five power plants authorized to continue their discharges into waterways

To ensure the country’s electricity supply despite the heat wave, the State has issued environmental waivers. They allow nuclear power plants to increase their water discharge temperature limit. Because to cool their reactors, the power plants pump water from the surrounding rivers. Once used, the liquid is released in the same place, at a slightly higher temperature. In normal times, in order not to overheat aquatic environments, each plant adapts with temperatures of reference which are specific to him.

These derogations, granted to five French power plants, will be accompanied by a reinforced environmental monitoring program. Insufficient for environmental associations. “That doesn’t mean it prevents damage. It is in the long term that we will see it“, worries Roland Desbordes, spokesman for the independent research and information commission on radioactivity.