OpenGridWorks: Electricity infrastructure, mapped | Hacker News Reader

OpenGridWorks: Electricity infrastructure, mapped

opengridworks.com

178 pointsjonbraun34 comments

The map is missing a proper attribution as it is required by OpenStreetMap when using the project's data: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright/attribution-guide/

It is in the bottom right corner when clicking (i) button just like the https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Attribution_Guideline... suggests. The only questionable part I see is that after page reload it flickers for half a second and then gets automatically hidden instead of getting hidden after manual interaction with map. Is there any other point in attribution requirements that it doesn't comply with?

I could've sworn it wasn't there before - but maybe I also just missed it since it is covered by the half-transparent panel (on mobile) and all the other stuff around it distracted me.

This is my mistake, mobile is/was a mess and I was only really looking at desktop before posting. It was buried behind the misplaced bottom bar. Fixed now.

Thank you!

Related, mapping of OSM infrastructure data:

https://openinframap.org/

Watch out, every little map zoom or slide seems to put another url in your browser history. Not exaggerating here, must have found over 100 of them after just a minute or so of playing with the page

This is awesome. It'd be even more awesome if it was easier to show a power plant's info upon hover / click. ...It's currently too much of a cat-and-mouse game for me.

Give https://mapcomplete.org/infrastructure a try

Thanks, it's much easier to load info with the option you shared.

Sorry about that. Are you on desktop or mobile, and iOS in particular? Just want to make sure I understand what you're seeing.

All good, I appreciate what you built! On desktop with Windows 11. I just tried it again and it was much easier to see the info (thru hover) than before.

This is really cool! As a weird coincidence I was actually working on something similar focusing on datacenter load per ISO literally earlier today! https://energy-vis-chi.vercel.app/

It takes over 150% CPU and counting. I'm not sure that this page is even loaded in full since it overheated the whole system. This is definitely not cool.

Man thats a beautiful looking map and shows datacenters and other infrastructure too. Very rad.

Massively slow

Completely inaccurate, claiming the uk is currently producing 115GW of electricity for example

Sorry for the slowness. The 115GW is installed capacity, not current output. That's the standard way to report it, both units are reported in watts.

Satellites on the outside as well kind of neat. Does Africa not have much opendata sharing or little mapped? Its wildly different on the map for sparsity of info.

I also got nervous on spot checking but seems like some countries genuinely do not have grid electricity. IEA had Niger at 983GWh of grid electricity in 2023, less output than one small 120MW gas plant. https://www.iea.org/countries/niger/electricity

This is extremely cool especially for me since I work in sustainability. Wondering if theres a github attached or open to sharing the data or collaborate?

The map uses OpenStreetMap as data source.

If you're not using the OSM API, there are also full exports of the complete dataset available at https://planet.openstreetmap.org/

Nice. I had no idea that nearby paper mill includes 200MW of power generation.

Another auto spinning globe with no way to turn that off.

At this point I'm convinced all these globe apps are copying the same examples from somewhere and inheriting the same gimmick.

Hah, I intentionally turned it on to record a video but consistent feedback has been that it's bad, so it is default off now!

Much appreciated.

Bad mouthing others hard work is not encouraged, but when I and others point out this behavior, it actually gets modded up. So yes, you should feel confident that default off is the right choice.

None of the layers show up for me

Failed to verify your browser

Code 11

its like a military targeting map for our geopolitical adversaries

Or domestic. I'm shocked this information is this available.

It is simply difficult to hide. You can just go and look at the infrastructure, after all. I bet almost all the information is from OpenStreetmaps, and people just walked around and added all the power lines, substations and powerplants they saw by hand.

And sure, you can bury the cables, or you can try keeping the output of your powerplants secret. But then the infrastructure nerds (or foreign spies) just count coal hopper railway cars per day and analyze cooling tower dimensions.

Yeah. I get that adversaries can capture their own high res satellite photos and determine this, but this is just handing it to them on a silver platter.

It’s kind of hard to hide electrical transmission line towers and HV->MV electrical substations, let alone power plants or solar fields. Virtually all HV transmission lines and most MV distribution lines are above-ground as they use air as an insulator for economic reasons, same with substations.

A higher amount of distribution lines and substations are underground in dense urban cores and some residential areas, but there’s plenty of above-ground electrical distribution as well.

It’s akin to trying to hide how many skyscrapers exist in the US, they’re highly visible anyways, might as well publish the info so people and companies that live and operate in the US can take advantage of it.

The US government itself publishes more or less the same information: https://www.eia.gov/maps/

If all the schools are on google maps it makes it harder to claim "I thought it was a military base ... and even if it was a school the other guys definately did it"

Or we could just stop spending trillions bombing each other and get back to work.

@dang typo in title "infrasctr...". Feel free to delete this comment.

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