Europe Drought Shuts Nuclear Plants, Cripples River Shipping
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Hungary's Paks nuclear plant cut output to below 50% capacity and is expected to fully power down next week, with the Danube-fed reactor potentially offline for weeks, PM Péter Magyar said.
- Romania's Cernavodǎ nuclear plant shut down one reactor for safety reasons with a second to follow, and PM Ilie Bolojan said the shutdowns could last one to two weeks.
- Hungarian authorities asked citizens to skip EV charging and AC during evening peaks and ordered carmakers and battery manufacturers to cut power and water consumption, warning an energy crisis could begin Monday.
- A malfunction at Hungary's Százhalombatta gas-fired power plant worsened the grid shortage, compounding the risk Magyar flagged.
- Water levels on the Rhine fell to near record lows in Germany, forcing cargo vessels to roughly 20% of normal capacity, while Dutch officials said the river hit its lowest recorded level at the Netherlands entry point.
- The Netherlands has been under an officially recognized water shortage since mid-July, with use restrictions across most of the country, particularly in farming.
- The Danube's record low exposed a wartime bomb at the base of Budapest's Margaret Bridge (forcing its closure) and the bones of a woolly mammoth near Ryahovo, Bulgaria, with temperatures forecast to exceed 38C and no significant rain in sight.
Why it matters: Paks supplies nearly half of Hungary's electricity, so a potential weeks-long shutdown during a heatwave topping 38C forces unprecedented consumption curbs on citizens and manufacturers just as a gas-plant malfunction tightens the grid further — a cascade no European country has navigated before.
