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France powers down several nuclear reactors due to extreme heat
- dotcoma 2mo agoDoesn’t happen to solar plants.
- sudb 2mo 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 2mo agoBecause they need more battery storage, which Europe is rapidly building.
- netsharc 2mo 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 2mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27782370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27782370
- Rygian 2mo agoTheir nuclear reactor goes away every night though.
- fragmede 2mo agoObviously the solution to that is to put mirrors in space to reflect sunlight so their collectors also work at night.
- sugarkjube 2mo 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 2mo ago[deleted]
- dotcoma 2mo 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 2mo agoIt does when it rains, or it's too cloudy, or it snows, or the panels are dirty. Or, y'know, nighttime.
- 486sx33 2mo ago[dead]
- tekla 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo agoYou kinda don’t want to kill the whole river ecosystem. We need a functioning environment
- general1465 2mo 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 2mo agoThey should figure out a way to use the heatwave to drive a turbine.
- raychis 2mo ago[flagged]