[rglover]

Depends on perspective. I hadn't heard about this but looking it up quick and the reason it's considered too hot [1] is:

> After the 2003 heatwave, France’s nuclear safety authority (ASN) set temperature and river flow limits beyond which power stations must reduce their production, to ensure the water used to cool the plants will not harm wildlife when it is released back into the rivers.

And also...

> Since 2000, production losses due to high river temperatures and low river flows have represented an average of 0.3% of annual production. However, half of EDF’s 56 nuclear reactors are offline due to planned maintenance and work to repair corrosion which was delayed by the pandemic, just as Europe faces an energy crunch following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

So, in essence the inability to use the water appears to be a regulatory/timing issue, not a technical one, as far as I can gather.

While I wouldn't advocate for harming wildlife, I'd say the answer to your question is "locate nuclear plant developments in areas that will have the least impact on wildlife (or, where wildlife can easily be relocated and protected from potential harm)."

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-redu...

[nullc]

... as if the alternative energy solutions don't harm wildlife (including solar and wind). Is this again an example of expecting nuclear to mitigate its externalities while ignoring them for everything else?

[jwie]

This is a very important point. The externalities of nuclear are actually containable because they are so small. Hundreds of kilos of waste product compared to billions in spent fuel products.

The heavy industry footprints of logistics to create the plant and equipment also are more efficient.

How many solar panels or wind turbines would you need to produce to generate a nuclear reactor’s worth of power? How expensive would that process be comparatively? These factors weigh heavily in nuclear power’s favor because it is so energy dense.

[tstrimple]

> How many solar panels or wind turbines would you need to produce to generate a nuclear reactor’s worth of power? How expensive would that process be comparatively? These factors weigh heavily in nuclear power’s favor because it is so energy dense.

And yet literally every single for-profit energy production company in the world is heavily investing in renewables and avoiding nuclear despite government incentives and subsidies for nuclear. Surely if the cost of nuclear was worth while, the folks looking to maximize profits would be investing more in these technologies. Economic reality doesn't support nuclear power. It's unfortunate that the people pushing for nuclear power are also the people who generally push for private ownership of everything, because public ownership and investment is the only time we see anything close to successful nuclear programs.

[nullc]

Nuclear is forced to eat phenomenally more of its externalities than alternatives, this changes the economics entirely.

Responding to people highlighting this by pointing out that nuclear is uneconomic under the current policies is either making their point for them or saying nothing at all. :)

[desindol]

Ah yes, the strawman argument... possibility to kill the entire planet vs killing some birds.

[delroth]

In this specific case (regulations on the cooling water temperature) it's killing some fishes vs killing some birds. That seems very comparable to me.

Why wouldn't we require wind turbines to stop when birds are migrating to reduce their environmental externalities?

[nullc]

kill the entire planet? From exceeding a delta-t of 2 degree C in their discharge water?

[rglover]

Desert tortoise has entered the chat