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France powers down several nuclear reactors due to extreme heat
- dotcoma 4mo agoDoesn’t happen to solar plants.
- sudb 4mo agoI was sure this couldn't be true but I couldn't find anything about high temperatures shutting down solar plants. But I did find something about a predicted grid overload during a sunny period requiring a solar plant to go offline: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/12/solar-farm-forced-to-shut-derril-water-biggest-grid-overload-fears https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/12/solar-fa...
- toomuchtodo 4mo agoBecause they need more battery storage, which Europe is rapidly building.
- netsharc 4mo agoJust redirect the solar power to cool the water going out of the nuclear powerplant. "Just". My 4th grade physics knowledge is telling me this doesn't work, because the heat energy from the water still has to go somewhere...
- selimthegrim 4mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27782370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27782370
- Rygian 4mo agoTheir nuclear reactor goes away every night though.
- fragmede 4mo agoObviously the solution to that is to put mirrors in space to reflect sunlight so their collectors also work at night.
- sugarkjube 4mo agoLooks like someone had the same idea https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/reflect-orbital-just-got-permission-to-launch-its-1st-space-mirror-to-orbit-tens-of-thousands-more-could-follow https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/reflect-o...
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- dotcoma 4mo agoPair them with wind power, that tends to blow more at night, and with batteries like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't unless we wake up!
- vitally3643 4mo agoIt does when it rains, or it's too cloudy, or it snows, or the panels are dirty. Or, y'know, nighttime.
- 486sx33 4mo ago[dead]
- tekla 4mo agoSo yeah in the mostly probable case that reading was not involved in many of the comments, they were not shut down for a technical issue but the govt stops them from discharging the water. All the reactor works fine and would work fine. Gov makes choice to let people hurt
- sugarkjube 4mo agoIndeed, it's mentioned in the article: "The measure is an environmental protection requirement to avoid discharging too much hot water into rivers already warming from the heatwave." France (and to a lesser extent large parts of europe) is currently suffering from an exceptional heat wave.
- notfromhere 4mo agoYou kinda don’t want to kill the whole river ecosystem. We need a functioning environment
- general1465 4mo agoCorrect, and they are discharging water because they cheapen out on not building cooling towers. So the issue is actually completely fixable, but it is a question if building cooling towers is cheaper than shutting down reactors for few weeks a year.
- waste_monk 4mo agoThey should figure out a way to use the heatwave to drive a turbine.
- raychis 4mo ago[flagged]