nuclear-news

Warming Europe complicates France’s bet on nuclear power

Extreme heat is forcing the country to shut down nuclear reactors, just as the appetite for cheap, carbon-free electricity is set to explode.

July 13, 2026 ,By Giorgio Leali and Nicolas Camut, https://www.politico.eu/article/warming-europe-complicate-france-nuclear-power/

PARIS — A summer of fierce heat waves in France is fueling concerns about whether the country’s nuclear energy infrastructure can survive life on the planet’s fastest-warming continent.

Monday’s broiling temperatures in France forced EDF to stop three of France’s 57 nuclear reactors and reduce production in another seven, the state-owned utility provider said in a statement. When the mercury rose to record-breaking levels last month, a trio of reactors went offline and five were slowed down, causing an 8.7 percent dip in power production just as air conditioners caused a rise in electricity demand. 

None of the shutdowns caused power outages, so we’re a long way from offline reactors plunging people into the dark ages.

But the appetite for France’s cheap, carbon-free electricity is about to explode. Paris has in recent years tried to leverage its abundant nuclear power to court promising, energy-intensive industries like artificial intelligence and cloud computing, hoping new investments in these fields can kickstart a moribund economy.

“Our citizens need to have complete trust in our ability to produce even under these circumstances,” EDF CEO Bernard Fontana said earlier this month.

Politically, the dividing lines have been drawn as expected. Supporters of nuclear power, such as Energy Minister Maud Bregeon and prominent MEP Christophe Grudler, have expressed confidence in the resilience of plants across the country.

“What we are living is ordinary,” Bregeon, who also serves as government spokesperson, said in an interview with radio station RTL on Monday. “Every year nuclear plants face a power reduction when the temperature goes above a certain threshold.”

Opponents of nuclear power, like the far-left France Unbowed, call into question whether its widespread use — nuclear power provides France with about 60 percent of its electricity — is sustainable.

“The situation we are experiencing today should open all of our eyes. Nuclear power is not resilient to climate change,” high-ranking France Unbowed lawmaker Manuel Bompard said Monday.

Analysts, meanwhile, remain sanguine about France’s big bet on nuclear power.

“France has a surplus of low-carbon electricity that could indeed be partly absorbed by data centers. But predicting exactly how much electricity future data centers will require is extremely hard,” said Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, head of the Jacques Delors Institute’s energy center.

“Still, even with more stops due to heat waves, as long as the existing nuclear fleet is authorized to extend its lifetime, there will probably be no problems.”

Warm rivers and jellyfish

Rising temperatures affect nuclear power plants because they rely on rivers and oceans to draw in water to cool reactors and release the warmer water back out. During a heat wave, water gets hotter and scarcer, complicating power production.

Last summer, the Gravelines plant in northern France was forced to halt operations at four reactors because of a climate-change-fueled jellyfish invasion near where seawater was pumped in. To avoid the same problem this summer, EDF installed cameras and has fishing boats ready to be deployed.

All of the shutdowns this summer have been triggered at riverside plants to protect nearby marine life and biodiversity from the dangers of excessively hot water, not problems with the plants themselves.

EDF plans to invest €8.7 billion between now and 2040 to adapt its nuclear reactors to a warmer France, including by expanding the use of so-called “cooling towers.”

The first such towers were installed near the city of Poitiers, at the Civaux nuclear plant along the Vienne River, where traditionally low water levels have exacerbated climate-related problems. But the cooling towers there use ventilators to chill water by 3 to 7 degrees Celsius before it is reinjected into the Vienne.

“EDF is anticipating the impacts of climate change on its facilities through detailed modeling that extends through the end of the century,” the company said in a statement to POLITICO.

Nuclear expansion

Construction of six new reactors, which are expected to cost more than €80 billion, is underway, and the government is expected to decide by the end of the year whether to build another eight on top of those.

To minimize the risk of local opposition, authorities plan to build any new reactors alongside existing plants. Four of those being built are located at two seaside sites.

Climate change will likely play a decisive role in choosing future locations.

“The water issue is one of the key factors in determining which sites to select,” confirmed one senior French official, who was granted anonymity to speak about the confidential selection procedure, which will conclude by the end of the year.

Grudler, who chairs a cross-party group of pro-nuclear lawmakers in the European Parliament, concurred.

“It is certain that climate change is taken into account in deciding the location of new plants. If you invest €13 billion in a site and it becomes obsolete the very next day because there isn’t enough water to cool the core, the investment is not right,” he said.

Former energy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who helped draw up Macron’s nuclear energy policy during his second term, is confident that the government can find a sufficient number of sites for new nuclear plants, even if “it won’t happen in the blink of an eye.”

“Nuclear power plants have been designed with an overemphasis on safety and security. They are in fact much more robust […] than many other facilities in our energy system,” she said, citing concerns over the electric grid.

“Of course, it needs to be factored into the to-do list, but it isn’t a challenge that stands out on the critical path of nuclear power plant construction,” said Pannier-Runacher.

July 18, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, France