“Suddenly the Air Starts to Sparkle”
As South Korean and Chinese battery makers break ground in Hungary, locals face the environmental costs.
MARCH 21, 2023
Over the past decade, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government has made it a priority to turn the country into one of Europe’s top producers of batteries for electric vehicles. To do so, the government has declared “special economic zones” for industrial development across the country, in several cases forcibly appropriating privately held agricultural land and utterly transforming previously quiet residential areas into industrial manufacturing hubs. All of this is part of a concerted effort to lure South Korean and Chinese technology giants to build megafactories in Hungary. Currently, there are battery factories in 17 places across the country, many of which represent multibillion-dollar investments in the transition to electric vehicles; Orbán’s government has marshaled approximately 308 billion forints (about $850 million) in public funds toward the development of domestic battery production.
The battery factories have already exacted a high environmental cost upon their surrounding communities. In the cities and towns where they have sprung up, residents have reported chemical contamination of the soil and groundwater, disruptive noise at all hours and the decimation of farmlands. In some towns, mothers have taken to the streets to march against the environmental dangers of the factories, and in others, residents have simply packed up and moved away in order to distance themselves from the pollution. The government maintains that the factories are necessary to meet its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Local opposition to the battery factories has recently been gaining momentum as more Hungarian towns find themselves playing host to foreign manufacturing entities.
Since 2021, I have been investigating the social and environmental effects of Hungary’s rural industrialization. My journalism has exposed instances of corruption, fraud, and environmental damage—issue that all too often are overlooked by local media. I have documented the ongoing pollution crisis that has resulted from the surge of battery factories in Hungary, in an attempt to hold those responsible for their construction—and those enriched by their production—to account. (I am also the head of the local environmental association.)
This timeline represents my findings from over a decade of investigating battery production in Hungary and the political forces behind the industrialization, as well as nearly a decade of civil society efforts to push back against the development.
Residents of Göd, Hungary, are informed that Samsung has chosen their small town as the location of its next battery manufacturing plant. Located on the banks of the Danube, some 30 kilometers north of Budapest, Göd has a population of approximately 18,600. In an announcement about the new plant, Samsung says the Göd factory will supplement its existing battery production facilities in Ulsan, South Korea, and Xi’an, China. The new location, the company explains, has been specifically selected to facilitate Samsung’s access to European car manufacturers. It plans to construct the plant on the grounds of a previously existing Samsung factory in Göd that had specialized in plasma TV panels and mobile phone displays.
Construction of the new Samsung SDI Electric Vehicle Battery Plant concludes. At a ceremony celebrating the occasion, Orbán tours the new facility alongside Samsung SDI President Jun Young-hyun. Both men wear white lab coats. Orbán declares that “the future has moved to Göd,” and says he plans to turn Hungary into a battery-producing “superpower.”
In a press release, Samsung SDI states that “Europe is leading the global EV market with its environment-friendly policy.”
A Hungarian government decree designates 150 parcels of land in Göd as an “investment target area.” The land includes the archaeological remains of an ancient Roman fortress, a protected heritage site. An 80-hectare area, composed of agricultural land and a forest, is declared an “industrial zone.” The forest is cut down, and the owners of the arable land are presented with a choice: accept a payoff below market price or enter into years of litigation against the government. Hungarian authorities say they will plant a new forest nearby. Electrolyte solutions, which are necessary for the batteries to produce electricity, are stored in a facility 15 meters away from residential buildings.
An environmental safety monitoring system is installed in Göd. Samsung offers to cover the cost.
The Samsung factory was built 50 metres from the residential area of Göd-Újtelep. (Photo by Zsuzsa Bodnár)
October 2019
Csaba Balogh, of the Momentum Movement, an opposition party, is elected the mayor of Göd. He won the seat from József Markó, a member of Orbán’s Fidesz party, who had been accommodating to Samsung. (Markó did not reply to The Dial’s request for comment.)
At a public hearing on the factory’s planned expansion, Balogh asks a representative from the Pest County Directorate of Disaster Recovery why the directorate had claimed that the distance separating the factory from the residential areas of Göd was “not abnormally short.” The factory’s 200-ton electrolyte storage area is only 15 meters away from the nearest house. The amount of hazardous material stored there would soon be increasing by 666 tons. (The Pest County Directorate of Disaster Recovery did not reply to The Dial’s request for comment.)
