Swarm of Jellyfish Forces Shutdown of French Nuclear Power Plant
Meanwhile the U.S. is slowly getting away from the China-Syndrome inspired “Nuclear Winter” for these power plants, as shuttered facilities are reopening.
I am keeping a catalogue of all 2025’s weird happenings, and it is already a lengthy one.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that a radioactive wasp nest was recently detected in an abandoned South Carolina nuclear material processing site active in the Cold War era.
This weekend, four reactors at France’s Gravelines nuclear power plant (one of the most extensive nuclear facilities in Europe) were temporarily shut down after a massive swarm of jellyfish clogged the plant’s critical water intake systems.
According to the plant’s operator, several of the facility’s production units went offline after jellyfish were detected in the filter drums of the plant’s pumping stations.
The French multinational electric utility company said the pumping stations, located in the non-nuclear section of the site, supply cooling water essential for the facility’s operation.
“They had no impact on the safety of the facilities, the safety of personnel, or the environment,” EDF said in a statement.
…The impacts of jellyfish on coastal power plants is not without precedent, as there have been similar incidents reported around the globe during the summer months.
The French utility did not say when it expects to have the reactors back online to generate power for the grid. However, the French appear to have enough power from their other reactors to sustain the grid, so the nation is not likely to experience a Spain-like nationwide blackout.
Meanwhile, in this country, we are slowly getting away from the China-Syndrome-inspired “Nuclear Winter” for these power plants. Shuttered American nuclear reactors are coming back online, representing a significant shift in U.S. energy strategy as demand explodes (so to speak).
Holtec International and Constellation are restarting two nuclear facilities with a combined nameplate capacity of 1.6 GW. NextEra Energy spoke with regional grid operators and filed notice with federal regulators to potentially restart the 600 MW Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa, NextEra Energy CEO John Ketchum told Reuters in January.
Restarts and upgrades could increase the country’s nuclear net generation capacity by around 7% from 97 GW today, if Trump’s targets are met.
Restarting a mothballed nuclear facility offers a faster timeline and lower upfront costs than building a new one from scratch but is still an arduous process that requires several years for planning, licensing, inspections, equipment purchases, refurbishment, workforce training and fuel management actions.
Holtec is on track to restart the 800 MW Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan this year following its announcement of the project in the summer of 2022.
The Department of Energy (DOE) is supporting the restart of the Michigan facility with a loan guarantee, in hopes that the plant will be the first U.S. reactor to restart after being shut down.
The Department of Energy said it has now disbursed more than $83 million of the up to $1.52 billion loan guarantee for the 800-megawatt Palisades reactor.
Since then Constellation Energy (CEG.O), said it would reopen the former Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, widely known as the site of a partial meltdown in 1979 that chilled the nuclear industry. Constellation said in June that the plant could restart in 2027, about a year ahead of schedule.
Power company Entergy (ETR.N), closed Palisades in 2022, after it operated for more than 50 years. It shut two weeks ahead of schedule over a glitch with a control rod, despite a $6 billion federal program to save reactors suffering from rising costs.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed executive orders in May to fast-track new nuclear power licenses, and overhaul the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which issues them. The NRC last month approved Holtec’s request to load fuel into the reactor.
They said these plants were gone for good. Now they’re leading the charge in America’s nuclear comeback. pic.twitter.com/hXhhKmLIYy
— Constellation Clean Energy (@CEGCleanEnergy) August 15, 2025
Meanwhile, South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham is pushing for the completion of a nuclear power plant expansion in the state. It appears that the DOE is keen to support that effort as well.
State-owned utility Santee Cooper and now-defunct South Carolina Electric & Gas were partners on the V.C. Summer expansion, which was a first-of-its-kind design and marked the first new nuclear construction in the country in 40 years. When the companies abandoned the effort in 2017 — after jointly spending $9 billion — Graham unsuccessfully sought federal help to keep it going during President Donald Trump’s first term.
…U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, speaking to reporters alongside Graham in Aiken last week, said he met with Gov. Henry McMaster in Washington, D.C., about the effort.
“These are plants that have got a lot of the construction already done — a lot of the engineering has already been done,” Wright said. “Can these be up and running faster and cheaper than starting from scratch? Absolutely. I think it’s a tremendous idea.”
Proponents have also pointed to revitalization efforts at other nuclear plants across the country.
These moves pair nicely with the Trump DOE’s focus on finding American-based source materials for these plants.
We will bring uranium enrichment BACK to the United States to fulfill @POTUS’ pledge to spark the American nuclear industry! https://t.co/wNhSMmflTY
— Secretary Chris Wright (@SecretaryWright) August 13, 2025
Hopefully, the new plants won’t have to deal with either mutant wasps or jellyfish!
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Comments
You can’t risk clogging the intakes. You’d have to shut down anyway and then have to clean the dead jellies out, being offline even longer.
Oh, I misread that – they already got clogged. Oops,
It begins. The great Jellyfish Uprising of ’25, as it was foretold.
rhardin was wrong, it isn’t goats.
They showed better taste when they swarmed Sharon Stone.
Does the US have any new solution for reprocessing spent fuel rods? Or do they just put them on trains and ship them out to some other state and bury them in the ground? Hoping the trains don’t derail in route, and the disposal sites don’t leak over the next 100,000 years?
MOX facility at SRS in South Carolina was recovering mixed oxides from spent fuel rods in 2006, but if I remember correctly the project has been downsized to the point of zero production of UO².
They need to bury them in Harry Reid’s grave since that turd was greatly responsible for cancelling the Yucca Mountain National repository. Only fitting.
Mutant wasps or jellyfish? Aren’t mutant “Climate Change” Democrats the bigger problem?
Good grief! This is overreaction knee-jerk BS published as sensation.
Those in the know realize that intake cassions for powerplants have traveling screens to avoid Mussel, Jellyfish and all sorts of aquatic debris. Worst case scenario would be running the screens continuously.
jelly fish
exported from china
Would it be impolite to refer to them as Jerry Fish?
Hmm. These restarts plus new construction: That looks like 3 new ones. TN is adding one and that was supposed to be in part to Trump cleaning house at the TVA.
So KY building one along with SC will be awesome and over due.
The TVA has been throttling production to be way below the needs of NE TN.
On the hottest and coldest days of the year they warn us of blackouts if we don’t cut our usage. I always blast my usage in protest… they did it on purpose- and if it goes down, they should be fired.
“Oh, look at the pretty glowing jellyfish!”
“Those jellyfish aren’t supposed to be glowing.”
“Are they supposed to be eating through those screens?”
My brother-in-law was chief control room operator at Seabrook and worked Tom’s River earlier in his career. When the intakes periodically needed de-clogging, he would jump to volunteer to be on the team to mask up and clean them. He would always come home with a huge load of fresh shellfish and his family would have themselves a nice little feast. In short, except for the species involved, this is totally expected operation at a nuke plant.
Nearly the dumbest animal on the planet in terms of complexity takes down the mighty French. Who will they surrender to next?
Were they quiche eating jellyfish?
It sounds like they need to invest in some peanut butter fish to go with the jellyfish.
” However, the French appear to have enough power from their other reactors to sustain the grid,”
France may have reserve capacity, but GE and UK now depend on French excess for their baseload needs
So in a battle of the spineless vs. the spineless, the French lost.
Not that big of a surprise honestly.
Today Tucker reports Walmart is recalling packets of radioactive shrimp from Indonesia, tainted with cesium.
The Four Horsemen gonna be riding sea horses, brothers & sisters.