Nuclear waste supplies ~20% of U.S. electricity, but leaves behind high-level radioactive waste that stays dangerous for over 300,000 years. With no permanent national repository, 90,000+ metric tons now sit in 70+ temporary sites across the country, often near rivers, towns, and major population centers. This raises a critical question: who lives closest to these sites, and who bears the risk? Our project investigates exactly that. Read our article here: Temp Link.
FindMyNuclearWaste includes the data used in all of our findings/visuals. Data retrived were from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (site locations/images), the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2024 Spent Nuclear Fuel and Reprocessing Waste (nuclear fuel usage), and the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey (demographic/racial information). All of the code/notebooks used to display and map our data is included. Visuals included bar, bubble, pie, choropleth, lollipop, and correlation coefficient charts. Some of these visuals are located in the repository. The final article is also provided.
"Cornell Data Journal (CDJ) is a club consisting of around 40 people, whose goal is to provide students with the opportunity to publish journalistic stories about specific topics in small groups, using data as the main piece of evidence for their narrative. Beyond technical experience, as a social club, CDJ also attempts to provide students with an opportunity to develop relationships with other people, form communities of like-minded individuals, and grow as a person." - FA 25 CDJ Network
Melody (Team Lead) — Primarily created visuals, worked on the linear regression model, and gathered data. Also helped clean the data and worked on the article write-up.
Suchit (Team Member) — Primarily cleaned the data and worked on the interactive map. Also helped create visuals and worked on the article write-up.
Winifred (Team Member) — Primarily worked on the article write-up and also created visuals.