4 ms·

Didn't France also have to literally shut down a nuclear plant because of the drought last year or so? As climate change escalates, having a power plant you nee

• littlestymaar 2y ago
  Yes, but not for the reasons you think: none of the river the plants is built on ran dry, and given that we're talking about France biggest river, if they eventually do we would have much bigger problems that shutting down the riverside plants anyway (keep in mind that you van build nuclear plants on seashores as well, and we do for roughly half of them). The reasons why we shut down (or reduce the power, more often) of some nuclear plants during summer is because we set environmental limits in terms of river temperatures, to protect wildlife. This is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but it's also am example of the incredibly high bar we put on nuclear operations on every aspects (which we could afford for years, because how efficient they are compared to pretty much any other industries). Another example of that is how coal plants are actually allowed to, and do, emit more radioactive elements in their neighborhood than what's allowed for an NPP. I wish more industries (and agriculture) would be set to such high environmental constraints but in the meantime there's a clear imbalance against nuclear (the fact that leveling entire forests for coal mining or to install solar fields is allowed, despite being much more damageable in comparison to localized increase in water temperature never cease to appall me).