OK, so most people know that France is in the middle of a catastrophic heat wave. Over 5000 people are now dead from it, and most of the lefty bloggers were right to be outraged at this Washington Post editorial making fun of the French for not having air conditioning they normally don't need. As many have pointed out, the south of France - the warm vacation spot - is at about the same latitude as New York state. The north of France is further north than any part of the US except Alaska. It's not about whether France is hotter than Texas, it's about whether the temperature is 20° higher than your infrastructure can take. Let's see these excuses for humanity laugh at 100°F temperatures in International Falls, MN or throughout Maine when roads start buckling and people start dying. For that matter, see how well Houston responds to a blizzard or a month of -10°F temperatures.

But a brief I read in The Week magazine this week points to a big part of the problem that has gone horribly and amazingly underreported in the US. The hotter it gets, the more electricity you need to keep as cool as you can. The heat pump in my office is only two years old, and normally does a fine job of keeping the place cool in summer on its moderate setting. But when the temperature gets above about 98°, the heat pump can only manage to keep the office at about 78° or so, even running full blast. When it breaks 100°, the temperature in the office may get up to 80°. It's just all the cooling the thing can handle, and it's running full blast, using lots of juice.

So at the very time France needs more electricity, the country has less to use. Why?

Because 75% of France's electricity comes from nuclear power.

That's right - Dick Cheney-advocated, power utility wet-dream nuclear power.

Nuclear reactors need water cooling, and the water comes from nearby rivers. It flows through the plant, cools the reactor (without becoming irradiated) and returns to the river. But now that France is in a heat wave, the water from the rivers is somewhat warmer by the time it gets to the plant, and the reactors themselves are running hot because the plants need to run at near or total capacity. This, in turn, leaves the water warmer as it's done cooling the reactor - as warm as 85°F.

That's too warm to release back into the rivers because it kills plant and animal life, throwing the ecosystem out of balance when it's already stressed due to the heat. The nuclear plants, therefore, have had to reduce their production during the heat wave. France recently granted temporary exemptions to release cooling water that's 1°F hotter than normal back into the rivers, but it's not enough to solve the problem.

Also, in some areas, the heat wave has dried the land to a point that rivers don't have enough water to cool the reactors at all. Oops.

In the US, where VP Cheney's "energy policy" recommends more nuclear power, no one is reporting that it's susceptible to going away during heat waves, the exact time when most US areas need more electricity. The assholes laughing over French deaths because they don't have air conditioners don't know that even if they had them, many of them couldn't run them. The link at the top is to a Guardian story that says, even with the warmer discharge water, the country's environment minister said "sizeable blackouts" were still possible and asked consumers to not use so much electricity.

Her own ministry turned off the air conditioning to set the example. In 100°F heat. Let's see the Washington Post editorial staff agree to work under those conditions. Even better, let's see them admit that France might not be having such a hard time with the heat wave if it wasn't using the same nuclear power that the US Vice-President is holding up as an example for solving America's energy needs.

That damn liberal media.