Can France’s nuclear legacy weather climate change?
The delicate-looking water primrose, an invasive aquatic plant with golden, daisy-like flowers,brought unit 4 at the 3.6 GW Cruas nuclear power plant in southern France to a grinding halt.
In recent years, extreme heat, droughts and warmer
rivers have repeatedly disrupted operations, forcing EDF to reduce output
or shut down reactors at sites along the Garonne and the Rhone. During the
record 2022 heatwave, the government even issued exceptional exemptions so several plants could temporarily exceed environmental discharge limits to avoid potential blackouts.
What’s driving the concern?
River temperatures regularly reaching regulatory thresholds; More frequent
droughts limiting cooling water; Increased ecological pressure on already
stressed river basins; Data showing production cuts clustering in summer
when demand is highest.
France’s Court of Auditors and climate agencies
warn that such shutdowns could become three to four times more common by 2050. EDF says annual impacts remain small overall, but seasonal risks are rising. With an ageing fleet and new reactors planned, the question is how resilient France’s nuclear system can remain in a rapidly warming climate
Montel News 30th Oct 2025, https://montelnews.com/news/2e2e5374-e4ef-433a-ac00-1f2d049478c0/can-france-s-nuclear-legacy-weather-climate-change-2
How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling
Research shows oil, gas and coal
firms’ unprecedented access to Cop26-29, blocking urgent climate action.
After years of campaigning by civil society groups, Cop delegates this year
are being asked to publicly disclose who is funding their participation –
and confirm that their objectives are in alignment with the UNFCCC.
But the new transparency requirement excludes anyone in official government delegations or overflows, and calls for stricter conflict of interest protections to cut industry influence have not been adequately heeded, advocates say.
Guardian 7th Nov 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/07/fossil-fuel-lobbyists-cop-un-climate
Siting new nuclear at Oldbury deemed ‘problematic’ due to high level of flood risk.
06 Nov, 2025 By Tom Pashby
Maps based on climate data show that land next to the Oldbury nuclear power station, which is being assessed by the government for potentially building small modular reactors (SMRs), is projected to be below the annual flood level by 2050.
The maps also show that land at Wylfa
in North Wales, the other site being considered by the government for
potentially deploying SMRs, will remain above water. Meanwhile, inland
areas at Sizewell C in Suffolk will also be inundated by 2050.
Paul Dorfman said, “…although these coastal flood maps are based on measured local sea surface and local sea-level rise forecasts (plus the height above sea-level of defined local flood types), since they are not based on physical storm and flood simulations, risk from actual extreme flood events may be far greater.
Dorfman added: “The more that we know about
climate-driven sea level rise-driven storm surges, which is when the high
tide meets certain atmospheric conditions, the more we’re beginning to be
deeply concerned about the siting for vulnerable infrastructure such as
nuclear power plants.”
New Civil Engineer 6th Nov 2025,
THE CORRUPTION OF COP30: DODGY CLIMATE DOSSIERS
Here we go again: the annual end-of-year COP fandango is upon us. This
particular Conference of the Parties (signatories to the original Framework
Convention on Climate Change back in 1992) happens to be in Brazil —
generally deemed to be a more sympathetic host country than its two
petrostate predecessors Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates.
That may
be true (although rates of deforestation in the Amazon are on the up
again), but COP30 will be just as resounding a failure (as in making not a
ha’p’orth of difference) as the 29 other COPs that have gone before it.
There are many reasons for this: geopolitical, financial, technological and
so on. But I want to look at one aspect that rarely gets mentioned: almost
every single delegate at COP30 will be focused on dodgy data – on things
like the targets set by governments through their revised Nationally
Determined Contributions, or on average temperature increases projected
through to the end of the century (1.5°C and all that jazz), or on endless
attention-grabbing voluntary initiatives about this, that or the other
technology or nature-based ‘solutions’.
