Imagine you’re a fish in the Bristol Channel. You’re swimming along, next to your herring and sprat brethren, when all of a sudden you’re sucked into the bowels of a nuclear power station, and swallowed up by its cooling system — never to be seen again.
This threat to marine life has exercised the minds of regulators and designers of the new Hinkley Point C plant, under construction in Somerset since 2016. EDF, the builder, came up with a “fish return pipe” to send the poor beasts back out of the pipes on their merry way. Another mechanism to alert fish to their fates — an acoustic warning system — was suggested and then discarded.
It is just one example of the unique challenges EDF
