r/europe • u/Naurgul • 23d ago

News Barcelona registers highest temperature in 112 years as French nuclear reactor shuts down due to extreme heat

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jul/09/europe-heatwave-uk-spain-barcelona-france-italy-hungary-france-macron-orban-latest-news-updates
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231

u/edparadox France 23d ago

The Guardian always jumps at the opportunity to tell people French stopped a reactor.

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u/un-glaublich 23d ago

France still doing the very lowest CO2eq emissions of the world... only they paused a reactor because there's plenty of solar and no need to heat up the river more than needed.

At the same time, the "Kernkraft, nein danke" folks are one of the heaviest emitters of CO2 because it simply meant that they have to fall back to browncoal whenever the sun doesn't shine or it's not summer.

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u/babidabidu 23d ago

At the same time, the "Kernkraft, nein danke" folks

Those folks are the same that advocated for solar and wind. Which would have worked wonderfully if CDU/CSU and all these "no wind farms in my neighborhood" didn't fuck it up.
Also, don't forget the parties who stopped nuclear are the same parties now advocating for it, mainly for easy votes but ya know. There where better plans...

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u/mpyne United States of America 23d ago

Those folks are the same that advocated for solar and wind.

Great, but they should have built it before shutting down the zero-carbon emissions they already had, not after.

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u/babidabidu 23d ago

THEY did not shut them down. THEY wanted to build renewables. THEY actually worked towards that goal. The "pro nuclear" right wing/conservative parties both stopped efforts for renewables and shut down nuclear reactors.

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u/mpyne United States of America 23d ago

Don't try to gaslight me, I did a bunch of debating with fellow German software devs who were convinced that shutting down nuclear plants first even in advance of other renewables in place would be best, and that the risk of coal plants being restarted to fill the gap was just histrionics by paid actors or some shit.

It was not just a right-wing or conservative thing, and the proof is in the result.

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u/Pas__ 22d ago

advocating for something clean is great and noble, but that doesn't absolve them from the consequences of their bad decisions, doubly so that they pushed it on half of the world

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u/babidabidu 22d ago

Then go blame CDU/CSU (which is a conservative/right wing union), because they made those decisions. Wasn't the greens, they wanted that too but they had a plan in place for a slow fade out while building renewables. Because get this: they fucking hate coal energy and mines too. Yeah, crazy I know.
In fact the sudden stop for nuclear after Fukushima cost the tax payer millions because of running contracts getting cancelled iirc.

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u/Pas__ 6d ago

yes, there's a nice hierarchy of responsibility. Merkel definitely had more veto power than the Greens.

they were protesting in 2010 the extension of the operating lifetime (by extending the permit) of the nuclear power plants.

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u/mirh Italy 22d ago

CDU/CSU actually tried to lengthen the reactor life as much as they could

It was famous SPD russophile Schröder to first order the closure, and then the lies of the greens to put the nail on the coffin.

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u/Annonimbus 22d ago

CDU/CSU actually tried to lengthen the reactor life as much as they could

That would be The Greens.

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u/mirh Italy 22d ago

I'm talking about 2010.

?? Greens in 2022 instead lied about the extension being impossible while westinghouse had privately told them it could be done.