Thermoelectric power plants discharge heat into water, which can harm aquatic species. Some regions regulate water discharge temperatures, but these regulations can cause outages, which makes compliance under global warming difficult to ensure. In this Comment, we argue that locally specific, optimized policies can help to balance biodiversity protection and energy demand.
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Acknowledgements
We thank N. Wanders from Utrecht University for providing the daily water temperature. P.B. is supported by a British Academy Global Professorship.
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Jin, Y., Behrens, P., Zhong, X. et al. Water temperature regulations could help to balance biodiversity and energy security. Nat. Rev. Biodivers. 1, 565–566 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-025-00069-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-025-00069-2
