{"id":46706,"date":"2026-08-15T13:35:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T08:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=46706"},"modified":"2026-08-15T13:35:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T08:35:25","slug":"hungary-to-sink-two-barges-near-nuclear-plant-to-raise-danube-levels-to-ensure-cooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=46706","title":{"rendered":"Hungary to sink two barges near nuclear plant to raise Danube levels to ensure cooling\u200b\u200b"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">BUDAPEST, Aug 15 (Reuters) &#8211; Hungarian authorities will sink two barges in the Danube on Saturday to raise the \u200cwater level at the Paks nuclear plant to avert \u200ca shutdown of one of its last two remaining turbines, as water \u200blevels are dropping, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The plant currently operates at around 25% of its capacity due to a historic drought and record low water levels on the Danube river, from \u200cwhich the nuclear plant \u2060draws its coolant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Magyar said in a Facebook post that current forecasts indicated the water level would \u2060drop to the critical level by early Monday morning at which point one of the two operating turbines would have to \u200bbe shut \u200bdown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;The Danube is receding&#8230;The controlled \u200bsinking of the barges \u200cwill begin shortly,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Hungary&#8217;s government said on Wednesday that it would build a riverbed &#8220;sill&#8221;, a submerged, dam-like structure built crosswise on the bottom of a river channel, to manage water flow. That will take weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It also said that two 80-metre (260-foot) \u200cbarges would be submerged near the \u200bnuclear plant to raise the water \u200blevel in the short \u200bterm so that the plant&#8217;s two turbines could \u200ccontinue working while the riverbed \u200bsill was under \u200bconstruction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Neighbouring Romania shut down its last working reactor on Thursday due to the low level of the Danube. The \u200bdrought also raised \u200cquestions in Hungary and Romania about how to adapt \u200batomic energy to an increasingly extreme climate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Krisztina \u200bThan; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BUDAPEST, Aug 15 (Reuters) &#8211; Hungarian authorities will sink two barges in the Danube on Saturday to raise the \u200cwater level at the Paks nuclear plant to avert \u200ca shutdown of one of its last two remaining turbines, as water \u200blevels are dropping, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said. The plant currently operates at around 25%&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/9a983dbb996c77539453beb03db672513430b6167b55d66c3bf9a2202642896d\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h555%3Bquality_80%3Bformat_jpg\/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2Fa7e7f000a9cd97d4b174c037f580a911.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}