Nuclear power plants & emergency planning zones in the US
| April 1, 2011 | Posted by Jef McClimans under Data Visualization, Map |
Given the coverage around the tragic incident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, the awesome people at seizemologik asked if I could make a map locating the nuclear power plants in the US. Thinking this was a great idea, I set out to make the map below. Here it is. Enjoy.
Don’t forget nuclear energy is usually relatively safe. The radiuses below represent the areas in case of a radiological incident. The emergency planning zones (EPZ) represent the radius of impact from a possible radiological incident. While there have been studies around the issue of health risks for populations living near nuclear power plants, this map does not try to represent those. Possibly later I will add that as a layer once I have done more research on the topic. If anyone has done that research I would be happy to utilize that information.
Note: I will update this post with more words tomorrow or the next day. Sorry about the brevity, lack of explanation or links to sources and other supplemental material, they will come shortly.
Jef McClimans | March 31, 2011 | thebizjam.com
Sources
10-mile and 50-mile emergency planning zones: http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/emerg-preparedness/faq.html#11
Sorry, I lost the exact page where I collected the population data: http://www.census.gov/
Plum and ingestion exposure pathways: http://www.co.wayne.ny.us/departments/emermgt/07WGGlossary.pdf
List and locations of nuclear reactors: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/list-power-reactor-units.html
They continue to pump millions of gallons of water over the reactor cores and over the spent fuel rods in these various power plants. They have no way of capturing and holding this water that is contaminated and cleaning it before it is going to flow back into the ocean or seep down into the fresh water table there in Japan.
I was looking at your map and comparing it to the map found here: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/map-power-reactors.html – there seem to be more locations on the NRC map. Were you using the same list, and if so, why are there less points on your map? (GREAT map, btw!!)
Thank you very much for the compliment. Yes I was using the same list. The reason I have fewer locations is because the NRC lists each reactor unit, while on my map i only mark the facility or complex as a whole. The reactors on the NRC list may only be a few hundred yards from one another, and while making the map I thought it looked a bit cluttered, especially once adding the emergency planning zones. I hope that explains why their are less on my map compared to the NRC list.