A mass of jellyfish has threatened to clog the water intake at a reactor in Sweden, forcing the plant offline.OKG, a consortium of EON and Fortum Oyj, announced the shutdown at unit three of the Oskarshamn plant Monday, Bloomberg reported. Swarming jellyfish are rarely a problem at the plant 200 miles south of Stockholm, although the phenomenon is not unprecedented. The animals shut down unit 1 in August of 2005. In the U.S., a glut of a species similar to jellyfish shut down a reactor at California's Diablo Canyon plant last year.The outage at Oskarshamn came just as the reactor had returned to service following a series of mechanical problems. According to an OKG release, a control valve in the turbine system caused a shutdown at unit 3 on Sept. 1. It was followed by additional turbine and switchyard issues that were addressed before the unit was scheduled to return to full power Friday evening.According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Oskarshamn 3 is a 1,400 megawatt ABB BWR-75 reactor that entered service in 1985.
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