The Hungarian Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, announced this Saturday that the Paks nuclear power plant will resume its full operation next Wednesday, after several weeks in which the reduced flow of the Danube has limited its cooling system.
"Here we see one of the domes of the reactors at Paks. Turbine number six has reached 3,000 revolutions per minute and is generating electricity again for the Hungarian population and businesses. More will come into operation in the morning. Thank you all for this superhuman effort!" the leader pointed out in a social media post, referring to the restart of the sixth turbine of unit 3 of the plant.
Magyar specified that, from now on, the turbines will be reactivated continuously until the plant reaches its nominal power of 2,000 megawatts on Wednesday. He emphasized that this milestone occurs a month after the first turbine had to stop due to the "extraordinary" situation caused by the unusually low water level of the Danube.
As he detailed, "two of the eight turbines of the power plant are currently in operation and generate about 500 megawatts of electricity; the third turbine can be restarted thanks to the construction of the Paks dam and the increase in the water level of the Danube."
The head of the Government expressed his recognition to the "many hundreds, but rather thousands of people" involved in the reactivation process, with a special mention to the plant staff and the technicians who participated in the work. In addition, he explained that the dam being built on the left bank of the Danube already reaches 250 meters in length and, in certain sections, 30 meters in width.
At the same time, he pointed out that "forecasts indicate that the water level will rise," although he warned that the flow of the Danube could drop again within a week if no new rains are recorded, which is why he insisted on the relevance of weather conditions for the stability of the plant.