6 ms·

Show HN: I built interactive map of active and decommissioned nuclear stations

129 points by externedguy 2y ago

Hi all, I am not an expert in nuclear energy but I've always wondered and found it difficult to get a clear picture about the amount of nuclear stations located in a specific region. So I built this tool that shows all the nuclear plants in the world, scaled by their capacity and with indication of their status. Clustering is enabled by default and allows to see the sum potential capacity of a region. It's a fun tool for me: e.g. disable clustering, scale circle radius to 70%, go to EU, and you'll see Germany has shutdown all of the stations. Ofc it's a widely known fact, but what came to my surprise is that Poland, Turkey, Scandinavian countries, Africa have literally 1 to none nuclear stations. Which is kinda strange because some of these regions are modern, well-developed, and Africa specifically was sourcing lots of nuclear fuel for other countries other the years. idk what to do with it yet, but I think I'll come up with ideas for future improvements as I believe nuclear sector will grow drastically.

hk__2 2y ago
I’m getting a 502 Bad gateway :/
- externedguy 2y ago
  sorry, should be fixed now, forgot to scale ram on fly.io :/
rob74 2y ago
> what came to my surprise is that Poland, Turkey, Scandinavian countries, Africa have literally 1 to none nuclear stations. Also, Austria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Austria Short timeline: - 1972: started building its first nuclear power plant - 1978: parliament decides to ban nuclear power for 20 years - 1997: ban is made permanent Note that the initial decision for the ban was even before Chernobyl (the event that greatly boosted anti-nuclear sentiment in Europe). What's important to keep in mind is that fuel from nuclear power plants can also be used for developing nuclear weapons, so historically only states "trustworthy" to the US or the former USSR were allowed access to the technology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation#Dual-Use_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation#Dual-Use...).
- externedguy 2y ago
  Indeed. I wonder what are the real reasons behind these bans in German nations. Can't believe it's just for political populism, there must be something more substantial.
  - creesch 2y ago
    > Can't believe it's just for political populism, there must be something more substantial. Can you expand on what you mean by that? Also, generalizing "German" nations like this does seem a bit odd to me. Austria has a very clear and different history with nuclear power compared to Germany where it is only recently that they vowed to get rid of nuclear. For the latter case, it very much was due to events around the Fukushima nuclear accident what contributed greatly to the decision.
    - rob74 2y ago
      Not sure about the rest, but I can definitely explain why Germany has (had) nuclear power plants and Austria doesn't: lobbying! Siemens wanted an opportunity to show off its technology, so all NPPs in West Germany were built by them. Austria didn't have such implications, so no nuclear power. Lobbying (by the strong automobile industry) is also the reason why the German autobahns still have no general speed limit and are still free to use for cars (paid by taxes of course). Austria BTW has both a speed limit and a toll for its freeways (and no domestic car manufacturers).
      - externedguy 2y ago
        History has shown that German automotive industry has huge power, so things like nuclear ban, shady emission restrictions, etc. seem like just the tip of the iceberg.
        cinntaile 2y ago
        Are you really insinuating that the German automotive industry is behind the nuclear ban? Why would they do that?
pella 2y ago
Alternative ( with individual Nuclear Power Plants ): "Open Infrastructure Map is a view of the world's infrastructure mapped in the OpenStreetMap database." like: https://openinframap.org/#12.37/49.08812/16.15412 https://openinframap.org/#12.37/49.08812/16.15412
- externedguy 2y ago
  didn't know about this one, looks nice but complicated. Note: if you want to see individual stations, you can disable clustering on the map I've made on the top right corner there's a control for disabling clustering. maybe I should make clustering disabled by default?
  - pella 2y ago
    All OpenStreetMap - nuclear: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1Pqv https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1Pqv And you can add an extra osm link / Wikidata link for any individual Nuclear Plants: example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5538984#map=16/49.0845/16.1482 https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5538984#map=16/49.084... <tag k="landuse" v="industrial"/> <tag k="name" v="Jaderná elektrárna Dukovany"/> <tag k="name:cs" v="Jaderná elektrárna Dukovany"/> <tag k="name:de" v="Kernkraftwerk Dukovany"/> <tag k="name:en" v="Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant"/> <tag k="operator" v="ČEZ"/> <tag k="operator:wikidata" v="Q336735"/> <tag k="plant:method" v="fission"/> <tag k="plant:output:electricity" v="1880 MW"/> <tag k="plant:source" v="nuclear"/> <tag k="power" v="plant"/> <tag k="ref:EU:ENTSOE_EIC" v="27W-PU-EDUK----1"/> <tag k="short_name" v="EDU"/> <tag k="type" v="multipolygon"/> <tag k="wikidata" v="Q687033"/> <tag k="wikipedia" v="cs:Jaderná elektrárna Dukovany"/> And a Link to Wikidata : https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q336735
    - externedguy 2y ago
      Nice, thanks for the ideas and links! Might add this data to the map in the future, hopefully will find a way to do so in a user-friendly way without cluttering the ui.
defrost 2y ago
