{"id":63889,"date":"2026-08-11T15:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/63889\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T15:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:22:10","slug":"jellyfish-force-shutdown-of-three-reactors-at-frances-gravelines-nuclear-power-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/63889\/","title":{"rendered":"Jellyfish force shutdown of three reactors at France’s Gravelines nuclear power plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

A nuclear plant in northern France shut down three reactors after a swarm of jellyfish clogged pumps used to cool the units, energy group EDF said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Three reactors were taken offline on Monday and output at a fourth was cut by half, EDF said in a statement, leaving just one operating at full capacity.<\/p>\n

A sixth reactor was already offline for scheduled maintenance.<\/p>\n

“This situation has no impact on the safety of the facilities, the safety of personnel, or the environment,” said EDF.<\/p>\n

France has seen nuclear power production disrupted by multiple heatwaves and droughts this year, with EDF shutting down several reactors in June and July because of extreme heat.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/p>\n

View of the Gravelines nuclear power station, 28 September, 2025 – AP Photo<\/p>\n

On Sunday, before the latest closures, France recorded a shortfall of 15.6% in nuclear power production, according to AFP calculations based on EDF data published since 2015.<\/p>\n

The Gravelines nuclear power plant, near the northern city of Dunkirk, is the largest in Western Europe, with six 900-megawatt reactors.<\/p>\n

The nuclear power plant was temporarily taken offline a year ago after jellyfish clogged its seawater pumping stations.<\/p>\n

Swarms of jellyfish have also forced nuclear plants to shut down elsewhere, including a three-day closure in Sweden in 2013 and a 1999 incident in Japan that caused a major drop in output.<\/p>\n

Experts say overfishing, plastic pollution and warming seas due to climate change have created conditions allowing jellyfish to thrive and reproduce.<\/p>\n

This text was translated with the help of artificial intelligence. Report a problem : [feedback-articles-en@euronews.com].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nuclear plant in northern France shut down three reactors after a swarm of jellyfish clogged pumps used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12859],"tags":[8739,4250,39631,8737,1329,39630],"class_list":["post-63889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-electricite-de-france","tag-edf","tag-electricite-de-france","tag-jellyfish","tag-nuclear-plant","tag-nuclear-power","tag-reactors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}