New Tracker Shows United States Nuclear Reactors, Safety Records

Do you know whether you live near a nuclear power plant and whether it's ever had safety problems? A new Web-based tool unveiled today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) can provide you with all that information and more -- possibly more than you'll be comfortable knowing about.

The Nuclear Power Information Tracker provides a map-based view of all 125 operating and shuttered nuclear power plants in the U.S., with a wealth of features like hover-over popup information, zoom capabilities and sorting options. The tracker includes easy-to-read graphical data on which plants have experienced which types of safety problems, along with links to technical definitions, background information and Google Earth images for each facility.

The UCS said it developed the tracker to "help put the issue of nuclear power safety on the map -- literally." And that it does, often with eye-opening and disturbing detail.

A simple click and refresh, for example, brings up a U.S. map showing the locations of 33 nuclear reactors that use above-ground storage for used, or spent, nuclear waste -- a practice the UCS warns makes such facilities more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Another click and refresh results in a map displaying 30 different reactors that have been flagged for heightened attention from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). And yet another search shows that 99 reactors across the country have reported past leaks or spills of radioactive water into the environment.

There's also a button to "Show Inherently Safe Reactors." That generates a popup window with the number "0."

"The risk from existing reactors is so real and so large that liability insurance from private companies is financially impossible, thereby requiring federal liability protection," the popup reads.

Of the nation's 125 nuclear reactors, 104 are currently in operation and 21 have been shut down. Most of the country's operating reactors are concentrated in the Northeast, South and Midwest, with a further four in California, three in Arizona and one in Washington state. States with no currently active nuclear facilities include Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Between 2007 and 2009, the NRC has received or expects to receive 21 applications for 32 new nuclear reactors. The sites for those proposed plants are located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Union of Concerned Scientists, "UCS Launches New Searchable Map of Nuclear Reactors, Safety Problems." URL: (http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ucs-launches-new-searchable-0075.html)