Romanian naval forces carried out a controlled explosion on Monday to move a rock blocking water flow in the drought-hit Danube and redirect cooling water towards the country’s last working nuclear reactor at Cernavodă. The operation used 180kg of explosives and sent a column of water into the air, according to the Romanian newspaper Adevărul. The intervention came as record-low river levels forced Romania and Hungary to reduce nuclear generation for the first time. Both countries depend on the Danube to cool their reactors, while heatwave conditions are increasing electricity demand and pushing them towards costly power imports. Romania tries to keep Cernavodă online Romanian authorities hope the blast will make it possible to build a temporary dam and send more water into the channel serving Cernavodă’s remaining reactor. The plant has already lost reactor capacity because the Danube is too shallow to provide sufficient cooling water. Romania has declared a nationwide state of emergency for August because of the fall in electricity production. Defence minister Radu Miruță said that keeping the plant operating beyond Wednesday or Thursday would be valuable, adding that a single day of generation would be worth three times the cost of the river operation. The controlled explosion is an emergency measure rather than a solution to the wider water shortage. Authorities are attempting to preserve output from one reactor while the Danube remains at exceptionally low levels, leaving the duration of continued operation dependent on river conditions and the success of the temporary diversion. Hungary faces a possible Paks shutdown Hungary’s Paks nuclear power station is operating at less than half its normal capacity after its output was reduced because of low Danube levels. The Soviet-era plant is 44 years old and normally produces almost half of Hungary’s electricity. Authorities initially warned that Paks might have to close as early as Sunday. They later said the remaining production could continue at reduced capacity until Monday or Tuesday. Prime minister Péter Magyar said the final turbine, producing 240 megawatts, might operate through Monday and possibly Tuesday, delaying a complete shutdown during a period of high consumption. Magyar said the plant was expected to shut fully next week and that the closure could last several weeks if the river remains too shallow for the cooling systems. He warned that an energy crisis could begin on Monday and called for coordinated action and restraint. Voluntary reductions had already cut demand by 700 megawatts on Sunday, while pharmaceutical company Richter said it would halve electricity use for the next three weeks. Low water is affecting the wider region The pressure extends beyond the two nuclear plants. In Serbia, record-low Danube levels have reduced the country’s key hydroelectric plant to about 20% of capacity, prompting Prime Minister Djuro Macut to chair an emergency meeting on energy problems. No significant rainfall is forecast in the coming days or weeks, so the Danube is not expected to recover soon. The river passes through 10 countries, and some sections have reached their lowest recorded levels, affecting power generation, river transport and water supplies. The retreating water has exposed rocks, shipwrecks and a second world war bomb. In northern Bulgaria, residents also found woolly mammoth remains on the exposed riverbed; experts from the regional history museum in Ruse were sent to examine them. For the power sector, however, the immediate unresolved issue is whether water levels will recover before reduced reactor output becomes a prolonged regional supply problem.
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