The Coming Energy Collapse In France
Heatwave putters out, will other nuclear powers follow suit?
For rampant pro-nuclear lobbyists, today’s highlight by ZeroHedge comes as a blow, which is about France being forced to reduce nuclear usage due to the European heatwave drying up the water supply used for cooling in the systems.
As noted by Bloomberg, nuclear plants on the Rhone and Garonne rivers will reduce output due to the heatwave increasing river temperatures, making them too hot to use in nuclear condensers and then be discharged back into waterways. The St. Alban plant was named specifically.
A Stanford study back in 2019 detailed why releasing heated water back into rivers is extremely problematic, including:
A decrease in dissolved oxygen levels (warm water holds less; causes decomposition to happen faster consuming more)
Rise in pH levels
Algae blooms, blocking sunlight to river life
Accelerates metabolism of cold blooded animals, causing them to need more food or starve
This can cause a run-away oxygen starvation event in the river, killing off all the fish there, which isn’t a particularly good idea if you’re facing a food shortage as well.
It’s been ironically touted as an alternative to overheating solar panels, however it is worth noting all energy production systems are adversely impacted by extensive heat, and so this isn’t really a valid criticism of any energy system.
Back in 2021, France had declared they would continue to use nuclear for years. According to pro-nuclear world-nuclear.org, France derives 70% of their power from nuclear energy, and announced in February 2022 - the same month the Ukraine war started - that they planned to build 6 new reactors with a follow-up of a further 8.
Only 28 days earlier - back in July 7th 2022 - the French government announced it would re-nationalise their biggest nuclear energy provider, EDF (Électricité de France) in order to try to weather the energy crisis. Whether or not the issues are a result of re-nationalisation is not clear.
This follows gas shortage warnings from France, even as they announced their gas reserves as 80% full and were previously called out for increasing their gas imports from Russia. Even before the declared nuclear crisis, back in July 20th 2022, France had asked their citizens to do what they can to save power, including turning off street lights. They’re now considering letting people burn cooking oils in diesel cars in order to deal with the price crunch.
All the warning signs are there that France is about to face an energy grid collapse.
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