France claims two things:

- Reactors are seasonally idle and will ramp back up for winter - During this normally idle time, they do maintenance

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/minister-fren...

Perhaps this idea that "half of France's reactors are idle" is partly true, partly scare tactics from the "anti-nuke" group?

Nuclear reactors require vast amounts of cooling water so timing your "down time" to coincide with low water levels does make sense.

Here(Ontario) we build them on the shores of Lake Ontario and the intake pipe extends far into the lake to avoid any sort of water level fluctuations impacting power production.

This summer, France has been importing significant amounts of electricity from countries that burn gas or coal. You don't do that if you have plenty of nuclear power available.

Re-read what i wrote.. if you know that water levels will be low and you purposely idle your reactors annually.. then you do import power.

It looks like this is NOT a new problem (from 2016) https://www.economist.com/business/2016/12/01/frances-nuclea...

This can in theory happen to any steam-based power plant. Using steam to generate electricity is about 30% efficient. So you still need to get rid of the other 70% of heat that is generated, but not converted to electricity.

So it would also happen to power plants that burn coal.

This! People think this is a "nuclear" problem. .it is a cooling water problem regardless of where the heat came from.

These things can run in the middle east or India. The concern is that river life will be harmed.