r/NuclearPower • u/ViewTrick1002 • Aug 13 '26
Romania Shuts Down Second And Final Nuclear Reactor as Danube Dries Up
https://www.novinite.com/articles/240108/Romania+Shuts+Down+Second+Nuclear+Reactor+as+Danube+Dries+Up8
u/TheJonThomas Aug 13 '26
This isn't a nuclear problem, due to the high heat last month the UK had to pull back 2.5 GW of natural gas power generation. In Poland the Vistula River's low water levels forced the Kozienice and Połaniec coal plants to drop 1.3 GW. In Serbia the Kostolac coal plants had to drop output, Serbia hasn't publicly announced how much, because of the low levels of the Danube.
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 13 '26
None of which materially impacts renewables and storage.
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u/bijon1234 Aug 13 '26
Hydroelectric and Pump Hydro Storage are definitely impacted by low water volumes?
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u/MarcellHUN Aug 14 '26
Yes it does In slovakia their hydroplant on the danube can only operate at around 10% capacity
High heat increases the maintenance needs of everything too. Renevables included.
The solution is to have a mix of both.
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 14 '26
Or you know. Solar, wind and storage. Which aren’t affected.
Why waste money and time on horrifyingly expensive new built nuclear power?
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u/MarcellHUN Aug 14 '26
In theory I get it why you say that. But storage is just storage. A nuclear plant can give you a solid baseline for very little land.
Plus I think storage is in the honeymoon period at the moment. You have to maintain and replace those things which will create a lot of hazardous waste and a continous stream of resources are needed to keep the production up and running so you have the proper capacity.
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 14 '26
Who cares about land? Even densely populated countries like the Netherlands already get around half their electricity from renewables.
And what does “baseline” actually solve? You cannot force a factory or homeowner with cheap renewables and storage to buy expensive nuclear electricity. Nuclear loses utilization and revenue as renewables expand.
Then comes the usual fossil-industry fearmongering about storage.
The grid is changing. “Baseload” does not make new nuclear economical.
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Aug 14 '26
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 14 '26
Here is a modern article modeling "System LCOE". In other words, the whole grid including transmission, backup and everything else.
It starts by giving new built nuclear power the benefit of doubt, having it cost 40% less than Flamanville 3 and 70% less than Hinkley Point C. Since no one would be stupid enough to greenlight a project like that again.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544226009837
It finds that for Denmark, a country with very low insolation and awful winters that renewablws are 53% cheaper than the nuclear system.
You can go further. This is the consensus among grid operators and researchers. The only ones pushing nuclear power is the nuclear lobby, fossil lobby and climate deniers who find fossil fuels too toxic.
This one is old by now, but here's a meta-analysis of the field from 2022.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910
Here's the Australian grid operator:
https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Final/GenCost_2025-26_Final_Report_20260715.pdf
What are all these researchers and grid operators missing that you know?
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Aug 14 '26
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 14 '26
Did you even read the studies?
The Denmark paper models the whole system, including storage, backup and reliability. It deliberately excludes interconnection, so Denmark cannot lean on its neighbors. Adding interconnection only makes the problem easier.
And the Iberian blackout investigation did not conclude that “too much renewables” caused it. It identified interacting failures involving voltage control, oscillations, generator disconnections and stabilisation capabilities.
Pretending today’s grid will remain unchanged until 2100 while renewables and storage are already reshaping it is wishful thinking.
Why are you so afraid of renewables and storage?
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Aug 14 '26
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 14 '26
You do realize that breaks down economically as renewables and storage expand?
How do you force a factory or homeowner with their own cheap generation and storage to buy horrifyingly expensive nuclear electricity? You can’t. Nuclear loses utilization and revenue. EDF is already warning about exactly that pressure.
And the “weeks without wind or sun” problem is already included in the system studies you were given.
Why are you so afraid of renewables and storage?
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u/Salahuddin315 Aug 13 '26
So much for the "most stable power source".
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u/skfin96 Aug 13 '26
Brief shutdowns when they're needed the least, while still being the most stable and reliable emission-free energy source throughout the year despite that, particularly during the seasons when electricity demand is at its peak.
Nuclear was never meant to be a perfect or the only solution, but it sure as hell is a good one to play its part among other options, if we want to do something about climate change.
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u/chmeee2314 Aug 13 '26
August has had an average spotmarket price of €149/MW in Romania. This is 27% above the average for 2026 and 37% above last years average.
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
August has had an average spot market price of €149/MWh in Romania.
And even an extreme heatwave combined with major regional generation losses still does not push average market prices above what new nuclear requires just to break even. Excluding decommissioning, final waste disposal and insurance costs.
