Hungary's only nuclear plant Paks goes fully dark Monday, first full outage in 44 years amid Danube drought
Hungary's only nuclear plant, which normally supplies about a third of the country's electricity, goes fully dark Monday for the first time in 44 years. Record-low Danube water from a months-long drought cut its cooling capacity; output was already down to 240 megawatts Sunday ni
Hungary's only nuclear power plant is set to go fully dark on Monday, the first complete outage at the facility in 44 years. The Paks plant, located south of Budapest, normally supplies around a third of the country's electricity needs. The plant depends on water pumped from the Danube River to cool its reactors. Months of drought and repeated heat waves since May have pushed the river to record-low levels, cutting into that cooling capacity. One of the plant's last two operating reactors was shut down early Sunday morning, dropping total output to just 240 megawatts. The remaining unit is scheduled to go offline the following day. Hungary's national weather service is forecasting highs above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) over the coming days, with Thursday's predicted peak of 42C matching a national temperature record set earlier this summer. The shutdown illustrates a vulnerability that is easy to overlook: a river-cooled reactor can be knocked offline by the same drought and heat conditions that simultaneously push electricity demand higher, at the exact moment the grid needs reliable baseload power most. Source: AFP (Daily Sabah), Bloomberg.