By this time, 4,000 people work at the Göd plant. Roughly half are Hungarians, and the rest are guest workers from Ukraine, China, Romania and South Korea.
A government decree declares 20% of the Göd area to be a special economic zone. This means that jurisdiction of the territory — including the factory and slated future expansions — will be taken away from the local government and transferred to the Pest County assembly, which is run by Orbán’s Fidesz party. Thanks to this decree, Samsung no longer has to bring its proposals for major factory expansions and developments before compulsory town hearings. It also allows the Pest County assembly to discontinue ongoing negotiations with the municipality over the factory’s future. Tax revenue from the Samsung factory will be apportioned by the Pest government, giving it the power to favor municipalities loyal to the ruling party. (The Pest Country Assembly did not reply to The Dial’s request for comment.)
On his Facebook page, Balogh writes that the decree is a death sentence for his town. “We will not give up Göd!” he swears. The decision, he explains, means that Samsung could “cut down a larger forest than before, push the factory fence to the edge of the residential park, [and] the noise, the dust, the truck traffic, the new thousands of workers who will work here will all burden Göd.” The residents of the town adopt “We will not give up Göd” as the slogan of their peaceful protest against Samsung. The words appear throughout the town on the residential walls and fences.
A resident of Göd who lives 800 meters away from the factory reports that “on a busy day, the noise level is similar to that of the Chicago airport.” The “protective forest” that was supposed to be built to insulate the city from the factory noise is nowhere to be seen. Samsung issues an environmental report that says it is implementing “noise reduction measures.” Nevertheless, the factory continues to expand.
Residents liken the continuous hum of the factory to “the spin of a washing machine behind a closed door.” One resident reports that her children “woke up crying at 4 a.m. on December 7, complaining that they couldn’t sleep because of the noise.” She says that their 6-year-old stayed home from school that day because he was so exhausted; he had not been able to sleep because of all the noise.
The factory begins working only at full capacity at night. The noise starts around 9 to 10 p.m. and then switches to “turbo gear” from midnight to dawn, making it impossible for hundreds of Göd residents to sleep.
A state inspection reveals that unlicensed production has been taking place in several zones of the factory. The county authority fines Samsung 1 million forints ($2,700) and orders it to stop producing without a license.
Over the summer, several fires and other safety incidents are reported at the factory. Balogh announces that there was also an electrolyte leak from the production facility. Samsung authorities say the leak will “not cause environmental pollution.”
Péter Szijjártó, the Hungarian minister of foreign affairs and trade, convenes the first Hungary Battery Day conference in Budapest. Representatives of over 130 industrial companies attend. The event coincides with the release of the government’s National Battery Industry Strategy 2030, which emphasizes the creation of a socially and environmentally sustainable battery supply chain to fulfill Hungary’s goal of reaching net-zero climate emissions by 2050. (Szijjártó did not reply to The Dial’s request for comment.)
After a 27-year-old maintenance worker is killed in an elevator accident at the factory, Samsung is fined 3 million forints ($8,296) for occupational safety deficiencies.
Samsung announces plans to build a 12-kilometer pipeline to transport the factory’s industrial wastewater. As planned, the pipeline will run through nature conservation and residential areas, and next to a school and playground. The plans state that the wastewater will be treated in the nearby town of Vác, which also happens to supply the surrounding region with drinking water. Authorities promise that industrial wastewater and drinking water will be channeled through separate pipelines.
Inspections reveal that fire equipment is either missing or defective in parts of the plant. Inspectors find dangerous materials that have been stored without a disaster protection permit.
A sign on the fence outside of Samsung's factory in Göd. (Photo by Zsuzsa Bodnár)
April/May 2022
An independent expert study commissioned by the local environmental association and carried out in an accredited laboratory lithium and a toxic solvent used for battery production in well water in Göd. The solvent is identified as N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), a colorless liquid often used in the petrochemical industry. Experts say the NMP may have been emitted from the factory as an air pollutant that eventually fell to the ground as chemical rain. Others suggest that toxic water seeped through the soil and into the well, which is 14 meters deep. According to the National Environmental Information System, the Göd battery factory emitted 354 kilograms of NMP in 2020. Although it is not known how the material got into the water, it cannot be ruled out that the chemicals came from the Samsung factory.
