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

nuclearstations.com

21–30 of 69 posts

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

#21
post #3

> 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 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 Cher…

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.

In general, ideas spread more easily in communities that speak the same language.

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

#22

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.

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.

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

#23
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Are you really insinuating that the German automotive industry is behind the nuclear ban? Why would they do that?

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

#24
post #3

> 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 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 Cher…

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.

Chernobyl was something very substantial in germany. People knew a radioactive cloud was coming and had to stop their kids from playing outside in that year. There are still regulations up to today, that every boar meat has to be checked for radioactive contamination and they don't disclose how much has to be thrown away (boars eat mushrooms). That doesn't create a feeling of safety, even though the real risk is probably not that high anymore.

In general, you may read up on the history of the anti nuclear movement. The idea was, officials said that nuclear is totally safe - people doubted it before that and then chernobyl was the turning point for many to not believe the government at all anymore, even though there had been big demonstration before that already.

The car industry had nothing to do with that. Rather, "populism" as you call it, or rather the strong opinion of many people living in a representative democracy somehow matters.

Also, it wasn't just opinion. There were violent clashes quite often, even with deaths. Driving the cost of it all up.

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

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you really insinuating that the German automotive industry is behind the nuclear ban? Why would they do that?

Keep in mind that I'm stupid in politics and economy and I did not invest meaningful time into studying them, but:

I think generally accepted nuclear power is a literal threat to the German automotive industry. MB, VW Group, BMW, and others are not ages ahead of Chinese manufacturers in EV sector like they are in case with ICE cars.

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

#26
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

[deleted]

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

#28
post #9

What's a "nuclear station" .. does a 20 megawatt reactor count? 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 glob…

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

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

#29

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/

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.

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

#30
post #9

What's a "nuclear station" .. does a 20 megawatt reactor count? 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 glob…

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?

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