A swarm of jellyfish has forced the shutdown of one of France's largest nuclear power plants after the creatures clogged the water intake systems used for cooling. The Gravelines plant in northern France automatically shut down three reactors on Sunday when the filter drums of the pumping stations became packed with the marine life.
A fourth reactor followed suit shortly after, taking the entire plant offline. The facility, capable of powering about five million homes, had already lost two other reactors for planned summer maintenance. Operator EDF said the event did not affect safety, staff or the environment, and there was no change to electricity exports to the UK.
The Gravelines plant draws cooling water from a canal connected to the North Sea, where native jellyfish species are common in warmer summer months. Jellyfish have a long history of disrupting coastal power stations globally, including the Torness nuclear plant in Scotland, which was forced to shut for a week in 2021 and again in 2011 due to jellyfish clogging water intake filters.
Similar incidents have occurred at nuclear and coal plants in Sweden, the US, Japan and the Philippines. In September, eastern China's largest coal-fired power plant had to battle for ten days to clear more than 150 tonnes of jellyfish from its cooling systems after a surge overwhelmed them.
