Hungary’s new prime minister Péter Magyar has questioned the sustainability and transparency of the contract for the construction of the Paks nuclear power station expansion project, but Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom has said work at the site is proceeding according to schedule.

Magyar was reported by local media as saying plans for two new Russia-supplied reactors at Paks II were accepted despite the fact that plants that do not operate with a closed-circuit cooling system “are no longer being built in the world”.

A closed-circuit cooling system reuses cooling water by routing it through a condenser to absorb waste steam heat, and then through a cooling tower or artificial pond to release that heat into the air via evaporation before pumping it back to the plant.