Explore The Consequences Of Radiation Fallout From Nuclear Reactor Meltdowns Around The US And The World

Explore The Radioactive Fallout Consequences For Nuclear Reactor Meltdowns Power Plants Around The US and The Entire World Using Google Earth or Google Maps.

Treehugger.com tips us off to a collaboration between Nature News and Google to map the consequences of meltdowns an nuclear power plants around the entire world.

Radioactive Fallout Consequences For Nuclear Reactor Meltdowns Around The US

Google Earth Maps Out At-Risk Populations Around Nuclear Power Plants

If a nuclear power plant in the US were to have issues, who would be affected? In a partnership between Nature News and Columbia University, we now have a Google map that tells us the population sizes around plants so we can easily scan and see the number of people that could be affected should anything occur at the plants.
The team Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) database run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Columbia University’s NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center to map out in an easy-to-read way, the location and size of nuclear power plants as well as population numbers around those plants.

On the map, population sizes are illustrated with circle size as well as color. Green circles represent less than 500,000 people and on the other side of the scale, red circles represent populations of over 20 million.

It’s a little scary to see the amount of impact a plant could have should it face troubles. But there’s more than just the US to worry about. The map covers the entire world — check out impacts a potential meltdown could have in India and China:

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Source: Tree Hugger

As Treehugger notes you can find the Google Earth App on Nature News where you can explore the consquences of radioactive fallout at nuclear power plants around the world and the consequences the radiation would have on the populations around the plants.

Here a smaller version of the application. You can view the larger version on the link above.

From the article:
Reactors, residents and risk
[...]
Map showing the population size living within 75 kilometres of each of the world’s nuclear power plants. Population increases with circle size and with colour, from green (< 0.5 million) to red (> 20 million). You need to download the Google Earth plug-in to view this graphic. See ‘How population sizes were estimated’ for an explanation of how the analysis was carried out.

Caution: This embedded version may have limited functionality on some browsers. Download the map file for fully enabled viewing on desktop versions of Google Earth.

Source: Nature News