Romania reverts to coal after low Danube forces nuclear shut-down

The Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant normally supplies 20% of Romania’s electricity, but has had to be shut down because there is not enough water in the river to keep it cool.

Now the Energy Ministry has confirmed it will fire up a coal-fired power plant to replace the lost electricity.

In an initial effort to keep the Cernavodă plant switched on, the military and water authorities launched an emergency engineering operation on the river, first deploying the navy to fire underwater explosives to blast away a rock obstruction restricting flow near the Danube’s Bala Canal. Crews dredged the riverbed to clear accumulated sediment and shoals in critical stretches.

The next step was to sink four barges loaded with the blasted rock into one arm of the river to build an underwater barrier that would force more of the Danube’s diminished flow down the main channel towards the plant’s cooling intake, rather than dispersing across the river’s braided arms.

The rock blast and barge work gave a reprieve of a few days to cool Cernavodă plant’s two CANDU reactors but now the government has confirmed that Unit 1 is off and preparations are under way to switch off Unit 2.  

“Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant has initiated the technical procedures ahead of the controlled shutdown of Unit 2, due to the very low flow rate of the Danube and changes in the water level in the area where the cooling pumps draw water,” a ministry statement says.

“These are routine and preventive procedures specific to the safe preparation for the shut-down of a nuclear unit. They do not indicate that an incident has occurred at the plant, but are part of the technical measures implemented when operating parameters require preparations for a controlled shut-down.

“Given that the forecast for the Danube’s flow rate remains unfavourable, the controlled shut-down of Unit 2 is expected to take place during the course of this week.

“The Ministry of Energy and the National Energy Dispatch Centre have prepared the necessary measures to compensate for the electricity that will no longer be generated by Unit 2 and to maintain the balance of the National Power System.”

Romania’s government has described the interventions as temporary, phased and closely monitored, carried out under water-management, environmental and nuclear-safety rules, while stressing they do not resolve the underlying cause: a persistent rainfall deficit upstream.

“The shortfall will be covered by using available import capacity from regional and European energy systems, as well as by activating additional domestic generation resources. In this regard, Unit 4 at the Rovinari power plant, a coal-fired power unit operated by Oltenia Energy Complex, will be brought out of reserve and made available to the National Power System.”

No rain is predicted in Romania for the next two weeks, according to the BBC.