Low Rivers, High Stakes: Europe's Nuclear Cooling Crisis
Iraq Wants to Double Oil Output—and Needs OPEC to Get Out of the Way Felicity Bradstock is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City.
She writes for energy websites and covers several other industries, as well as writing… The extreme heat experienced across Europe in recent weeks has caused widespread disruption to nuclear power plants.
Governments across the region have been forced to take extraordinary measures to keep nuclear facilities operating, but some are failing to meet their goals, with river levels at record lows.
This is expected to have a significant impact on Europe’s GDP, with economic losses in the billions.
Europe has endured five heatwaves so far this summer, bringing record temperatures, prolonged drought, and wildfires, with many of these phenomena occurring in areas not typically prone to such severe weather.
This has led governments to ration water and issue warnings to reduce the risk of wildfires, as seen recently with thenational emergency alertissued in the United Kingdom.
The low water levels in many rivers across Europe, due to prolonged drought and temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius, are affecting the operation of the region’s nuclear power plants.
Nuclear facilities convert only about one-third of the heat generated in a nuclear reactor into electricity, with the rest released into the environment via a cooling system, primarily into rivers or the sea.
However, whenrivers have a lower-than-usual water level, the waste heat is distributed across a smaller volume of water, causing the water temperature to increase faster.
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There are legal temperature limits in place to protect aquatic life, as warm water contains less oxygen.
This has caused several nuclear operators to reduce output or pause operations entirely in recent weeks to protect the local environment.
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