What is behind the numbers, and how to use them yourself
WhereNuc maps every nuclear reactor and major uranium mining operation on an interactive globe, and tracks daily reactor output where regulators publish it. This page exists so that anyone using the figures can see exactly where each one comes from, which numbers are raw source data and which are our own calculation, and what the dataset does not cover.
The guiding rule is simple: every figure on this site is derived from a source file. Nothing is estimated to fill a gap. Where data is missing, the page shows a dash.
| Source | What it provides | Coverage | Update | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeoNuclearData | Reactor records: names, locations, capacity, type, status, dates | 759 units across 359 sites | Refreshed daily from the upstream repository | Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0 |
| U.S. NRC — Power Reactor Status Report | Daily power level of every U.S. reactor, as reported by licensees | 95 reporting units | Read every 6 hours; NRC publishes each morning | U.S. federal government work — public domain |
| ENTSO-E Transparency Platform | Daily generation per reactor unit across European grids | 7 grid areas, 82 units | Read every 6 hours; one day per request | Free reuse with attribution (EU Regulation 543/2013) |
| IAEA PRIS | World reactor totals, and the reference for verified corrections to capacity and status | Global | Read periodically | IAEA — consult their terms before reuse |
| World Nuclear Association + company reports | Uranium mining operations: output, method, operator | 24 major operations | Manually compiled, updated occasionally | Figures are factual data compiled by WhereNuc from published reports |
| Publisher RSS feeds | Nuclear news headlines and links | 14 feeds | Continuous | Headline, link and source name only; full text is never reproduced. Feeds are read directly from publishers, with no third-party news API in between |
The numbers below are not present in any source file. They are derived by WhereNuc from the raw data, and the method matters, so it is written out here.
Mean of observed daily power readings for a unit over the window. Days with no reading are skipped rather than counted as zero, so a missing report does not look like an outage.
Capacity-weighted average across reporting units. A simple mean would treat a 1,200 MW unit and a 600 MW unit as equally important, which would distort the figure.
Consecutive days at zero power, counted backwards from the latest reading. Refuelling outages are normal and typically last a few weeks.
The upstream dataset marks "Suspended Operation" units, but most tools fold them into "shut down". WhereNuc keeps them separate: these reactors are not permanently closed, they remain licensed and can return to service. This affects 25 units, mostly in Japan.
Reactor units are grouped into sites by plant identifier. A site status is the most active status among its units: operating beats under construction beats planned beats suspended beats shut down.
Summed from unit records after country-name normalisation ("USA" and "United States" are the same country; without this they were being counted separately).
Live generation data sometimes contradicts the reactor record. Where it does, the record is corrected — but only against a primary source, never from the measurement itself. ENTSO-E reports gross output while capacity figures are net, so deriving one from the other would be an estimate. Each correction is stored with its source and the date it was checked, and is re-applied on every refresh so it survives upstream updates. If the upstream record is later fixed, the correction detects this and stops applying.
Every endpoint is open, needs no key and no signup. Responses are JSON. Rate limits apply per IP; if you get HTTP 429, slow down and check the Retry-After header.
| Endpoint | Returns | Size |
|---|---|---|
/api/plants | Sites with coordinates, status, unit count and capacity | 359 sites |
/api/reactors | Individual reactor units with full detail | 759 units |
/api/uranium-mines | Uranium mining operations | 24 operations |
/api/reactor-status | U.S. daily reactor power and capacity factors | 95 units |
/api/global-stats | World totals: operating, building, planned, shut down, capacity | aggregate |
/api/uranium-spot | Latest uranium spot price indicator | single value |
/api/news | Nuclear news headlines with source and link | rolling |
/api/ask | Natural-language query answered from the dataset | add ?q=your+question |
/api/reactor-status?history=1&days=365 returns the daily power series for each unit instead of just the latest reading.
/api/ask?q=how+many+reactors+does+France+have answers a question directly from the dataset. No language model is involved: the answer is computed, not generated, so it cannot invent a figure.
The interactive globe can be embedded in any page. It is the same map used here, with the panels stripped out. No key, no tracking script, free to use with the attribution badge left in place.
<iframe src="https://wherenuc.com/embed" width="100%" height="520" style="border:0" loading="lazy" title="Nuclear plants and uranium mines"></iframe>
You may use WhereNuc data freely, including commercially. What follows is what the upstream licences require of both of us.
Reactor records derive from GeoNuclearData, which is published under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. Pages on this site are a Produced Work under that licence and carry the notice below. The JSON endpoints, which serve the records themselves, are made available under ODbL as well — meaning you can redistribute them, and anyone you pass them to can do the same.
U.S. NRC data is a work of the U.S. federal government and is in the public domain. The capacity factors and outage durations WhereNuc derives from it are our own compilation.
Please attribute WhereNuc when you use figures or embeds, and do not hammer the API. It runs on modest hosting and is free for everyone.
Something wrong, or a source we should add? [email protected]
Open the 3D globe →