What's a "nuclear station" .. does a 20 megawatt reactor count? https://www.ansto.gov.au/education/nuclear-facts https://www.ansto.gov.au/education/nuclear-facts How about mobile reactors .. they're purposely hard to geolocate but their number is (up to a point) relatively well known (within circles). Are you across the reactors under construction? China has a good number on the go and planned to break ground in the near future, both on their home soil and for global clients. > and Africa specifically was sourcing lots of nuclear fuel for other countries other the years. Not especially willingly as an active source. The Congo region was the source of much of the Cold War nuclear material for the vast proliferation of nuclear weapons, but various non African powers kept the area in conflict to prevent the rise of any representative government that would oppose that extraction.
- _djo_ 2y ago
  It doesn't include all research reactors, for instance for South Africa it only shows the Koeberg nuclear power station but not the SAFARI-1 research and isotype-production reactor.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFARI-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFARI-1
- externedguy 2y ago
  A "nuclear station" is just a sound name I found because other domains were taken ;) APS is a widely used term as far as I understood from wikipedia. > Are you across the reactors under construction? China has a good number on the go and planned Some of them are located on the Null Island (0" 0" coordinates) I think, I'll add sensible locations for them. I don't think it's a good idea to include mobile reactors on the map, but maybe it makes sense to create some kind of a list with them if there's a real need for such a thing. > Not especially willingly as an active source. The Congo region was the source of much of the Cold War Isn't France still heavily dependent on uranium from Niger, Namibia?
  - defrost 2y ago
    France's most recent source of volume is winding down | has wound down - they have other options for future fuel. There's an NEA Red Book that's quite thorough. https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-production-and-demand-red-book https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-pro... As the only government-sponsored publication tracking world trends and developments in uranium resources, production and demand, the Red Book is an authoritative source of information on the subject. is an accurate although qualified sound-bite .. at one point in time the precursor to https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/metals-mining https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/met... was considered definitive wrt uranium sources, it had all the Red Book data and a good deal of non government mining company internal data. (late in day for me, I have better recall & resources to hand at other times)
hiergiltdiestfu 2y ago
Nice work! Can you consider finding a different solution for the many entries on Null Island, please?
- externedguy 2y ago
  Ideally, this Null Island should not exist on this map I think. I guess I'll need to research all of them and put a sensible location for each. e.g. Kumharia should be in India, not on the Null Island. Will do once I have more time for this project
RajuVarghese 2y ago
There is a circle with 10 nuclear stations that is erroneously located (on the map) in the Atlantic just south of West Africa. That should be in/near China.
- externedguy 2y ago
  There are more than 10. It's the Null Island location @hiergiltdiestfu refers to in another comment. Will add the locations to all of them once I have time to put all the coordinates in.
  - 3np 2y ago
    Most recently featured: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41073777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41073777
- mikeocool 2y ago
  Those are the little known Null Island reactors!
frumiousirc 2y ago
Maybe you include only power reactors and exclude research reactors? In the latter category is this decommissioned reactor not shown on your map: https://www.bnl.gov/hfbr/ https://www.bnl.gov/hfbr/
- externedguy 2y ago
  Research reactors are not used for energy production, so yes, reactors like HFBR in US, Petten in Netherlands are not included. Maybe I'll add them later, but for this I need to first add sensible filters for clarity, otherwise it will become a mess and won't be as simple to see what kind of potential certain region in some country has.
  - physicsguy 2y ago
    Yeah, there's similarly defense reactors. For e.g. this site in Derby in the UK: https://www.onr.org.uk/our-work/what-we-regulate/defence/defence-sites/neptune-reactor-site/ https://www.onr.org.uk/our-work/what-we-regulate/defence/def...
KptMarchewa 2y ago
Poland has test nuclear reactor: https://www.ncbj.gov.pl/en/maria-reactor https://www.ncbj.gov.pl/en/maria-reactor We were building NPP based on VVER reactors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Nuclear_Power_P... We're going to build at least one, the planning phase is rather advanced and real building is expected to start in 2026, with completion expected in 2033-2035. https://ppej.pl/en/news/information-on-the-status-of-field-work-in-connection-with-the-project-to-build-the-first-nuclear-power-plant-in-poland https://ppej.pl/en/news/information-on-the-status-of-field-w...
- externedguy 2y ago
  MARIA is a research reactor that does not contribute to the grid so it's not included. I indeed missed the other two, added both of them (even though they have no ID provided by IAEA) here: https://nuclearstations.com/map#6.58/54.044/19 https://nuclearstations.com/map#6.58/54.044/19
fifilura 2y ago
In Scandinavia i would say Denmark is the anomaly. Their bet is on wind power. I think they also had a negative sentiment towards nuclear because Sweden built one of their (now closed) plants very close to Copenhagen. Norway has so much high yield Hydro power that they would not need it. (The difference between Swedish and Norwegian hydro is that the landscape is more dramatic so they can get a big height difference. Whereas Sweden has to rely on huge reservoirs to store water). Both Sweden and Finland has Nuclear power, at the scale or higher than their population would sustain, and Finland opened their latest plant as late as 2023.
