France powers down several nuclear reactors due to extreme heat

France powers down several nuclear reactors due to extreme heat(lemonde.fr)

19 points by _Microft 4 hours ago | 11 comments

tekla 2 hours ago |

So 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 1 hour ago | |

Indeed, 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.

dotcoma 4 hours ago |

Doesn’t happen to solar plants.

Rygian 2 hours ago | |

Their nuclear reactor goes away every night though.

fragmede 2 hours ago | | |

Obviously the solution to that is to put mirrors in space to reflect sunlight so their collectors also work at night.

sudb 3 hours ago | |

I 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-fa...

netsharc 2 hours ago | | |

Just 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...

toomuchtodo 3 hours ago | | |

Because they need more battery storage, which Europe is rapidly building.

vitally3643 1 hour ago | |

It does when it rains, or it's too cloudy, or it snows, or the panels are dirty. Or, y'know, nighttime.