Jonathon Porritt 6th Nov 2025, https://jonathonporritt.com/cop30-corruption-dodgy-climate-data/
‘Change course now’: humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN head
‘Devastating consequences’ now inevitable but emissions
cuts still vital, says António Guterres in sole interview before Cop30.
Humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course
immediately, the secretary general of the UN has warned. In his only
interview before next month’s Cop30 climate summit, António Guterres
acknowledged it is now “inevitable” that humanity will overshoot the
target in the Paris climate agreement, with “devastating consequences”
for the world. He urged the leaders who will gather in the Brazilian
rainforest city of Belém to realise that the longer they delay cutting
emissions, the greater the danger of passing catastrophic “tipping
points” in the Amazon, the Arctic and the oceans.
Guardian 28th Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/28/change-course-now-humanity-has-missed-15c-climate-target-says-un-head
UN CLIMATE TALKS -Revealed: Only a third of national climate pledges support ‘transition away from fossil fuels’
Only around a third of the latest country climate pledges submitted to the
UN express support for the “transition away from fossil fuels”,
according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Several countries even have used their
2035 climate plans to commit to increasing the production or use of fossil
fuels, predominately gas, the analysis finds.
The first global stocktake of
progress to tackle climate change, agreed at the COP28 climate summit in
Dubai in 2023, calls on all countries to contribute to “transitioning
away from fossil fuels”. Countries were meant to explain how they are
implementing the outcomes of the global stocktake, including their
contribution to transitioning away from fossil fuels, in their latest
climate plans.
However, just 23 of the 63 plans submitted to the UN so far
express support for “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, or the
“phase out” or “phase down” of their use.
In addition, sixcountries, including Russia, Nigeria and Morocco, use their climate plans to commit to boosting gas production. Some two-thirds of countries have not yet announced or submitted their pledges, missing not only the UN deadline of 10 February, but also an extension to September. How to address the lack of sufficient action from countries with their latest plans is billed to be one of the major issues up for debate at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil next month.
Carbon Brief 22nd Oct 2025, https://www.carbonbrief.org/revealed-only-a-third-of-national-climate-pledges-support-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels/
Climate disasters in first half of 2025 costliest ever on record, research shows.
The first half of 2025 was the costliest on record for major disasters in
the US, driven by huge wildfires in Los Angeles and storms that battered
much of the rest of the country, according to a climate non-profit that has
resurrected work axed by Donald Trump’s administration that tracked the
biggest disasters.
In the first six months of this year, 14 separate
weather-related disasters that each caused at least $1bn in damage hit the US, the Climate Central group has calculated. In total, these events cost
$101bn in damages – lost homes, businesses, highways and other
infrastructure – a toll higher than any other first half of a year since
records on this began in 1980.
Guardian 22nd Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/22/climate-disasters-2025-cost
Coral die-off marks Earth’s first climate ‘tipping point’, scientists say.
A surge in global temperatures has caused widespread bleaching and death of warm-water corals around the world.
By Jeff Tollefson, Nature 12th Oct 2025
Surging temperatures worldwide have pushed coral reef ecosystems into a state of widespread decline, marking the first time the planet has reached a climate ‘tipping point’, researchers announced today.
They also say that without rapid action to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, other systems on Earth will also soon reach planetary tipping points, thresholds for profound changes that cannot be rolled back.
“We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” says Steve Smith, a social scientist at the University of Exeter, UK, and a lead author on a report released today about how close Earth is to reaching roughly 20 planetary tipping points. “This is our new reality.”
Temperature spike
Led by Smith and other scientists at the University of Exeter, the report assesses the risk of breaching tipping points such as ice-sheet collapse, rising seas and dieback of the Amazon rainforest. It also discusses progress towards various positive tipping points focused on social and economic change, such as the adoption of clean energy.
The group’s first such assessment, released less than two years ago, raised alarms but did not officially declare that any climate tipping points had been reached. In the past few years, however, global temperatures have surged, sparking concerns among some scientists that global warming is accelerating and could lead to even more widespread impacts in the coming decades than the changes that have already been recorded.