- ViewTrick1002 2y ago
  Finland opened a single new reactor after a 13 year delay on what was supposed to be a 5 year project at unimaginable cost for all involved parties. Not a great look.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    While late to the party, it will provide material support for the Baltics as they disconnect from the Russian grid over the next 6-12 months [1]. Synchronous condensers are being installed, and the Finland<->Estonia interconnect is being upgraded to support more current [2] [3]. This should also reduce Estonia's carbon heavy generation from oil shale [4]. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-from-russia/a-66423868 https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-fr... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545607 (citations) [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37832343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37832343 (citations) [4] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/estonia-turns-back-shale-oil-it-cuts-off-russian-power-2022-10-19/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/estonia-turns-back-s...
fifilura 2y ago
In Sweden there is also a closed down reactor close to the Stockholm city center at the technical university (KTH). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R1_(nuclear_reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R1_(nuclear_reactor) Not the same as the Ågesta reactor, which is mapped.
- externedguy 2y ago
  Thanks, afaiu it's also a research reactor that did not contribute to the grid. Might add research ones in the future, even though I do not see how they would be useful.
jeroen 2y ago
Something seems to be off with the grouping. If you look at Chinon (France) there are 2 different statuses, but 3 groups. A1 is not grouped with A2 and A3.
- externedguy 2y ago
  Circles are not grouped in any way, just overlaid. If you hover on the center of the circle you'll see all of the Chinon blocks (they're 7: A1-3 and B1-4). You can search for "Chinon" to see them on the list or just click the circle that will scroll the list to the section where all the blocks are visible. Will try to find a more intuitive way to show the reactors that are located in the same place.
tk90 2y ago
This is super cool! Curious how you got the data, web scraping I assume?
toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://resourcewatch.org/data/explore/Powerwatch https://resourcewatch.org/data/explore/Powerwatch is also a resource.
p1mrx 2y ago
There are a couple plants under construction in Kemmerer, WY and Oak Ridge, TN: https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-begins-construction-in-wyoming https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-begins-construction-in... https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/kairos-power-starts-construction-hermes-reactor https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/kairos-power-starts-const...
treebeard901 2y ago
I have been looking for spare nuclear rods and various waste for a few hobby projects and this map should help. Well done!
- externedguy 2y ago
  Sounds crazy, make sure you don’t brake into any of these. What kind of hobbies you have?!
- AtlasBarfed 2y ago
  ok, Dr. Evil
piyushtechsavy 2y ago
Interesting tool. What is the source of your data? I doubt some countries would let the world know their real capacity.
techguru007 2y ago
please consider filling in some gaps -- in the United States, for instance, your current map does not show any of the "experimental" reactors, and is even missing some of the Power Utilities reactors I am familiar with. I suspect that the DOE (US) has databases and maps which show most of those. There are many (not currently shown) in eastern Washington State, and many in Idaho State (US) I also have a friend who did the geologic surveys for a number of commercial nuclear stations in Africa -- so perhaps those did not end up in the database you used to source your data?
samstave 2y ago
Wonderful. Now, if we add the layers of the SubmarinCableMap [0] DataCenterMap [1] - and we begin to track shipments And https://i.imgur.com/zO0yz6J.png https://i.imgur.com/zO0yz6J.png -- Left is nuke, top = cables, bottom = datacenters. I went to ImportYeti to look into the NVIDIA shipments: https://i.imgur.com/k9018EC.png https://i.imgur.com/k9018EC.png And you look at the suppliers that are coming from Taiwan, such as the water-coolers and power cables to sus out where they may be shipping to, https://i.imgur.com/B5iWFQ1.png https://i.imgur.com/B5iWFQ1.png -- but instead, it would be better to find shipping lables for datacenters that are receiving containers from Taiwain, and the same suppliers as NVIDIA for things such as power cables. While the free data is out of date on ImportYeti - it gives a good supply line idea for NVIDIA... with the goal to find out which datacenters that are getting such shipments, you can begin to measure the footprint of AI as it grows, and which nuke plants they are likely powered from. Then, looking into whatever reporting one may access for the consumption/util of the nuke's capacity in various regions, we can estimate the power footprint of growing Global Compute. DataCenterNews and all sorts of datasets are available - and now the ability to create this crawler/tracker is likely full implementable https://i.imgur.com/gsM75dz.png https://i.imgur.com/gsM75dz.png https://i.imgur.com/a7nGGKh.png https://i.imgur.com/a7nGGKh.png [0] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ [1] https://www.datacentermap.com/ https://www.datacentermap.com/

