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> I wonder how nuclear plants would handle this, though.

Yes, could all those aged reactors deal with large scale grid or component malfunction? Fukishima didn't do too well. FUD: Would we have hundreds of Fukishimas on our hands after such event?

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A power plant makes its own power, so the grid going down wouldn't affect it. For other components, nuclear reactors have many failsafes. Fukushima exhausted at least 4 that I know of. Since a CME wouldn't cause physical destruction like the earthquake and tsunami did, there's a much lower chance that all the failsafes will fail at once.

A nuclear power plant cannot run at say 10% to just power its own systems after it was separated from the grid. That's why diesel generators and batteries are so important to keep the reactor from melting.

It's hard to find a source on this, I apologize. The reason is that it only has large turbines to generate power, and these cannot be operated for arbitrary power output.

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