Hungary to sink two barges near nuclear plant to ensure cooling

BUDAPEST, Aug 14 - Hungarian authorities are expected to start sinking two barges later in the day to raise the water level at the Paks nuclear plant in the Danube, Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Friday.

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 which the nuclear plant draws its coolant.

Neighbouring Romania shut down its last working reactor on Thursday as drought this summer has wreaked havoc in European power production, shipping and public health systems. The drought also raised questions in Hungary and Romania about how to adapt atomic energy to an increasingly extreme climate.

Hungary's government announced on Wednesday that it would build a riverbed "sill", a submerged, dam-like structure built crosswise on the bottom of a river channel, to manage water flow. That will take weeks.

The government also said that two 80-metre (260-foot) barges would be submerged near the nuclear plant to raise the water level in the short term so that the plant's two turbines could be kept working while the riverbed sill was under construction.

"The controlled sinking (of the barges) is expected to begin late this afternoon in order to raise the water level on the Danube," Magyar said in a Facebook video from Paks on Friday.

Sinking of the barges could raise the water level by 20 centimetres (8 inches) in the short term, while the river sill is expected to raise it by up to 1 metre. REUTERS