Lost income, energy fears and a woolly mammoth: what Europe’s dried-up rivers have yielded
📰 source: theguardian_business · 💼 business
baking temperatures and drought across central and eastern europe have driven water levels on the danube and rhine to record lows, hitting shipping, energy production and tourism. for the first time in their history, hungary and romania shut down atomic reactors normally cooled by the danube. hungary's biggest nuclear plant, the 44-year-old paks, supplies nearly half of the country's electricity and has been cutting output since monday. pm péter magyar said it was operating at under 50% capacity and could be fully powered down next week. a malfunction at hungary's largest gas-fired plant in százhalombatta is worsening the grid shortage. authorities asked citizens to reduce evening energy use, including not charging evs, while carmakers and battery makers were ordered to cut power and water.
romania shut one reactor at cernavodă and announced a second would follow, with shutdowns expected to last one to two weeks. the danube receded so far it exposed rocks, a second world war bomb, and the bones of a woolly mammoth, found by a villager in bulgaria. budapest closed the margaret bridge after the bomb was found. cargo shipping on the danube has nearly ground to a halt, with vessels unable to travel fully loaded. in germany, the rhine fell to near record lows, forcing cargo reductions to about 20% of normal capacity. the netherlands reported its lowest recorded rhine level and an official water shortage since mid-july. russian? no, resident rossen dobrev said: "it's never dried up this much before." temperatures are forecast to exceed 38c with no significant rain.
why it matters: drought-driven shutdowns of nuclear plants and shipping bottlenecks threaten energy supply and trade across europe.
source: theguardian_business
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