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Professor John Robertson OBA
Thanks to gavinochiltree for:
Four reactors at the EDF French nuke plant at Gravelines have been forced to close down on Sunday and Monday because of a swarm of jelly fish getting into the cooling system. If it had been Hinckley Point, what would be the back up, as we scots are frequently asked about wind. And jelly fish? There are millions around the UK–check out Ayr beach. Fish used to keep them in check by eating them when young, but there ain’t so many fish these days.
and to Dotty for alerting me to this:
A swarm of jellyfish has forced the shutdown of one of the largest nuclear power plants in France after entering the water intake systems used to cool the coastal reactors.
Three reactors at the Gravelines nuclear power plant in northern France shut down automatically late on Sunday, according to the French nuclear company EDF, after the filter drums of the pumping stations became packed with a “massive and unpredictable” swarm of the marine creatures.
The entire nuclear plant, capable of powering about 5m homes, was brought offline when a fourth reactor shut down shortly after the free-swimming invertebrates jammed the power plant, which had already lost its two other reactors for planned summer maintenance work.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/11/swarm-of-jellyfish-shuts-nuclear-power-plant-in-france
How common is this problem?
In October 2021:
Scotland’s only working nuclear power plant at Torness shut down in an emergency procedure when jellyfish clogged the sea water-cooling intake pipes at the plant, according to the Scotland Herald this week. Without access to cool water, a nuclear power plant risks overheating. The intake pipes can also be damaged, which disrupts power generation.
https://thebulletin.org/2021/10/jellyfish-attack-nuclear-power-plant-again/
In February 2015:
Jellyfish and algae have assaulted nuclear power plants in the United States, Canada, Scotland, Sweden, Japan, and France. In Scotland alone, two reactors at the country’s Torness power station had to shut down in a single week when the seawater they used as a coolant was inundated with jellyfish.
https://thebulletin.org/2015/02/spineless-attacks-on-nuclear-power-plants-could-increase/
From a report in 2019:
In 1937, they caused a power outage in Brisbane, Australia. And in 1999, they blacked out the Philippine island of Luzon. That plunged 40 million people into darkness, and raised fears of a military coup. Clean-up crews pulled 50 truckloads of jellyfish from the water intake line on a coal-fired power plant.
https://www.scienceandthesea.org/program/jellyfish-blackouts
Also in 2019:
Shutdown of Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant [USA] Has Surprising Stinging Consequence — Tiny Jellyfish:
There seems no end to the Internet hits on this:
In 2008, a swarm of jellyfish shut down a nuclear power plant in California, and three years later the same occurred at a plant in Japan. In 2017, jellyfish clogged a power plant in Israel.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jellyfish-keep-attacking-nuclear-power-plants/
I’ll stop there. Will any Scottish reporter ask Scottish Labour how they plan to deal with this?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I don’t suppose Jackie Baillie will have much to say on this.
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Apologies – somewhat OT, but relevant. At least one major UK supermarket is flogging fish sourced in Vietnam, some of which is ‘farmed in the Mekong Delta’. Thanks, but no thanks. Given that I live on the shores of the North Sea, it’s a disgrace. If you have to buy fish products from a supermarket because fishmongers in most areas have disappeared, be sure to read the labels carefully – that is, if the labels give the relevant information which many don’t – another ‘benefit’ of being a ‘world leader’ with ‘fabulous’ trade deals I suppose.
What a disgrace the UK of England and her colonies has become in so many ways, and yet so many Scots continue to plod wearily along with it. Just feed them ferry stories and the Scots will fall in line.
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Talking of “Nuclear”……….
The BBC have hidden a very significant story on the Glasgow & West page of their website and did not place this significant story on their main Scotland page or main Scottish politics page.
I first saw the article yesterday morning at 10.16am and it was the fourth article on the Glasgow & West page , by the afternoon it was the sixth article and today it is now the ninth article on that page, it was first put on their website, as a story , on the 9th August which was only two days ago. (It will soon disappear all together).
Many on social media , including WGD on his website, have written about this significant political story…..that involves a UK government’s MOD department, the Royal Navy and a Nuclear weapons base , as in Nuclear weapons that various UK governments have forced upon Scotland, as they consider Scotland to be the best place for housing their UK weapons of mass destruction……
So what is the significant story……that our media in Scotland considers too insignificant to widely promote, as in highlight , as a significant story….well the BBC headline is…….
“Radioactive water ‘leaked into loch’ from nuclear base”.
(This was sourced as a significant story from The Guardian & The Ferret and not sourced , as a significant story, via any FOI request or investigation done by the BBC in Scotland for what was a significant incident(s) that occurred in Scotland ).
Currently the BBC are , just now , (still) far too preoccupied (obsessed) with demonising Nicola Sturgeon (the top 4 articles on the BBC Scottish Politics page are all NS articles).
They , the BBC in Scotland, are also constantly obsessive in trying to demonise the SNP as a party and as the current Scottish government and are also consistently demonising John Swinney as the current Scottish FM and leader of the SNP (as they, the BBC website, still have the article from the 2nd of August on “Pro-Palestinian protests disrupt FM’s Fringe event” on their main Scottish Politics page).
The BBC article, on the Glasgow & West regional page (only) , on their website states:
“Radioactive water from a Royal Navy nuclear weapons base leaked into a loch after old pipes repeatedly burst, according to official files”.
“The joint investigation revealed that files compiled by Sepa, a government pollution watchdog, stated the navy failed to properly maintain a network of 1,500 water pipes at the Coulport armaments depot”.
