Jellyfish jamming up power plants

Abundant blobs can be a nuisance to seaside facilities

The jellyfish are coming — and energy plants may be powerless to stop them.

Blooms of the translucent sea creatures clog power plants worldwide, threatening to shutter all operations. Just last month, a coal-fired power plant in Ashkelon, Israel, worked hard to unclog its filters from a nearby swarm that could have shut down its cooling system, Haaretz reported.

“Our coal-fired power stations are located by the sea because it takes a lot of water to cool them down,” Israel Electric spokeswoman Iris Ben-Shahal told Haaretz. “At that entry point of the water into the cooling systems, we have filters to keep foreign bodies out. The jellyfish, and other things like sea plants, stick to the filters and clog them.”

While the Israeli generator stayed open despite the swarm — workers managed to get them unclogged — other power plants haven’t been so fortunate. In 2013, a giant swarm of moon jellyfish shuttered the world’s largest boiling water reactor, located in Sweden. The same thing happened at the plant in 2005.

About two or three times a year, jellyfish blooms cause serious problems for power, desalination and other plants, according to Lucas Brotz of the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

The rise in jellyfish has become a problem for industry. Brotz co-authored a 2012 paper published by Hydrobiologia: The International Journal of Aquatic Sciences that analyzed 45 of the world’s large marine ecosystems with an abundance of jellyfish. The researchers estimated that 62 percent of them showed increases since the 1950s.

The study authors note there isn’t a single cause of such blooms and many populations fluctuate along with the ocean’s climate.

But Brotz explained how humans can be exacerbating the rise in blooms, such as with overfishing that removes jellyfish competitors and predators.

Jellyfish also survive better than most marine life in dead zones, oxygen-depleted spots in the ocean that can come about because of pollution.

And coastal development gives some jellyfish species more shaded habitat when they’re in the polyp stage, which helps them thrive.

Brotz said warming ocean waters can cause jellyfish to expand their ranges, have more babies sooner and stick around in certain spots longer.

It’s become crucial for industry to try to figure out ways to anticipate jellyfish blooms. Researchers have asked the public to pitch in on the citizen-science research site, Jelly Watch, by reporting jellyfish sightings.

“We’re not going to be able to stop jellyfish, but if we can warn a power plant or aquaculture (farm) or even a swimming beach for tourists, ‘Hey, there’s going to be a lot of jellyfish today,’ they can prepare for it,” Brotz said.