Climate change causes nuclear, coal plant shutdowns
Climate change, by warming water and reducing river flows, has caused production losses at several nuclear and coal-fired power plants in the United States and Europe in recent years and will lead to more power disruptions in the future, researchers report. The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama, for example, had to shut down more than once last summer because the Tennessee River's water was too warm to use it for cooling. The likelihood of extreme drops in power generation from total or partial plant shutdowns will triple in the next 50 years, according to a study published this week in Nature Climate Change.
