Wildlife

Jellyfish Jam Swedish Nuclear Reactor Cooling

One of the world’s largest nuclear power reactors was forced to shut down after masses of jellyfish clogged pipes carrying seawater that cools the plant’s three reactors and turbine generators.

Officials at Sweden’s Oskarshamn nuclear power station scrambled to shut down reactor No. 3 after tons of the common moon jellyfish became caught in the pipes.

Oskarshamn spokesman Anders Osterberg said the jellyfish entered the pipes at about 60 feet below the surface of the Baltic Sea.

But he said they had not gotten through the plant’s filters or come anywhere near the reactor.

All of Oskarshamn’s reactors are boiling-water types, like those at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, which suffered meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Nuclear power plants are typically built next to large bodies of water because they require a steady flow of cool water.