129 points by externedguy 2y ago

hk__2 2y ago

I’m getting a 502 Bad gateway :/

externedguy 2y ago
sorry, should be fixed now, forgot to scale ram on fly.io :/

rob74 2y ago

> what came to my surprise is that Poland, Turkey, Scandinavian countries, Africa have literally 1 to none nuclear stations. Also, Austria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Austria Short timeline: - 1972: started building its first nuclear power plant - 1978: parliament decides to ban nuclear power for 20 years - 1997: ban is made permanent Note that the initial decision for the ban was even before Chernobyl (the event that greatly boosted anti-nuclear sentiment in Europe). What's important to keep in mind is that fuel from nuclear power plants can also be used for developing nuclear weapons, so historically only states "trustworthy" to the US or the former USSR were allowed access to the technology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation#Dual-Use_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation#Dual-Use...).

externedguy 2y ago
Indeed. I wonder what are the real reasons behind these bans in German nations. Can't believe it's just for political populism, there must be something more substantial.
- creesch 2y ago
  > Can't believe it's just for political populism, there must be something more substantial. Can you expand on what you mean by that? Also, generalizing "German" nations like this does seem a bit odd to me. Austria has a very clear and different history with nuclear power compared to Germany where it is only recently that they vowed to get rid of nuclear. For the latter case, it very much was due to events around the Fukushima nuclear accident what contributed greatly to the decision.
  - rob74 2y ago
    Not sure about the rest, but I can definitely explain why Germany has (had) nuclear power plants and Austria doesn't: lobbying! Siemens wanted an opportunity to show off its technology, so all NPPs in West Germany were built by them. Austria didn't have such implications, so no nuclear power. Lobbying (by the strong automobile industry) is also the reason why the German autobahns still have no general speed limit and are still free to use for cars (paid by taxes of course). Austria BTW has both a speed limit and a toll for its freeways (and no domestic car manufacturers).
    - externedguy 2y ago
      History has shown that German automotive industry has huge power, so things like nuclear ban, shady emission restrictions, etc. seem like just the tip of the iceberg.
      - cinntaile 2y ago
        Are you really insinuating that the German automotive industry is behind the nuclear ban? Why would they do that?

