{"id":63307,"date":"2022-08-16T06:09:48","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T11:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=63307"},"modified":"2022-08-16T06:09:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T11:09:48","slug":"europes-nuclear-hydropower-falter-with-droughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=63307","title":{"rendered":"Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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As Europe looks to secure alternative energy sources to Russian gas in light of the\u00a0war in Ukraine<\/a>,\u00a0Statista’s Anna Fleck warns<\/a>,\u00a0a new threat to energy security is stirring, this time from droughts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0droughts<\/a>\u00a0hitting Europe are impacting everything from food to transportation to the environment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Italy, the River Po has fallen two meters below its normal levels, seeing rice paddy fields dry out. Meanwhile, Germany\u2019s River Rhine has become so shallow that cargo vessels can\u2019t pass through it fully loaded, pushing up shipping costs, and France\u2019s Tille River, in the Burgundy region, is now a dried up bed covered in thousands of dead fish.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0Europe\u2019s energy production<\/a>\u00a0has also been impacted.\u00a0<\/strong>As\u00a0Statista’s chart below<\/a>\u00a0shows,\u00a0hydroelectric power has fallen some 20 percent since 2021.<\/strong>\u00a0This partly comes down to the fact reservoirs have been drying up in countries such as Italy, Serbia, Montenegro and Norway. The latter, according to\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a>, usually a major hydroproducer, is even taking the steps to reduce exports in order to prioritize refilling its reservoir\u2019s low water levels so the country can maintain domestic production.<\/p>\n

\"Infographic:<\/a><\/p>\n

You will find more infographics at\u00a0Statista<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Nuclear power too has fallen since 2021.\u00a0<\/strong>One reason for this is that France has had to shut down several of its nuclear power plants because the rivers Rhone and the Garonne have been too warm to be able to cool down its reactors. France is 70 percent dependent on nuclear energy and is a key exporter of electricity, usually supplying Italy, Germany and the UK. It\u2019s important to note here however, that other problems are troubling France\u2019s nuclear fleet too. A significant number of the country\u2019s power plants have had to be powered down recently due to malfunctions and maintenance issues, which had been delayed because of the pandemic. These combined reasons mean, according to\u00a0Wired<\/a>, that the country\u2019s hydropower output is down nearly 50 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts As Europe looks to secure alternative energy sources to Russian gas in light of the\u00a0war in Ukraine,\u00a0Statista’s Anna Fleck warns,\u00a0a new threat to energy security is stirring, this time from droughts. The\u00a0droughts\u00a0hitting Europe are impacting everything from food to transportation to the environment. In Italy, the River Po […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[220,281,14619,579],"class_list":["post-63307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-drought","tag-europe","tag-hydropower","tag-nuclear-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63308,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63307\/revisions\/63308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}