Here is something you don’t hear every day; in fact it is something that many of you might never have heard of ever before. A nuclear reactor in Sweden shut down because of jellyfish. Nope it wasn’t some mutant jellyfish that attacked the reactor, but instead it was a large cluster of jellyfish that clogged the pipes leading to the reactor. These pipes are pivotal because they supply cool water to the turbines at the plant. Marine biologists are speculating that this incident is something that might occur again and might repeat itself in other parts of the world.
Advertisement
The clogged pipes were later cleared of all the jellyfish and the reactor is now ready to start operations once again. With an output of 1,400 megawatts this reactor is said to be the world’s largest boiling water reactor. Basically, this reactor in question uses the very same technology used by Fukushima reactors in Japan. As many of you might remember, the Fukushima reactors are the ill-fated reactors that in the tsunami of 2011 were flooded, causing widespread damage to the whole facility.
Although this incident might sound unusual to many, it is something that is commonplace. A nuclear facility in California had to be shut down last year for similar reasons. In this particular case, the culprit was sea salp — a gelatinous, jellyfish like organism. In fact, another reactor in the very same Swedish facility had to be shut down in 2005 because of a similar jellyfish infestation. These kinds of reactors have to be built near water bodies solely because a constant supply of cool water is needed. Therefore, such issues and incidents seem unavoidable, unless there is some way that these creatures of the sea and other such similar creatures can be repelled using some mechanism.
A Swedish marine biologist Lene Moller revealed that the blame for the recent shutdown goes to a creature called the moon jellyfish. While revealing some more facts about this jellyfish Moller was quoted as saying: “It’s one of the species that can bloom in extreme areas that . . . are overfished or have bad conditions. The moon jelly likes these types of waters. They don’t care if there are algae blooms, they don’t care if the oxygen concentration is low. The fish leave . . . and (the moon jelly) can really take over the ecosystem.”
Moller conceded that scientists have to figure out a way to tackle this moon jellyfish issue.
Advertisement
