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Comment by ajmurmann | Hacker News Reader

I think the biggest impact for Germany is gonna be economical from shipping. Much of Germany's industry is along the Rhine and they get their raw materials via barge on the Rhine. The Rhine is already close to all time low which reduces capacity and increases cost. Usually low water happens between August and November. It was already close to record low in July! I wouldn't be surprised if shipping will have to stop entirely some time this year.

I watched a report that has an interview with the CEO of a cereal factory. They get all their wheat via barges. He said they already paid €100k extra this year for low-water surcharges for shipping and that they'd need 6,500 trucks annually if they'd replace the barges with trucks.

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Yes, although it's nowhere near as bad as the Danube, whose level sits at currently -93cm [0] - a record low which meant the nation's nuclear reactors had to be scaled back to just a single turbine and was only a few centimeters away from having to completely shut down as the intakes for the cooling pump sit at a certain level - this water level was apparently mentioned as a 1 per 100.000 year event in the risk management.

[0]: https://www.vizugy.hu/?mapModule=OpGrafikon&AllomasVOA=16496...

Note that even before it's been running at down to 10% of capacity due to the draught.

Yeah. Bad timing that this also coincides with a period where the rail system is in chaos, and running beyond capacity due to overdue upgrades.

I think you can select any day, week, or month and the rail system in Germany will always be in chaos.

That was not generally true before the system upgrades started. It's been true for a while though.

I didn't mean short-term bad timing, I mean it's bad that we're getting hit by increasing droughts in the same decade the train system hit its breaking point and needed fixing.

It's been true for at least 16 years though, admittedly - it's gotten even worse since Corona

Neglect of the rail systems has been true for over 16 years, but there was distinctly less chaos before 2020, because the systems were just left in operation as they rotted.

Post pandemic, it was decided that they had to fix it, at the same time that there's been a sustained surge in ridership. The operations to fix the rail network combined with decay, combined with higher ridership than ever before is what causes the chaos.

On news there was a message from Siemens about 500 t turbines, which can be transported best only by Rhine.

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