Final Word from Monday, July 7, 2025
Industry Min. Lukáš Vlček of STAN told Czech TV on Sat. that the blackout on Fri. was a force majeure, which was his way of saying that the grid company owned 100% by his ministry, ČEPS, wasn't to blame. Vice Chair Svatopluk Vnouček of ČEPS was so worried about being pinned with the blame that he told Czech Radio on Fri. that there were four unrelated events that caused the outage. When pressed about this, ČEPS Chair Martin Durčák said on Sat. that the four events were related and that the first, a fallen line, caused the other three. Any investigation presumably now needs to determine why ČEPS, which reported record 2024 net profit of Kč 7.2bn on revenue of Kč 29.4bn, allowed a line to fall. Remember the shutdowns at the Dukovany and Temelín plants in 2015 resulting from bad welds? ČEZ CEO Daniel Beneš said in 2016 that the manipulation of weld X-rays wasn't a case of sloppiness, but of intentional fraud. Sounds like a reasonable starting point for the ČEPS investigation too. [ Czech Republic high-voltage cable Television nuclear repair maintenance ]
Glossary of difficult words
to weld - to join together (metal parts) by heating the surfaces to the point of melting with a blowpipe, electric arc or other means, and uniting them by pressing, hammering, etc.;
force majeure - unforeseeable circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract;
to pin someone with something - to attribute the blame or responsibility for something to someone;
sloppiness - excessive casualness.