Ideas for additional functions on electricitymap

This is a collection of ideas for additional functions, infos and data related to the functions of https://electricitymap.org

Everything you find here is coming from my own process of thoughts for improvements without any consultation with the team. Some of it may be logical extensions, some might be influenced and biased by my personal perspectives, and other stuff may be just for fun.

Nuclear waste map

I think it totally is a logical consequence to point at the radioactive waste which is produced by all the nations running nuclear power plants (NPPs). France, Belgium, Sweden and Finland, to name a few from the European area, seem to be some of the "greenest" countries on the map. This is also happening at high environmental costs and risks that have been denied or played down over the last few decades. That in particular is also invisible in the current state of the map, except for the bar that is related to the nuclear electricity generation.

Nations generating electricity in NPPs are simply pushing a huge pile of radioactive waste from one year to the other, hoping there will be a feasible solution to get rid of their waste materials in the future.

These waste aggregations sould be visualized in a nuclear waste map as an extension of the current features.

Here are some key points for this idea:

• show real-time "generation" of radioactive waste per GWh per country
• show cumulated yearly amount of waste (continuously increasing, with graphs for the last 2 years)
• color the countries from pure white (no nuclear waste / nuclear imports) to dangerously red
• feature Geiger-counter sound (with different intensity) when selecting countries or while hovering over countries on the map
• apmlify Geiger-counter sound over areas with contamination due to previous accidents

In addition to the radioactive waste isotopes from NPPs themselves, which are mainly contained and can be considered "indirect emissions", there is another threat coming from "direct emissions" of coal and lignite combustion:

The remaining ashes and soot are enriched with nuclear elements like Uranium and Thorium. These are distributed to the area around the power stations via their chimneys. Therefore, a second nuclear layer may include "direct emissions" of nuclear elements.

• include data on emitted nuclear particles due to combustion (e.g., specific data is available for some German power plants!)
• show possible distribution of these particles in relation to prevailing wind conditions
• ...

Coal toxic emissions map

This idea is related to the emissions of other environmentally harmful substances like NOx and PM10 dust. Here is a list of toxic emissions from coal combustion in German power plants (see https://energy-charts.de):

Heavy metals:

• As, Pb, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Hg, Zn

Noxious gases:

• ammoniak, benzene, chlorine, dioxins, furans, fine particulate matter, fluorine, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitric oxides