Why Are Helicopters Dropping Concrete Blocks Into the Danube in Hungary?

Insights / Hungary / Perspective

When I was a child, my father often told me not to waste water.

He used to say that water would become a much more important issue during my generation's lifetime.

As a child, I did not really understand what he meant. I grew up near Lake Balaton, and my family had a holiday house in Balatonfenyves, where we spent a large part of our summers. Water simply felt like something that was always there.

I do remember, however, that we were more careful with water at the holiday house than at home in Kaposvár. My parents always said that tap water was expensive there, so we should not waste it. I have absolutely no idea how much it actually cost. I was a child.

But I still remember the taste of that water. It had a very particular taste – and I liked it.

My father's parents grew vegetables for a living. He later became a lawyer, but when he was young, he worked with them a lot. So soil, weather and water probably meant something very different to him than they did to me at the time.

I only knew my grandparents when they were already old. I saw very little of the life in which weather and the success of a harvest could directly affect everyday life.

But my father's sentence stayed with me.

Don't waste water.

I have been thinking about it quite a lot recently.

Hungary is having a very dry summer. There has been little rain, water levels in our rivers are low, and the effects are becoming increasingly visible.

Of course, nothing is completely black and white. I cannot remember the last time I ate as many apricots as I have this summer. And the watermelon has been particularly good too: sweet, juicy and, rather ironically in such a dry summer, mostly water.

But in the last few days, the lack of water has had a much more unusual consequence.

Something remarkable is happening on the Danube.

Near Paks, two huge barges have been put into position. Helicopters are carrying two-tonne concrete blocks into the river. A temporary structure is being built in the riverbed, while tens of thousands of tonnes of stone are being moved. Engineers, water management and energy specialists, industrial divers and soldiers are working together.

It is difficult not to follow it.

Paks is a Hungarian town on the Danube and home to the country's only nuclear power plant. The plant is an important part of Hungary's electricity production, and it needs water from the Danube for its operation.

The water level is now extremely low. So something had to be done.

And perhaps that is all we can say with certainty at this point. The rest is more about questions.

The current solution is temporary. Its purpose is to maintain the conditions needed for the power plant to continue operating during an exceptional period.

It is fascinating to watch how engineers deal with a problem like this in real time. But it is also difficult not to wonder what happens if, a few years from now, there is not enough water again.

Or if next time, there is not enough of something else.

Hungary's solar energy production has developed enormously in recent years. On sunny days, solar power can now produce a very significant amount of electricity.

But the sun goes down in the evening. Our need for energy does not. This is why I also find the development of energy storage so interesting. 

Not because storage is the solution. I doubt there is one single solution.

There may be more storage, better electricity networks, different energy sources and new ways of managing water. There will probably also be technologies that we hardly talk about today.

Where exactly all of this will take us, we will see.

For now, Hungary has a very real problem that needs a very real answer. And perhaps this is what interests me most about the story.Not simply that the water level of the Danube is extremely low. And not only the scale of the work taking place there.

It is how quickly something that once seemed like a distant question can become a very practical one.

As a child, I certainly never imagined that one August Sunday I would remember my father's constant warning because extraordinary work was taking place on the Danube due to low water levels near one of Hungary's most important energy facilities.

Back then, I was simply annoyed that he was telling me, once again, not to waste water.

I think about it a little differently now.