Romania shuts only nuclear plant as heat causes drop in Danube River level
bbc.com
bbc.com
Record heat is drying up Europe's major rivers, as these striking images show
"In March 2021 Nuclearelectrica stated it expected to commission unit 3 by 2031, starting construction in about 2024. The largely-new reactors will be updated versions of the CANDU 6, but not the full EC6 version, since the concrete structures are already built. Unit 3 was reported to be 52% completed and 30% for unit 4, though in 2017 the reported figures were 15% and 14%. They would have an operating lifetime of 30 years with the possibility of a 25-year extension."¹
CANDU 6 is open cycle. EC6 can work in a closed cycle with cooling towers. One just doesn't simply make alterations to nuclear power plant designs without the appropriate design, testing and certification. Unit 1 was also completed in 1996, so it's at near the end of its planned operating lifetime.
The Indian PHWR developed from the CANDU can also work in a closed loop.
For Romania there are other solutions, like redirecting flow through the Old Danube branch, which they already attempted through rock blasting and sinking a bunch of rock filled barges in order to buy two more weeks before shutting down the plant. This, of course, comes at a cost for shipping traffic.
> Make and model CANDU 6
> Unit 1, a CANDU 6-type,
> Four years later, Unit 2, another CANDU 6-reactor, achieved criticality