A SWARM of jellyfish disabled a nuclear power plant by entering a cooling system.
An EDF spokesperson said that a “massive and unforeseeable presence of jellyfish” paralysed the company’s plant at Gravelines, in northern France.
Crews are working to get the generator back up and running after reactors were shut down.
A spokesperson told Politico: “These shutdowns are the result of the massive and unforeseeable presence of jellyfish in the filter drums of the pumping stations, located in the non-nuclear part of the installations."
Three of the four reactors stopped working automatically late Sunday, with the fourth unit shutting down early Monday morning. The plant has six reactors in total, with each producing 5.4 gigawatts of power in total. The remaining two units are undergoing maintenance.
ED told Politico the shutdown did not pose a threat to the safety of workers, the public or the environment.
The plant is cooled by pumping water via a canal from the North Sea. The local jellyfish population has grown in recent years due to rising sea temperatures and the water becoming more salty as well as overfishing of the animal’s natural predators.
