Drought forces Europe's nuclear plants to shut down, exposing a wide vulnerability

Europe's rivers are drying up so much that nuclear plants can't get the cooling water they need. Romania shut its Cernavoda plant entirely; Hungary partly closed Paks in late July; France took 13 of 57 reactors offline due to drought, heat, and even jellyfish. Scientists link the low river levels to human-caused climate change. These plants were built assuming rivers would never run this low.