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Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

bbc.com

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Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#21

Post by emsign »

moffkalast wrote: post #11
pepperoni_pizza wrote: post #9

You can totally retrofit existing nuclear power plants for closed loop cooling. I'm not sure what the cost would be, though, but it might be worth doing.

Is it economically viable to run though? Natural draft towers or direct body of water cooling is used almost universally since it doesn't take any extra power. A large chunk of the powerplant's output would be running heat pump compressors to stop itself from exploding.

First of all you can't retrofit every npp with that, it's a lie. And eve; if you could, you are correct, it's financially not viable. Renewable energy is always the cheaper option by far.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#22

Post by eecc »

vrganj wrote: post #2

This is happening all across Europe right now - Romania, France too. https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-do... https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungarys-paks-nuclea... We keep having folks here argue that nuclear, not renewables are the path to take to get rid of fossil fuels. I have strong doubts - it feels like that doesn't account for the sad realities of climate change.

It’s the second of third year in a row that this happens.

At some point it will be the new normal.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#23

Post by deepsummer »

oblio wrote: post #13
deepsummer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In countries with dark winters and without enough hydro power, the only reliable alternative are fossil fuels...

Wind + storage, geothermal.

Storage of energy in the dimensions required for weeks with almost no wind is an unsolved problem. Right now, we can't store enough to make it through a single night without using fossil fuels. Most countries don't even have the capacity to store the energy for a single hour.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#24

Post by Cthulhu_ »

vrganj wrote: post #2

This is happening all across Europe right now - Romania, France too. https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-do... https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungarys-paks-nuclea... We keep having folks here argue that nuclear, not renewables are the path to take to get rid of fossil fuels. I have strong doubts - it feels like that doesn't account for the sad realities of climate change.

It can be, but you need water, just like for solar you need sunlight and storage and for wind power you need, well, wind. Coal and gas rely on natural resources, which can be disrupted through geopolitical tension, like Russia's gas supplies into Europe getting cut off / sanctioned.

Every power source has their tradeoffs, and I don't think anyone is denying that.

What I do think is that people are making up arguments or statements that Other People have and call them out on it.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#25

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

cinntaile wrote: post #4
vrganj wrote: post #2

This is happening all across Europe right now - Romania, France too. https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-do... https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungarys-paks-nuclea... We keep having folks here argue that nuclear, not renewables are the path to take to get rid of fossil fuels. I have strong doubts - it feels like that doesn't account for the sad realities of climate change.

People arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated. I feel like you are doing the same. Sometimes nuclear is a good fit, sometimes renewables is a good fit, sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit. Most of the time a mix is the best fit. It depends on what you are optimizing for and what is geographically, (geo)politically and economically possible. All these systems are then built usin…

>sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit.

Oh come on.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#26

Post by Elfener »

pepperoni_pizza wrote: post #9

You can totally retrofit existing nuclear power plants for closed loop cooling. I'm not sure what the cost would be, though, but it might be worth doing.

I've read that in the case of Paks a retrofit doesn't make sense because the entire thing is so old and needs to be rebuilt anyway.

However, hopefully, they change the plans for (stalled project) Paks 2, because that would've used the same cooling system as the first one.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#27

Post by Cthulhu_ »

stefan_ wrote: post #15
vrganj wrote: post #2

This is happening all across Europe right now - Romania, France too. https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-do... https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungarys-paks-nuclea... We keep having folks here argue that nuclear, not renewables are the path to take to get rid of fossil fuels. I have strong doubts - it feels like that doesn't account for the sad realities of climate change.

This is a technical problem with technical solutions. You can just fix things, you don't need to throw out 30% of your power generation to pay billions for climate change vagueposting.

Kind of? I'm sure you can change a nuclear power plant so it doesn't rely on river or sea water but that's not something that can be done overnight.

Restoring river water levels can't be done through technical solutions though, they rely on the weather and we can't control that. The European river levels are largely influenced by inland rain, snowfall, and glacier forming/melting; snowfall and rain has been meagre this year, glaciers have been melting and receding for decades now.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#28

Post by emsign »

flr03 wrote: post #14
vrganj wrote: post #2

This is happening all across Europe right now - Romania, France too. https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/07/13/france-shuts-do... https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hungarys-paks-nuclea... We keep having folks here argue that nuclear, not renewables are the path to take to get rid of fossil fuels. I have strong doubts - it feels like that doesn't account for the sad realities of climate change.

Different reasons though, France has nothing to do with water level or availability. It's for environment protection.

Not true at all. It's both in France and increasingly because the rivers run dry in the summer. Besides killing rivers for electricity and for "saving CO2" is as stupid as burning coal to keep HVACs running becauae the summers are getting hotter and hotter each year.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#29

Post by wongarsu »

moffkalast wrote: post #11
pepperoni_pizza wrote: post #9

You can totally retrofit existing nuclear power plants for closed loop cooling. I'm not sure what the cost would be, though, but it might be worth doing.

Is it economically viable to run though? Natural draft towers or direct body of water cooling is used almost universally since it doesn't take any extra power. A large chunk of the powerplant's output would be running heat pump compressors to stop itself from exploding.

Fully closed loop is probably not viable. But I suspect that's not the extreme GP might have meant.

If for the sake or discussion we simplify cooling to four options:

1: just passing river water through a heat exchanger for cooling

2: ingesting river water, using it for cooling, then passing it through a cooling tower before returning it to the river

3: pass the water output from the cooling tower directly back in the cooling loop, only ingest enough water to replace evaporation

4: fully closed loop via direct heat exchange with air

Then 4 is not very viable. But a lot of nuclear plants are stuck at 1 or 2, and each step up the ladder would allow them to operate in worse conditions. This one seems to be at version one

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