The impact on coral reefs has been particularly severe in the past two years , pushing these ecosystems to their tipping point, the researchers say. The warming waters have caused corals across the globe to bleach, a process that occurs when the organisms expel the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients, oxygen and vibrant colours. The fourth global bleaching event in the past few decades began in January 2023, and researchers estimate that it has affected more than 84% of the planet’s coral ecosystems.
The initial tipping-point report talked about large-scale threats to corals in the future tense, but the latest global bleaching event has made it clear that the crisis is now, says Michael Studivan, a coral ecologist at the University of Miami in Florida………………………………………
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03316-w
World’s oceans losing their greenness through global heating, study finds.
The world’s oceans are losing their greenness owing to global heating,
according to a study that suggests our planet’s capacity to absorb carbon
dioxide could be weakening. The change in the palette of the seas is caused by a decline of phytoplankton, the tiny marine creatures that are
responsible for nearly half of the biosphere’s productivity. The
findings, which also have alarming implications for oxygen levels and food
chains, are based on a groundbreaking study of daily chlorophyll
concentrations in low- to mid-latitude oceans from 2001 to 2023.
Guardian 17th Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/17/worlds-oceans-losing-their-greenness-through-global-heating-study-finds
Global climate crosses more dangerous tipping points, heading for ecosystem collapse
Global warming is crossing dangerous thresholds sooner than expected with the world’s coral reefs now in an almost irreversible die-off, marking
what scientists describe as the first “tipping point” in climate-driven
ecosystem collapse.
The warning in the Global Tipping Points report by 160
researchers, which synthesises groundbreaking science to estimate points of no return, comes ahead of this year’s COP30 climate summit, the annual
gathering of nations to combat human-induced climate change, being held at the edge of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil in November.
That same rainforest system is now at risk of collapsing once the average global temperature warms beyond just 1.5 degrees Celsius, based on deforestation rates, the report said, revising down the estimated threshold for the Amazon.
Renew Economy 13th Oct 2025, https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-climate-crosses-more-dangerous-tipping-points-heading-for-ecosystem-collapse/
Antarctica may have crossed a tipping point that leads to rising seas
Scientists are beginning to understand the sudden loss of sea ice in
Antarctica – and there is growing evidence that it represents a permanent
shift with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Antarctica may have
passed a climate tipping point of no return, scientists are warning, with
mounting evidence that a sudden slump in sea ice formation since 2016 is
linked to human-induced ocean warming. For decades, Antarctic sea ice
levels remained relatively stable despite rising global temperatures. But
that shifted suddenly in 2016, when the extent of sea ice began to sharply
fall.
The consequences of this recent shift could be catastrophic.
Antarctica’s sea ice helps to stabilise glaciers and ice sheets on the
land. Without adequate sea ice formation, their melting rates will
accelerate, with the potential to cause extreme global sea level rise. It
is estimated that the Antarctic ice sheet contains enough water to raise
global sea levels by 58 metres.
New Scientist 2nd Oct 2025 https://www.newscientist.com/article/2498509-antarctica-may-have-crossed-a-tipping-point-that-leads-to-rising-seas/
‘Humanitarian’ visa must be created for Pacific Islanders displaced by climate crisis, experts say
Climate and migration experts are calling for urgent action to create
legal pathways for people displaced by the climate crisis, as a new report
highlights the scale of the problem across the Pacific.
Research by Amnesty
International released on Thursday found current immigration systems are
inadequate for Pacific Islanders seeking safety and stability, as rising
seas threaten to make their homelands uninhabitable. Amnesty has called on
New Zealand – home to the world’s largest Pacific diaspora – to
urgently reform its policies to provide “rights-based approach to
climate-related displacement”. “This would include offering a dedicated
humanitarian visa,” the report said.
