January 7, 2026
Power lines and plot lines
Open Infrastructure Map
Open Infrastructure Map: The internet’s new obsession sparks awe, war worries, and meme wars
TLDR: A public map visualizes global power lines, plants, pipelines, and cables in one place. Commenters bounce between wonder and worry—celebrating transparency, warning about wartime risks, memeing France’s nukes vs Germany’s coal, and citing Texas’s 2021 blackout as a cautionary tale about isolated grids and few HVDC links.
Open Infrastructure Map turns the world’s hidden wiring into a swipeable spectacle — power lines, power plants, pipelines, telecom towers, even a cheeky “beer pipeline” layer. Built on OpenStreetMap with MapLibre, it’s like pulling the curtain on the backstage of modern life. Commenters are glued to it. One gushes at watching voltage step down from faraway plants and spotting undersea cables they “didn’t know about.” It’s Google Earth for the grid, and people are zooming in like it’s gossip.
But drama sparks fast. A top reply slams the map as a “bad idea in terms of security in war,” lighting up the classic transparency vs safety showdown. HN historians arrive with past threads and receipts from 2022, because of course this debate has sequels.
Meanwhile, the meme lords clock in: “Gigachad French nuclear vs virgin German coal,” one quips, turning Europe’s energy strategy into a map roast. And in a sobering twist, a Texan drops a 2021 freeze flashback, blaming the state’s isolated grid and only a few HVDC (high‑voltage direct current) links for why “we couldn’t rely on excess capacity.” The vibe: half awe, half anxiety, with a side of energy geopolitics cosplay. The map is the stage; the comments are the fireworks.
Key Points
- •Open Infrastructure Map visualizes infrastructure data sourced from OpenStreetMap and rendered with MapLibre.
- •Users can toggle multiple layer groups: Background, Overlays, Heatmaps, Infrastructure, and Validation.
- •The legend details power lines by voltage classes, including HVDC, traction (<50 Hz), and underground lines.
- •Power plants and generators are categorized by technology and fuel types, including nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and more.
- •The map covers additional sectors: telecoms, gas, petroleum, water, and other pipelines with specific component types listed.