Europe's Drought Squeezes Olive Oil, Nearly Trips a Hungarian Nuclear Plant
Record heat is hitting the continent's food supply and its power grid at the same time, according to a single live-blog source
By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
In Brussels this week, European officials were arguing about migration. In the Danube basin, they had a more immediate problem: keeping the lights on.
Hungary's Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, said his country came "within millimetres" of being forced to shut down a nuclear power plant, as extreme heat and low water levels in the Danube strained the region's ability to cool reactors and manage power demand, according to the Guardian's live Europe coverage. This account of a near-shutdown rests on a single source — the Guardian's live blog — and the Press could not independently confirm it. The near-miss, as reported, is a stark illustration of how the same heatwave scorching crops is also threatening the infrastructure that keeps the continent running.
That heat is doing damage on the food side too, according to the same outlet. The Guardian reports that farmers across Europe are warning of a slump in production as crops from maize to salad greens suffer under extreme heat, drought and wildfires. Olive groves have been especially hard hit as temperatures climb to fresh record highs, and the outlet reports the cost of olive oil — already elevated — is expected to rise again as a result. This price claim, too, comes from the Guardian's live coverage alone and has not been independently corroborated by this desk.
The two stories are really one story: a climate that is no longer cooperating with the systems, agricultural and industrial, that Europe built for a cooler world. Reactors need cool river water. Olive trees need a Mediterranean climate that behaves like it used to. Neither assumption holds the way it once did, and the bills — at the pump, at the power plant, in the grocery aisle — are starting to come due together, if the reporting holds up under further scrutiny.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE —
— Compiled from reporting by the Guardian.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."