pella 2y ago

Alternative ( with individual Nuclear Power Plants ): "Open Infrastructure Map is a view of the world's infrastructure mapped in the OpenStreetMap database." like: https://openinframap.org/#12.37/49.08812/16.15412 https://openinframap.org/#12.37/49.08812/16.15412

externedguy 2y ago
didn't know about this one, looks nice but complicated. Note: if you want to see individual stations, you can disable clustering on the map I've made on the top right corner there's a control for disabling clustering. maybe I should make clustering disabled by default?
- pella 2y ago
  All OpenStreetMap - nuclear: https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1Pqv https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1Pqv And you can add an extra osm link / Wikidata link for any individual Nuclear Plants: example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5538984#map=16/49.0845/16.1482 https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/5538984#map=16/49.084... <tag k="landuse" v="industrial"/> <tag k="name" v="Jaderná elektrárna Dukovany"/> <tag k="name:cs" v="Jaderná elektrárna Dukovany"/> <tag k="name:de" v="Kernkraftwerk Dukovany"/> <tag k="name:en" v="Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant"/> <tag k="operator" v="ČEZ"/> <tag k="operator:wikidata" v="Q336735"/> <tag k="plant:method" v="fission"/> <tag k="plant:output:electricity" v="1880 MW"/> <tag k="plant:source" v="nuclear"/> <tag k="power" v="plant"/> <tag k="ref:EU:ENTSOE_EIC" v="27W-PU-EDUK----1"/> <tag k="short_name" v="EDU"/> <tag k="type" v="multipolygon"/> <tag k="wikidata" v="Q687033"/> <tag k="wikipedia" v="cs:Jaderná elektrárna Dukovany"/> And a Link to Wikidata : https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q336735
  - externedguy 2y ago
    Nice, thanks for the ideas and links! Might add this data to the map in the future, hopefully will find a way to do so in a user-friendly way without cluttering the ui.

defrost 2y ago

What's a "nuclear station" .. does a 20 megawatt reactor count? https://www.ansto.gov.au/education/nuclear-facts https://www.ansto.gov.au/education/nuclear-facts How about mobile reactors .. they're purposely hard to geolocate but their number is (up to a point) relatively well known (within circles). Are you across the reactors under construction? China has a good number on the go and planned to break ground in the near future, both on their home soil and for global clients. > and Africa specifically was sourcing lots of nuclear fuel for other countries other the years. Not especially willingly as an active source. The Congo region was the source of much of the Cold War nuclear material for the vast proliferation of nuclear weapons, but various non African powers kept the area in conflict to prevent the rise of any representative government that would oppose that extraction.

_djo_ 2y ago
It doesn't include all research reactors, for instance for South Africa it only shows the Koeberg nuclear power station but not the SAFARI-1 research and isotype-production reactor.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFARI-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFARI-1
externedguy 2y ago
A "nuclear station" is just a sound name I found because other domains were taken ;) APS is a widely used term as far as I understood from wikipedia. > Are you across the reactors under construction? China has a good number on the go and planned Some of them are located on the Null Island (0" 0" coordinates) I think, I'll add sensible locations for them. I don't think it's a good idea to include mobile reactors on the map, but maybe it makes sense to create some kind of a list with them if there's a real need for such a thing. > Not especially willingly as an active source. The Congo region was the source of much of the Cold War Isn't France still heavily dependent on uranium from Niger, Namibia?
- defrost 2y ago
  France's most recent source of volume is winding down | has wound down - they have other options for future fuel. There's an NEA Red Book that's quite thorough. https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-production-and-demand-red-book https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-pro... As the only government-sponsored publication tracking world trends and developments in uranium resources, production and demand, the Red Book is an authoritative source of information on the subject. is an accurate although qualified sound-bite .. at one point in time the precursor to https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/metals-mining https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/met... was considered definitive wrt uranium sources, it had all the Red Book data and a good deal of non government mining company internal data. (late in day for me, I have better recall & resources to hand at other times)

