Gideon Long
speaker
121 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 24 Aug
Gideon Long’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 2.
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Business Daily · Follow the money: What a dry Danube means for Europe’s energy · 24 Aug 2026
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Yeah, it is a big figure and Verbund is not alone.
So in July, Italian energy company Edison cut its earnings forecast for the second time this year.
And that's in part because it says it generated 27% less electricity from hydro this year compared to last year.
And a lot of that is due to low water levels in the Alps.
And the big international bank ING has forecast that drought in Europe will shave at least 0.3 percentage points off economic growth in Germany this year.
That's due mostly to low water levels on the Rhine.
So this is by no means restricted to the Danube.
Yeah, so in a normal August, Hannah, around 4,000 cubic metres of water flow through the Iron Gate plant every second.
This year, just 1,350.
We contacted the company that operates the Serbian side of the plant, state-owned EPS, and it told us that Iron Gate is generating less than half
of the electricity it usually generates at this time of year, which is really bad news for Serbia because it relies on hydro for around a third of its electricity needs.
And as a result, the country is having to lean more heavily on coal-fired plants.
Generally, they don't.
But for one coal-fired plant in Serbia, the lack of water has been an issue this year.
This is the Kostolac plant in eastern Serbia.
It's on the Danube and it uses water from the river for cooling.
And for a few days in July, there just wasn't enough water to cool the plant.
So output at one of its units was reduced by a third.
Like the Iron Gate hydro plant, Kostolac is operated by EPS.
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