(“The issues you asked about have been resolved as the company faithfully followed guidelines and regulations by the Hungarian government,” a Samsung representative said in a statement. “For example, there was a Hungarian media report about NMP in '21, but a government investigation following the report in '21 and another one in '23 found no NMP in the well water near the plant.” Samsung did not provide any evidence for this claim.
“Regarding the environment and safety issues, Samsung SDI is strictly complying with the Hungarian rules and regulations.”)
Previously, the mayor Balogh had requested water and soil test results from the Pest County Directorate of Disaster Recovery. He was refused on the grounds that the test results are the “intellectual property” of the company conducting the tests, and that they are classified as decision-making documents of ongoing water law licensing procedures, and therefore cannot be made public.
The Pest County Labor Inspectorate fines Samsung 10 million forint (about $28,000) for seriously endangering its employees. A report finds that workers suffered from increased exposure to various air pollutants for months, and that the company violated regulations regarding carcinogenic substances. The factory’s air pollution filter equipment is found to be faulty, and the presence of various respirable dusts, metals and volatile organic compounds — the exact names of the substances are obscured in the report — are found to have exceeded the permissible limit on several occasions and in several work areas. In addition, the report states, the company did not keep records of when workers had been exposed to dangerous and carcinogenic substances, did not ensure the use of appropriate protective equipment, did not ensure the cleaning of work tools contaminated with carcinogenic substances, and did not properly prepare a chemical risk assessment.
According to the Ministry of Technology and Industry, which was in charge of environmental protection at the time, drinking water tests of the Göd network found no evidence of pollution. The ministry says that the drinking water in Göd is fine. (This ministry has since been dissolved. The new Ministry of Energy did not reply to The Dial’s request for comment.)
The Chinese battery company Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) announces plans to build Europe’s largest battery factory in the Hungarian city of Debrecen, which is located 200 kilometers east of Göd, near the Romanian border. CATL says the factory will cost €7.34 billion. European carmakers including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Stellantis and Volkswagen are among the companies slated to acquire batteries from the plant.
At a public meeting in the northwestern town of Győrszentiván, located along Hungary’s border with Slovakia, citizens protest the planned construction of a battery factory in their area. A petition against the expansion of the local industrial park garners 5,585 signatures; at the meeting, residents boo government officials for their support of the project. The Fidesz mayor, Csaba András Dézsi, argues that the political opposition is organizing the town against the industrial project, and warns residents against “political incitement.”
Residents start to move away from the Göd area to distance themselves from the factory. “Suddenly the air starts to sparkle,” one former resident recalled in an interview. “Particles formed on the water. We didn’t want to be close to a facility like that — we were within 1 kilometer of it.”
Wastewater was leaking from the factory building into public areas. (Photo by Zsuzsa Bodnár)
At an annual public meeting in the village of Mikepércs — which sits just outside of Debrecen, next to the planned location of the CATL factory — several local engineers, chemists and biologists express concerns about the plant’s environmental effects. Mayor Zoltán Timár, who belongs to Orbán’s Fidesz party, promises to bring their questions before government authorities and says he is willing to go to court to protect the health of his constituents. Before construction starts, he says, the city will build monitoring systems to check the air and water quality.
A group of mothers from Mikepércs organizes a protest march to the center of Debrecen. Hundreds of people join them. “We don’t want a battery factory!” they chant. Enikő Gyöngy-Tóth, one of the organizers of the march, takes the mic and says, “I am a mother, not the political opposition.” A solemn crowd of protestors stares back at her in solidarity. Among them, one man holds up a handwritten sign, reading: “There is something more powerful than money: earth, air, water, and health!”
Public hearing on the Safety Report of the Samsung SDI Göd plant held in Göd on January 31, 2023. (Photo by Dénes Balogh/Átlátszó)
February 2023
The Environmental Protection Department of the Hajdú-Bihar County Government Office issues an environmental permit for the CATL megafactory in Debrecen. ("The investment must meet the strictest environmental conditions and pass through the most meticulous permitting procedures," a representative for the government office said to The Dial in a statement.) The construction of the factory has now become one of the most divisive political issues in Hungary.
This article is the result of The Dial’s partnership with Átlátszó, a Hungarian investigative journalism nonprofit. You can read more of Átlátszó’s reporting here (available in English and Hungarian).