hiergiltdiestfu 2y ago

Nice work! Can you consider finding a different solution for the many entries on Null Island, please?

externedguy 2y ago
Ideally, this Null Island should not exist on this map I think. I guess I'll need to research all of them and put a sensible location for each. e.g. Kumharia should be in India, not on the Null Island. Will do once I have more time for this project

RajuVarghese 2y ago

There is a circle with 10 nuclear stations that is erroneously located (on the map) in the Atlantic just south of West Africa. That should be in/near China.

externedguy 2y ago
There are more than 10. It's the Null Island location @hiergiltdiestfu refers to in another comment. Will add the locations to all of them once I have time to put all the coordinates in.
- 3np 2y ago
  Most recently featured: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41073777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41073777
mikeocool 2y ago
Those are the little known Null Island reactors!

frumiousirc 2y ago

Maybe you include only power reactors and exclude research reactors? In the latter category is this decommissioned reactor not shown on your map: https://www.bnl.gov/hfbr/ https://www.bnl.gov/hfbr/

externedguy 2y ago
Research reactors are not used for energy production, so yes, reactors like HFBR in US, Petten in Netherlands are not included. Maybe I'll add them later, but for this I need to first add sensible filters for clarity, otherwise it will become a mess and won't be as simple to see what kind of potential certain region in some country has.
- physicsguy 2y ago
  Yeah, there's similarly defense reactors. For e.g. this site in Derby in the UK: https://www.onr.org.uk/our-work/what-we-regulate/defence/defence-sites/neptune-reactor-site/ https://www.onr.org.uk/our-work/what-we-regulate/defence/def...

KptMarchewa 2y ago

Poland has test nuclear reactor: https://www.ncbj.gov.pl/en/maria-reactor https://www.ncbj.gov.pl/en/maria-reactor We were building NPP based on VVER reactors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBarnowiec_Nuclear_Power_P... We're going to build at least one, the planning phase is rather advanced and real building is expected to start in 2026, with completion expected in 2033-2035. https://ppej.pl/en/news/information-on-the-status-of-field-work-in-connection-with-the-project-to-build-the-first-nuclear-power-plant-in-poland https://ppej.pl/en/news/information-on-the-status-of-field-w...

externedguy 2y ago
MARIA is a research reactor that does not contribute to the grid so it's not included. I indeed missed the other two, added both of them (even though they have no ID provided by IAEA) here: https://nuclearstations.com/map#6.58/54.044/19 https://nuclearstations.com/map#6.58/54.044/19

fifilura 2y ago

In Scandinavia i would say Denmark is the anomaly. Their bet is on wind power. I think they also had a negative sentiment towards nuclear because Sweden built one of their (now closed) plants very close to Copenhagen. Norway has so much high yield Hydro power that they would not need it. (The difference between Swedish and Norwegian hydro is that the landscape is more dramatic so they can get a big height difference. Whereas Sweden has to rely on huge reservoirs to store water). Both Sweden and Finland has Nuclear power, at the scale or higher than their population would sustain, and Finland opened their latest plant as late as 2023.

