Add an option to not show the nuclear energy in green

[klacol]

I had some time, when I looked into EM on a daily basis. But then i was frustrated when I realized, that some countries are nice green, because the have much nuclear power, even when they are behind in wind and solar. This does not reflect my personal feelings; it is somehow a political thing.

It it ok for me, when EM has decided to do so, but that hinders me to share pictures of the map.

I would like to have an option, to toogle somehow this green-colorized nuclear power, even if it is very clear, that the fact, that nuclear is good for CO2 reduction is very correct. But for me it is not green :-). Perhaps blue is a better color.

If this is a political thing for EM, and is indented for the platform, that that is ok; but then EM is not for me.

[jarek]

The introduction to Electricity Maps (shown when first loading the site, or in a private browsing window) says: "We color areas around the world by the carbon intensity of consumed electricity (includes all greenhouse gases). The greener the color, the more climate-friendly the electricity."

Incidentally, how would you like to have countries like Sweden coloured? They're often half hydro and half nuclear. Teal?

And how do you think would this work for the colour-blind mode?

The current map colouring is with greenest (or lightest yellow, in colour-blind) assigned to countries with lowest emissions (g CO2eq/kWh). Considering that nuclear can be just one of several generation sources, how do you think this feature would work?

1. Would you drop nuclear generation from calculating the carbon intensity? But that would be wildly unrealistic for some regions like France where nuclear generation is 70+% of the total.
2. Would you assume that overall production in GW was kept constant, but the nuclear generation was replaced with high-carbon generation like natural gas?
3. Would you assume that overall production in GW was kept constant, but the nuclear generation was replaced with low-carbon generation like hydro?
4. Would you like the current colouring be crossed over with another colour like blue according to how much nuclear generation there was? Would this produce actually useful colours, considering cases span from Sweden being approx 50 g CO2eq with 25% nuclear, through France being ~50 g CO2eq with 75% nuclear, Ontario ~150 g with 45% nuclear, Romania ~300 g CO2eq with 20% nuclear, Tennessee Valley ~375 g with 45% nuclear, Kansai ~400 g with 25% nuclear? Would this work in colour-blind mode?
5. Would some sort of hatching scheme where current colour scheme is kept but regions are hatched over according to percentage of nuclear generation satisfy your political thing?
6. Would you like an entirely separate map that shows only percentage of generation that was nuclear?

Maybe you can create some samples of how you think the worldwide map could look like?

[klacol]

Thanks for your long answer. As I have written; I know that nuclear hat a lower CO2 than coal and gas. That is not the question for me. I just have fears, that there are other longterm problems with nuclear, but they should not force a political discussion.

Here are my remarks to your questions

0. I am not an expert in color-blind mode. Is it something special with green and blue?
1. No, I would not drop nuclear generation from calculating the carbon intensity. It it good to have all the numbers.
2. No, I would not replace the numbers of nuclear generation in any way. Facts are Facts.
3. No, I would not replace the numbers of nuclear generation in any way. Facts are Facts.
4. No, I think, mixing colors to express this situation is also not feasable, Mixing colors create other colors, which have no usually known meaning
5. No, hatching is again not good for color-blind people
6. No, the key asset of EM is the one map, where you can compare the countries and the power flow

I would place a toggle on the right sidebar:

Name: Colormode Option 1: CO2-low Option 2: regenerative

And then you could change the base for the calculation for the map-colors, based on the percentages you already show in the left window.

[VIKTORVAV99]

But the map is not using either of those modes at the moment. And while it would theoretically be possible for us to do it would no longer represent what it's meant to represent, the carbon emissions of the grid.

We already show the percentage of renewable energy, which is solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass, as well as low carbon which is the above plus nuclear in both the tooltip and side panel. Which is meant to give just the context you are asking for.

It's possible we introduce such maps as a compliment to the existing map but that is nothing we have planned.

[klacol]

Ok, thanks

[ajoga]

@klacol you may be interested by #6615