an emergency fund in the state budget.

Two 80-meter (262-foot) barges are also being prepared near Paks and could be deliberately sunk if water levels decline faster than expected. Officials described them as a kind of emergency “red button” that could be used if the other works failed to maintain sufficient cooling water.

Magyar said the riverbed sill could maintain a water level that would allow Paks to operate at full capacity.

The prime minister said companies,  including Austrian construction giant Strabag and Hungary’s KÉSZ, had offered materials, work, and expertise free of charge, while several smaller companies had also offered assistance.

MAGYAR TARGETS ORBÁN-LINKED TYCOONS

However, Magyar used Thursday’s press conference to lash out at some of Hungary’s richest businessmen who rose to prominence during Orbán’s years in power, saying companies linked to them had initially failed to offer help.

He specifically mentioned Lőrinc Mészáros, László Szíjj and István Garancsi while publicly providing an email address where companies could make donations to the emergency effort.

Magyar said he found it “outrageous” that Strabag, an Austrian company, had offered free assistance before what he called Hungary’s “national capitalist class.”

“I don’t know why an Austrian company offers help before the so-called national capitalist class,” Magyar said.

He also said the stone required for the riverbed project would not come from the quarry many Hungarians might expect, an apparent reference to business interests associated with Orbán’s father, Győző Orbán. Magyar said stone from there was expensive and the quarry was too far away.

ORBÁN-LINKED COMPANY RESPONDS

Hours after Magyar’s criticism, however, Garancsi-linked Market Építő Zrt. announced that it was ready to donate 10,000 tons of stone and transport it to the designated location using its own resources.

Romania, meanwhile, had already resorted to extraordinary measures in an attempt to keep its remaining reactor operating at the Cernavodă nuclear power plant.

Authorities detonated a rock obstruction, dredged the riverbed and sank rock-filled barges in an attempt to redirect more Danube water toward the plant.

Those measures ultimately proved insufficient, prompting state-owned nuclear producer Nuclearelectrica to begin shutting down its sole working reactor Thursday.

Its two 706-megawatt reactors normally account for around one-fifth of Romania’s electricity generation.

ROMANIA FACES ENERGY EMERGENCY

The government has prepared plans to cut electricity supplies to industrial consumers in stages and with advance warning if the energy situation deteriorates further.

The simultaneous problems in Hungary and Romania have highlighted the vulnerability of nuclear power plants dependent on rivers for cooling as Europe experiences prolonged drought and extreme heat.

Nuclear plants provide large amounts of baseload electricity without the carbon emissions associated with fossil-fuel generation, climate change campaigners say. That would make atomic energy an important element of efforts to “tackle climate tackle climate change,” though others, including experts and some Green politicians remain sceptical.

Yet increasingly severe droughts and heat waves are raising questions about how nuclear facilities themselves must adapt.

Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, a professor at Central European University in Vienna, said scientific modeling showed a trend toward Central and Eastern Europe becoming drier, with declining soil moisture and groundwater levels compounding the effects of lower precipitation and more frequent heat waves.

CLIMATE PRESSURES NUCLEAR POWER

Hungarian water engineers had already warned that flow patterns on the Danube, one of Europe’s longest rivers, could become increasingly extreme and volatile.

The four existing Paks reactors are Russian-designed pressurized-water reactors that pump water from the Danube for cooling before returning it to the river.

Attila Aszódi, a professor and nuclear expert at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, said retrofitting the existing Paks reactors with large cooling towers would probably not be economical because of their remaining operating lifetime.

However, he said a new evaluation of cooling methods available at Paks was necessary.

Scientists have suggested hybrid systems combining river cooling with cooling towers as another possibility. Nuclear plants in the Czech Republic and Slovakia already use wet cooling towers, which require less river water.

HUNGARY REVIEWS COOLING OPTIONS

Hungary is now reviewing cooling arrangements for the planned Paks II expansion as the government considers whether its dependence on the Danube remains sustainable under increasingly extreme conditions.

Romania is confronting similar questions as it plans to add two more reactors at its Cernavodă nuclear power plant.

Cernavodă uses Canadian CANDU technology, but it too depends on Danube water for cooling.

Romania approved a 1.02 billion lei ($225 million) project in 2024 to modify the Danube riverbed near Cernavodă and better manage water flows toward the nuclear facility, but the project has been delayed.

Nuclearelectrica says studies indicate the proposed hydrotechnical works could provide sufficient water for four reactors to operate at full capacity.

FUTURE NUCLEAR REACTORS AT STAKE

Both Hungary and Romania therefore remain committed to expanding nuclear generation, but the record-low Danube has exposed a growing dilemma: how to rely more heavily on atomic energy while ensuring reactors can continue operating when the rivers needed to cool them are shrinking.

For Hungary, that debate carries an additional geopolitical dimension as Magyar questions whether the delayed and increasingly expensive Russian-led Paks II project is suited to the climatic conditions the country may face in the decades ahead.

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