Massive jellyfish swarm shuts down France’s largest nuclear plant

A massive swarm of jellyfish forced the complete shutdown of France’s largest nuclear power plant, Gravelines, located in northern France. The jellyfish clogged the plant’s cooling water intake systems, causing an automatic halt to three reactors, followed by a fourth reactor going offline, leaving the entire facility—capable of powering about 5 million homes—out of operation. Two other reactors were already offline for scheduled maintenance. EDF, the French state-owned energy company operating the plant, described the jellyfish invasion as “massive and unpredictable” but confirmed that the shutdown posed no safety risks to staff, the environment, or the public. Electricity exports from France to the UK were also unaffected. The Gravelines plant draws cooling water from a canal connected to the North Sea, where jellyfish species thrive in warmer summer waters. Jellyfish blooms, often triggered by rising sea temperatures and changing ocean currents, can overwhelm the filters at power plants, disrupting the vital flow of seawater needed to maintain reactor temperatures. Such