A “massive and unpredictable” swarm of jellyfish has caused one of the largest nuclear power plants in France to completely shut down.
According to the Guardian, the jellyfish swam into water intake systems at the Gravelines facility in Northern France. The resulting clog in the filters caused four of the plant's six pumping stations to cease operation. The other two were already shut down for maintenance, leaving the systems needed to cool the reactors completely offline.
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Luckily, energy company EDF said the marine mammal traffic jam happened in a non-nuclear section of the plant, so a radioactive disaster was averted. But the plant does provide power for up to five million homes, so a lengthy disruption could impact a lot of people.
Nuclear plants are often set up in coastal regions for easier access to the massive amounts of water needed to cool the facility. And that proximity to the jellyfish habitat means the invertebrates regularly gum up the works.
It’s enough of a recurring problem that the University of Bristol actually developed a tool for providing early warnings when nearby jellyfish congregations get too close to nuclear plants. Unfortunately, the jellyfish problem could be getting worse.
Derek Wright, a marine biology consultant at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Sky News that warming water and increased plankton in the North Sea is making the body of water much more hospitable to jellyfish breeding.
If the problem persists, will a jellyfish swarm eventually reach a nuclear reactor and mutate into a horde of giant radioactive sea creatures? Probably not, but just in case, the Oceanic Invertebrate Research Institute said additional strategies like chemical disbursement and active removal can be used to keep the jellyfish in the ocean where they belong.
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