ViewTrick1002 2y ago
Finland opened a single new reactor after a 13 year delay on what was supposed to be a 5 year project at unimaginable cost for all involved parties. Not a great look.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  While late to the party, it will provide material support for the Baltics as they disconnect from the Russian grid over the next 6-12 months [1]. Synchronous condensers are being installed, and the Finland<->Estonia interconnect is being upgraded to support more current [2] [3]. This should also reduce Estonia's carbon heavy generation from oil shale [4]. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-from-russia/a-66423868 https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-fr... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39545607 (citations) [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37832343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37832343 (citations) [4] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/estonia-turns-back-shale-oil-it-cuts-off-russian-power-2022-10-19/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/estonia-turns-back-s...

fifilura 2y ago

In Sweden there is also a closed down reactor close to the Stockholm city center at the technical university (KTH). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R1_(nuclear_reactor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R1_(nuclear_reactor) Not the same as the Ågesta reactor, which is mapped.

externedguy 2y ago
Thanks, afaiu it's also a research reactor that did not contribute to the grid. Might add research ones in the future, even though I do not see how they would be useful.

jeroen 2y ago

Something seems to be off with the grouping. If you look at Chinon (France) there are 2 different statuses, but 3 groups. A1 is not grouped with A2 and A3.

externedguy 2y ago
Circles are not grouped in any way, just overlaid. If you hover on the center of the circle you'll see all of the Chinon blocks (they're 7: A1-3 and B1-4). You can search for "Chinon" to see them on the list or just click the circle that will scroll the list to the section where all the blocks are visible. Will try to find a more intuitive way to show the reactors that are located in the same place.

tk90 2y ago

This is super cool! Curious how you got the data, web scraping I assume?

toomuchtodo 2y ago

https://resourcewatch.org/data/explore/Powerwatch https://resourcewatch.org/data/explore/Powerwatch is also a resource.

p1mrx 2y ago

There are a couple plants under construction in Kemmerer, WY and Oak Ridge, TN: https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-begins-construction-in-wyoming https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-begins-construction-in... https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/kairos-power-starts-construction-hermes-reactor https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/kairos-power-starts-const...

treebeard901 2y ago

I have been looking for spare nuclear rods and various waste for a few hobby projects and this map should help. Well done!

externedguy 2y ago
Sounds crazy, make sure you don’t brake into any of these. What kind of hobbies you have?!
AtlasBarfed 2y ago
ok, Dr. Evil

piyushtechsavy 2y ago

Interesting tool. What is the source of your data? I doubt some countries would let the world know their real capacity.

techguru007 2y ago

please consider filling in some gaps -- in the United States, for instance, your current map does not show any of the "experimental" reactors, and is even missing some of the Power Utilities reactors I am familiar with. I suspect that the DOE (US) has databases and maps which show most of those. There are many (not currently shown) in eastern Washington State, and many in Idaho State (US) I also have a friend who did the geologic surveys for a number of commercial nuclear stations in Africa -- so perhaps those did not end up in the database you used to source your data?

samstave 2y ago

Wonderful. Now, if we add the layers of the SubmarinCableMap [0] DataCenterMap [1] - and we begin to track shipments And https://i.imgur.com/zO0yz6J.png https://i.imgur.com/zO0yz6J.png -- Left is nuke, top = cables, bottom = datacenters. I went to ImportYeti to look into the NVIDIA shipments: https://i.imgur.com/k9018EC.png https://i.imgur.com/k9018EC.png And you look at the suppliers that are coming from Taiwan, such as the water-coolers and power cables to sus out where they may be shipping to, https://i.imgur.com/B5iWFQ1.png https://i.imgur.com/B5iWFQ1.png -- but instead, it would be better to find shipping lables for datacenters that are receiving containers from Taiwain, and the same suppliers as NVIDIA for things such as power cables. While the free data is out of date on ImportYeti - it gives a good supply line idea for NVIDIA... with the goal to find out which datacenters that are getting such shipments, you can begin to measure the footprint of AI as it grows, and which nuke plants they are likely powered from. Then, looking into whatever reporting one may access for the consumption/util of the nuke's capacity in various regions, we can estimate the power footprint of growing Global Compute. DataCenterNews and all sorts of datasets are available - and now the ability to create this crawler/tracker is likely full implementable https://i.imgur.com/gsM75dz.png https://i.imgur.com/gsM75dz.png https://i.imgur.com/a7nGGKh.png https://i.imgur.com/a7nGGKh.png [0] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ [1] https://www.datacentermap.com/ https://www.datacentermap.com/