“The files said one incident, in August 2019, resulted in the release of “unnecessary radioactive waste” in the form of low levels of tritium, which is used in nuclear warheads”.
“The Guardian and The Ferret reported that the UK government insisted the files had to be kept secret for national security reasons”.
#CoverUp
Not just a cover up from the UK government MOD , but also it seems to be a coordinated cover up by much of the media in Scotland too , who, as a media , are trying to keep this significant story well hidden from the Scottish public …..
A media that includes the BBC, who only seem to consider that this particular story, as a highly “controversial” and truly significant story is only worthy, as a story, to be added onto a Scottish regional page of their website.
Also , as a unique occurrence, in what was clearly a political related story , there was not one UK or Scottish politician asked about their opinion on this story.……within this BBC article !
There was a ‘comment’ from a MOD spokesperson and also a statement from the MOD within this article , but it was just predictable meaningless guff, as if this was nor worthy of being considered as a failure or a significant matter.
There was also no Jackie ‘Bombs before Bairns’ Baillie Labour party quote in this article, as the BBC , and other media in Scotland, have obviously realised that this , as a story, could not be categorised as #SNPBAD but instead was very much a #UKGovernmentBad and also a #NuclearIsBad…..and Jackie’s constituency houses Trident and so she wants her constituents, and the rest of Scotland too, to all think that , as a situation , this is just tickety boo…..
All UK political parties support Nuclear weapons and they also support that Trident should remain housed in Scotland…..so therefore that in itself ensured this particular story was never to be given the real significance it deserved as a story by the media, as in one that was very worthy of public attention and public interest within Scotland……….also with Labour now chomping at the bit to put even more Nuclear Power Stations in Scotland then the last thing they want is a media communicating a health and safety issue with anything Nuclear.
Labour and other UK parties and their various client media will always put bombs before bairns…..and are prepared to ‘Go Nuclear’ on anyone who dares to challenge Nuclear projects…..be they Nuclear weapons or Nuclear power……
Scotland , yet again , must just be expected to do what it’s telt….
Any serious risks to (Scottish) public Health & public Safety , when exposed, are then considered to be an exercise in damage limitation….that is for the UK government ……..and not for the people of Scotland……where the UK government tries to minimise the incident(s) as being something insignificant….as does their client media….in many of them either ignoring it completely or minimising it’s significance as a serious #UKBAD political story !
So yet again we see that much of the media in Scotland are more than willing to comply with this UK political reckless attitude.
However any stories that are, according to the media, either connected to or regarded as being the fault of the Scottish (SNP) government, they are then splashed across just about every front page of every newspaper in Scotland.
These scenarios, of both media and various UK government(s) active suppression of scandalous and shocking stories connected to the UK, are in stark contrast to the mass exposure and over promotion of #SNPBAD media and opposition generated stories, which are then the very things that persuades some voters in Scotland to keep voting for UK parties and so not vote for the SNP in some elections….as ignorance does that, as does news suppression from the media and also a succession of snide quotes that are politically judgemental, as remarks that are made by members of the opposition parties …..from their respective political Glass houses.
It’s also used as a ploy to try to keep some people in Scotland to want to stay a part of the UK……..and so then not support or vote for Scottish independence….(as with independence we are then removing the real threat that Nuclear power and Nuclear weapons holds for us in Scotland , while they , as sources of danger, both still exist within Scotland and so are then still based in Scotland).
No Thanks…to Nuclear.
Liz S
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If I might explain your bafflement as expressed in the opening paragraph – Were it not for this site, WGD etc., as a furrnr I’d have never known about it from the BBC, as I and millions of others can’t see a ” Glasgow & West page “….
The ‘news where you are’ may soon be very different to the news where next door are…
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Didn’t the Americans admit to dumping a whole lot of ‘stuff’ in the Clyde before they ‘departed these shores’? That seems to have been forgotten, too, but most things the Americans do around the world are conveniently forgotten, ignored or brushed aside.
That’s why I mentioned the Mekong Delta with reference to fish in UK supermarkets in my comment above. Vietnam War and deliberate contamination with very dangerous chemicals by the USual suspect? Add to that modern day plastics pollution and ……. you have a recipe for big trouble.
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Thanks Liz…and yes, no thanks to EngUk forcing more of their deadly nuclear on Scotland. The BritNat media will never report the truth about anything UKEng/bad in Scotland, just as they will never report the truth about SNP/good in Scotland, they absolutely hate the SNP and want rid of them and it’s not just the EngUKgov that will attempt to make sure that happens…scary times.
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So I have just checked the BBC website re my above comment and guess what , yep….. the article “Radioactive water leaked into loch’ from nuclear base” on their Gasgow & West page (only) is …………now .gone.
Meanwhile on social media most people know why this story is being hidden by the media , as in why it was not well publicised…..so there’s your MSM that tells us , the public, to be careful online as there is apparently so much fake news…meanwhile the MSM hide the actual piggen significant news….while social media includes all of the significant “news where we are”…..
Liz S
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Well in England they don’t want planet wrecking mining so their EngGov makes sure they aren’t going to be burdened with that. I know, isn’t it great, great Britnats’ Britbin.
See this..
https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/news/britain-sued-in-corporate-court-over-quashing-of-coal-mine-in-cumbria/
Still as it’s ‘Britain’ and we all know we are all British now their ‘uk’ seems to be on the back boiler, Scotland will be forced to pay their portion for the court case, how kind. No thanks!
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