Romania is today sinking four barges loaded with stone into the bed of the Danube. Not because of an accident, but by design. The aim is to redirect the flow of water so it reaches the Cernavoda nuclear plant, whose first reactor has already been shut down - simply because there was not enough water for cooling.

The state water company said the barges would be sunk after 2pm. This is the second such intervention in a matter of days. Before it, the Romanian army detonated the Parjoaia rock to turn the river's course towards the Old Danube branch and thereby supply the plant. Acting Defence Minister Radu Miruta said the operation was successful.

Two centimetres as a war bulletin

The result, according to experts: the Danube level in the Cernavoda area is stable, the daily drop of two centimetres has been halted, and a slight rise of two centimetres was then recorded. That is the entire yield of blowing a rock into the air.

The forecast, however, does not change much. The National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management predicts a further daily drop of two to three centimetres, meaning that by 9 August the level is expected at minus 233 centimetres. In other words: the river will keep retreating faster than the army can put water back into it.

The calculation that justifies the dynamite

Miruta explained the maths openly, and the sentence is worth reading twice: "An additional day of operation at the Cernavoda plant is around three times more financially efficient than the cost of these operations, that is, of demolishing the rock."

Translated: one day of electricity is worth three times more than blowing up a rock and sinking four barges. That is accurate, and that is exactly what makes it alarming. When blowing up a riverbed is economically worthwhile, we are not looking at resourcefulness - we are looking at a system running on a margin so thin that any extraordinary move pays for itself.

Ten percent less electricity

Shutting down Cernavoda's first unit cut domestic energy production by ten percent this week. If the second unit goes too - and the falling flow carries exactly that risk - the blow to domestic electricity generation will be significant.

This is where the story stops being Romanian. South-eastern Europe is an interwoven electricity grid, and ten percent less production in one state does not stay in that state. The region imports and exports power depending on who has a surplus at any given moment. When summer switches off a neighbour's reactors, nobody stays a mere observer.

Romania is throwing stone into a river today to buy a few more days of one reactor's operation. The question hanging over the whole basin is simple: what gets thrown in next summer?