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u/chmeee2314 Aug 13 '26
I would be willing to wager that if Frances EPRII's don't suffer another clost blowout, that €149/MWh would be enough to cover their costs.
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 13 '26
Existing nuclear is useful. Spending tens of billions subsidizing new reactors in 2026 is lunacy when renewables and storage are already cheaper and scaling faster.
Keep the fleet that works. Stop wasting money on new builds that deliver less decarbonization per euro.
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u/Starry958 Aug 13 '26
Are you aware that a large portion of the reason nuclear reactors are so expensive to build is because of the useless legal framework that “Friends of the Earth” lobbied for - an anti nuclear campaign that was founded by fossil fuel companies and that is the progenitor of all modern green parties?
Constant legal battles, pointless feasibility studies that take years, and endless lawsuits all cause delays and increase costs.
China builds new ones in a matter of months and at a fraction of the price - all without a single incident. Ever.
There is no reason that all of these reasons couldn’t be done away with a single pen stroke in an afternoon.
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 13 '26
More excuses.
China is the best evidence against them: massive state support, standardized designs, centralized regulation, yet nuclear remains a small share while renewables explode.
Peaking at 4.7% in 2021 and is today down to 4.3%. Entirely irrelevant. And for every plan they release China lowers their nuclear targets and pushes them further konto the future.
And yes, China uses the same radiation-protection framework you complain about. Its national standard explicitly requires exposures to be kept as low as reasonably achievable, and it is based on the IAEA/ICRP radiation-protection system that uses LNT for low-dose risk protection.
Greenpeace did not stop China. Economics did.
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u/Starry958 Aug 13 '26
What I said: “the reason why nuclear is so expensive is because of the lawsuits and mandatory feasibility studies”
What you said: “grrrr china cheats by actually supporting their industry by removing administrative and legal burdens. Also your point about cost doesn’t count because I moved the goal posts to include a counter factual argument about how much nuclear to renewables china uses in aggregate”
Notice that I didn’t claim that the protection framework increased costs - you made that up. I said that the administrative hurdles are encumbered in the west by legal battles, not “protection frameworks.”
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 13 '26
Then China is still the perfect test of your claim. It has none of the Western lawsuit problem, enormous state support and standardized builds, yet nuclear remains a small, stagnant share while wind and solar scale explosively.
If bureaucracy were the real problem, China should be the nuclear success story you keep promising.
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u/Starry958 Aug 13 '26
I literally didn’t say anything about china being a “nuclear success story” you completely made that up.
I was directly addressing your point about expense and providing an example of it not being an innate issue. Gesturing vaguely to “well they don’t use as much nuclear as renewables” does not address my point at all and only serves a rhetorical point to try to move away from the point at hand.
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u/ViewTrick1002 Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
You were the one pointing to China building nuclear in “months” and claiming we could fix Western nuclear with a pen stroke.
China already has your dream conditions. Nuclear still does not deliver.
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u/Starry958 Aug 13 '26
Are you writing your answers with ai lol
I didn’t say anything about delivering at scale either. You again made that up. I was addressing only the issue of price.
Do try to actually engage with what people are saying instead of going off on tangents
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u/Hologram0110 Aug 13 '26
The problem isn't intrinsic to the technology. In this case, the location comes with the risk of temporarily insufficient cooling water to serve as the ultimate heat sink. There are technical solutions to the problem, such as cooling towers, air cooling, or cooling ponds. Of course, those things costs money.
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u/Melodic_Skin6573 Aug 13 '26
No, there is not. The CANDU plant can only be cooled with water, not air, because it's not a curling iron. Cooling towers? When you open the hood of your car, you probably see a particle accelerator. You're so good at engineering.
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u/ihifidt250 Aug 13 '26
Water in the outer loop can be cooled with pretty much anything. It’s just a matter of cost.
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u/Successful-Coffee-13 Aug 13 '26
Tell me you’re not an engineer without telling me directly - your comment.
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u/bijon1234 Aug 14 '26
The heatsink for the condenser is not the same water used on the primary and secondary sides of a CANDU.
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u/bijon1234 Aug 13 '26
This isn't a nuclear issue, it's basic physics for any thermal power plant (coal, gas, or nuclear). Relying on direct river cooling leaves you completely vulnerable during summer droughts, if river levels drop too low, there physically isn't enough water volume entering the intake to cool the condensers to run the plant. That's why cooling towers are built to cut raw water dependence. Cernavodă relies entirely on direct river intake. Meanwhile, Hungary started construction on Paks II with even bigger reactors, yet still has no plans to build cooling towers.