France powers down several nuclear reactors due to extreme heat

[_Microft]

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/07/12/france-powers-down-several-nuclear-reactors-due-to-extreme-heat_6755404_7.html

[tekla]

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 → tekla]

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.

[general1465 → tekla]

Correct, 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.

[notfromhere → tekla]

You kinda don’t want to kill the whole river ecosystem. We need a functioning environment

[waste_monk]

They should figure out a way to use the heatwave to drive a turbine.

[gus_massa → waste_monk]

You need a temperature difference, like a hot piece of radioactive material and cold water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics

[sph → waste_monk]

It’s always a problem of too much entropy.

[dotcoma]

Doesn’t happen to solar plants.

[Rygian → dotcoma]

Their nuclear reactor goes away every night though.

[fragmede → Rygian]

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

[sugarkjube → fragmede]

Looks like someone had the same idea https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/reflect-o...

[dotcoma → Rygian]

Pair 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!

[sudb → dotcoma]

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...

[toomuchtodo → sudb]

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

[sudb → toomuchtodo]

It can't come fast enough! I have a friend who works on battery storage in Europe and it sounds like an extremely busy time for them, which I'm glad for.

[2snakes → sudb]

Is it iron-air batteries?

[netsharc → sudb]

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...

[selimthegrim → netsharc]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27782370

[vitally3643 → dotcoma]

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