Guardian 9th Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/09/climate-crisis-humanitarian-visa-displaced-pacific-islanders
The before and after images showing glaciers vanishing before our eyes
When Matthias Huss first visited Rhône Glacier in Switzerland 35 years
ago, the ice was just a short walk from where his parents would park the
car. “When I first stepped onto the ice… there [was] a special feeling of
eternity,” says Matthias. Today, the ice is half an hour from the same
parking spot and the scene is very different. “Every time I go back, I
remember how it used to be,” recalls Matthias, now director of Glacier
Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS), “how the glacier looked when I was a
child.” There are similar stories for many glaciers all over the planet,
because these frozen rivers of ice are retreating – fast.
BBC 5th Oct 2025,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce32ezzq6zlo
Small or big, new nuclear reactors are not climate solutions.
By David Suzuki with contributions from Senior Editor and Writer Ian Hanington, 2 Oct 25, https://davidsuzuki.org/story/small-or-big-new-nuclear-reactors-are-not-climate-solutions/?utm_source=mkto-none-smSubscribers-readOnline-body&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=scienceMatters-smallOrBigNewNuclear-en-03oct2025&mkt_tok=MTg4LVZEVS0zNjAAAAGdSLfvwz3-gaAzswU0cR9sbbcB6EK9J4ozsxpnQ5NzdYKwi0T9FyAHMSo5n-WVHWM8P49lrcxTdIEkaadCrd1Fc6v-BTBQ7LotO0zBv-mJVZIfBg
Despite the efforts of industry and its supporters to convince us otherwise, coal, gas and oil are outdated, inefficient, polluting energy sources, especially compared to alternatives. Some people, including politicians, are touting nuclear power as a good alternative. Is it?
Proponents argue it’s “clean,” because it doesn’t generate greenhouse gas emissions. But considering its entire life cycle, it’s far from clean, and it’s rife with problems — from uranium mining and transport to building and eventually decommissioning nuclear power plants to geopolitical issues around fuel supply and site security to radioactive waste disposal and weapons production. Of course, renewable energy also comes with impacts, which is why reducing energy and materials use is critical.
Besides environmental and other issues, building nuclear power plants — even largely untested small modular reactors, or SMRs — is expensive and time-consuming.
As Andrew Nikiforuk writes in the Tyee, “Due to its cost and complexity, it will not provide cheap or low-emission electricity in timeframe or scale that matters as climate change continues to broil an indifferent civilization.” He notes, however, “That is not to say that nuclear technology won’t play a minor role in our highly problematic energy future.”
Nikiforuk points to a recent study of 401 nuclear electricity projects built between 1936 and 2014 in 57 countries. It found the average time to build them was 70 months, and average cost overruns were close to US$1 billion (on top of massive projected expenditures). Because nuclear only supplies about nine per cent of global energy, and many reactors are nearing the end of their average life spans, it’s unlikely to play a major role in bringing emissions down as quickly as needed.
The 2025 “World Nuclear Report” says that, “In 2024, total investment in non-hydro renewable electricity capacity reached a record US$728 billion, 21 times the reported global investment in nuclear energy. Solar and wind power capacities grew by 32 percent and 11 percent, respectively, resulting in 565 GW of combined new capacity, over 100 times the 5.4 GW of net nuclear capacity addition. Global wind and solar facilities generated 70 percent more electricity than nuclear plants.”
Consider that much of the push for SMRs is coming from people like Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, to fuel increased oilsands production, and tech billionaires, to provide the enormous amounts of power required for data centres and artificial intelligence.
Canada is already set to pay more than $1 billion for SMRs and other nuclear projects. But the “World Nuclear Report” notes that the few SMR projects now in play are “in serious financial trouble.”
Nikiforuk writes that “to achieve an economy of scale would require the production of thousands of SMRs, which is not happening anywhere any time soon.” He also notes that “SMRs are not small (they occupy the area of a city block), cheap or, for that matter, any safer than large reactors.” Studies show they can actually produce more waste overall than conventional reactors.
