Hungary Faces Severe Energy Crisis

Hungary is in an energy crisis at the moment,

an energy crisis that's seemingly going to get worse and worse.

Now, we have a fuel problem,

so fuel prices at the pump are going up and up,

and I'm not even sure if TISA has a way of alleviating the issue.

Two weeks ago, prices at the pump were 5.85 forints,

and now they are around 600 forints.

Diesel is even more expensive, which is an issue for anyone who deals with logistics,

with business, with farming.

The prices aren't just going up, but we're actually running out of fuel.

Our supplies are lower and lower, and I'm not even sure TISA, our government, has a way of replenishing stocks in any way,

especially now with the Hormuz strait being closed, and of course with our previous reliance on Russian gas imports,

gas imports that Brussels wants us to stop.

But the issue now that we have comes down to the Danube.

So the Danube, as I told you before and showed you before, it's at its lowest level that it's been in the last few decades.

It's very, very low, and 100 kilometres south of Budapest is a city called Paks, and Paks is home to Hungary's nuclear power station.

It's called Paks 1.

It's called Paks 1 because there are plans on making Paks 2, but I'm not sure whether or not those plans are going to be realised at any time in the future.

But because the levels of the Danube are so low,

the Danube is, the waters of the Danube are what's used to cool the nuclear power station.

And because the level of the Danube is so low,

soon that is going to be impossible to do. So the government has told us that it's pretty likely that in the next 24 to 72 hours,

the Paks nuclear power station will be put into standby mode.

And that means that a massive percentage of Hungarian electricity is just going to simply be shut off.

Does that mean that we're going to get electricity rationing?

Does that mean that we're going to get blackouts?

Maybe. But what's clear is that 50% of our electricity is suddenly going to disappear overnight, and I'm not quite sure how Hungary is going to cope with it.

Of course, the weather is not something that is in Tisza's control.

The level of the Danube is not something that I think they can alter in a heartbeat.

It's been very hot in Hungary.

slight lull in temperatures, so it's been in the low 30s or high 20s for about two weeks,

but now we're back up to 35 and over the weekend we're expected to hit 37 and maybe next weekend or next week maybe we'll be going up into the 40s.

So it's very very hot, it's unpleasantly hot.

We live in an apartment on the top floor of a building and our internal temperature in our As you can imagine that's not very pleasant and

unfortunately Hungary has a very poor relationship with air conditioning.

Not that it's not available, but that in many old buildings you are simply prohibited from installing air conditioning.

Again I would hope that Tisza would realize that the air conditioning is a problem and introduce ways in which a building can install air

somehow, but I'm obviously dreaming and clutching at straws and this even if they do something that would only be useful for next year.

But yeah the energy crisis is real,

the electricity crisis is absolutely real and coming and the fuel crisis is also here.

So we have big big problems

with realistic energy and that means nuclear power and that means diesel.

This week though, earlier this week the Hungarian government announced that it would be making a large investment into wind power.

So we're going to have wind turbines dotted around the country even though we know that wind power is very inconsistent and overall in the long run these wind turbines have a lifespan of at most 20 years.

They end up being very loud,

they don't produce as much electricity as they're supposed to and their environmental impact,

even if you think that oh yeah wind turbines are great,

their environmental impact is huge because they're not just little fans stuck in the ground. Below each wind turbine there's 250 tons of cement and steel that once is in the

Relying on advice from Brussels putting in wind turbines is obviously not the way to go.

Even with the investment when will that energy come online?

Who knows?

Winter is not a very windy season in Hungary as you can imagine.

Summer is when we need the most electricity I'm guessing by far and right now we are staring down the barrel of a gun with no solution in sight.

If you you