Energy Mix reports that costs for renewable energy and battery storage are dropping rapidly while nuclear plant prices continue to increase.
The “World Nuclear Report” states that renewable energy technologies “are evolving towards a highly flexible, fully electrified energy system with a decentralized control logic, outcompeting traditional centralized fossil and nuclear systems.”
That’s a clue as to why so many hyper-capitalist forces are pushing nuclear over renewable energy: Centralized power systems are easier to control, monopolize and profit from than systems based on energy sources freely available everywhere. And it’s easier to shift costs of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants to the public in the form of subsidies, taxes and higher electricity bills.
Given the urgent need to quickly address global heating, it would be far better to put money into renewable energy and infrastructure, including a modern east-west renewable-powered electricity grid in Canada.
While energy from wind, solar and geothermal, along with storage, also comes with environmental consequences and requires mining and materials, it’s still far cleaner, more efficient and quicker and easier to deploy than fossil fuel or nuclear power. To reduce impacts, we must, as Nikiforuk writes, “systematically reduce our energy and material consumption at an unprecedented pace.”
Like fossil fuels, nuclear is an outmoded, overpriced way to produce power.
Wildfires are getting deadlier and costing more. Experts warn they’re becoming unstoppable.
Guardian 2nd Oct 2025,
Of 200 fires in the past 44 years, half of the fires that cost US$1bn or more were in the last decade
Graham Readfearn Environment and climate correspondentFri 3 Oct 2025 04.00 AESTShare
Wildfires tore through central Chile last year, killing 133 people. In California, 18,000 buildings were destroyed in 2018 causing US$16bn (A$24bn, £12bn) in damage. Portugal, Greece, Algeria and Australia have all felt the grief and the economic pain in recent years.
As the headlines, the death tolls and the billion-dollar losses from wildfires have stacked up around the world, so too have the rising temperatures – fuelled by the climate crisis – that create tinderbox conditions.
For the first time scientists say they have shown unambiguously that the numbers of “societally disastrous” wildfires – the ones that hit economies hard and take lives – have increased around the world as global heating bites.
“We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in how wildfires impact society,” said the Australian scientist Dr Calum Cunningham, who led research published in the journal Science. “Climate change sets the stage for these disasters.”
Looking at the 200 costliest fires between 1980 and 2023 – pulled from a private database maintained by global re-insurer Munich Re – the trends were clear.
Of the 200 most damaging fires since 1980 – that is, the fires with the highest direct costs relative to each nation’s GDP – 43% happened in the last 10 years.
Half of the fires that cost US$1bn or more were also in the last 10 years. Over the 44 years analysed, the frequency of fires causing 10 or more deaths tripled while the population only went up by 1.8 times.
Temperatures and the dryness of the atmosphere and of the vegetation – all factors promoting fires – all got significantly worse between 1980 and 2023.
Half the wildfires happened while local weather conditions were in the worst 0.1% on record for fire danger.
Disturbing regularity
Many studies have found the weather conditions that promote fires around the world are getting worse, and happening more often, because of global heating………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/02/earths-wildfires-growing-in-number
1 This Month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
12 February – Webinar The Big Push: New Nuclear Projects in Canada
Thursday, February 12, 7 pm Eastern | 2nd of 4 sessions in the 2026 Nuclear Waste Online webinar series
Join a webinar on the push for new nuclear generation in Canada. Go to Northwatch.org to register or use the registration link https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZfWOf1GITqSRIZX8CB-A9w
-
Archives
- February 2026 (115)
- January 2026 (308)
- December 2025 (358)
- November 2025 (359)
- October 2025 (376)
- September 2025 (258)
- August 2025 (319)
- July 2025 (230)
- June 2025 (348)
- May 2025 (261)
- April 2025 (305)
- March 2025 (319)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Events
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- Weekly Newsletter
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
nuclear-news 