IAEA= International Atomic Energy Agency – update here
Story below from the Register:
The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant in Japan, badly damaged during the extremely severe earthquake and tsunami there a week ago, continues to stabilise. It is becoming more probable by the day that public health consequences will be zero and radiation health effects among workers at the site will be so minor as to be hard to measure. Nuclear experts are beginning to condemn the international hysteria which has followed the incident in increasingly blunt terms.
Seawater cooling of the three damaged reactor cores (Nos 1, 2 and 3) at the site continues. US officials and other foreign commentators continued to remain focused on a spent-fuel storage pool at the No 4 reactor (whose fuel had been removed and placed in the pool some three months prior to the quake).
Despite this, operations by Japanese powerplant technicians, military personnel and emergency services at the site focused instead on cooling the spent-fuel pool at the No 3 building, and on restoring grid electrical power at the plant. Japanese officials continued to contend that water remained in the No 4 pool and the situation there was less serious than that at No 3. Police riot vehicles mounting powerful water cannon and fire trucks were used to douse the spent-fuel pool at No 3 with water, causing steam to emerge – confirming that some cooling at least was being achieved. One of the fire trucks was reportedly lent by US military units based locally, though operated by Japanese troops.
World Nuclear News reports that radiation levels have generally decreased across the plant, though they remain hazardous in the immediate area of reactors 2 and 3; levels also climb temporarily when technicians open valves to vent steam from the damaged cores in order to allow fresh seawater coolant to be pumped in, prompting teams to retreat before venting is carried out. Nonetheless 180 personnel are now working within the site where and when radiation levels permit them to do so safely.
An external power line has now been laid out to the plant and latest reports indicate that this will be connected to its systems by tomorrow: final hookup has been delayed by steam-venting operations from the cores. Powerplant technicians hope that this will restore cooling service to reactor cores and spent-fuel pools across the plant, in particular to the pools at reactors 3 and 4. If normal water levels can be restored to the pools high levels of radiation above and immediately around the buildings will be cut off by the liquid’s shielding effect. The buildings’ roofs would normally help with this, but both have been blown off in previous hydrogen explosions.
Meanwhile, plant operator TEPCO said that on-site diesel generation serving units 5 and 6 – which are safely shut down, but which also have spent fuel in their storage pools – has been restored. The plant’s diesels were mostly crippled by the tsunami which followed the quake: the wave was higher than the facility’s protective barriers had been designed for. The prospect of any trouble at these reactors now seems remote.
…
The IAEA seems to accept that things are settling down: a senior official at the agency tells Reuters that the situation is now “reasonably stable”.
Radiation readings at the site boundary remained low through Friday morning in Japan, dropping to 0.26 millisievert/hour. Personnel at the site are normally permitted to sustain 20 millisievert in a year: this has been raised to 250 millisievert owing to the emergency.
Normal dosage from background radiation is 2-3 millisievert annually: a chest CT scan delivers 7 millisievert. The highest radiation level detected anywhere beyond the site was a single brief reading of 0.17 millisievert at the boundary of the evacuation zone, but on average (Japanese government PDF/72KB) readings at the zone boundary are hardly above background.
Read the complete and detailed report here
h/t to Bernd Felsche via Facebook
I’ve posted this before, but here it is again.
An excerpt from the Executive Summary: “. . . there is a major business risk nuclear power will be more costly than projected. Recent construction cost estimates imply capital costs/kWh (not counting operation or fuel costs) from 17-22 cents/kWh when the nuclear facilities come on-line. Another major business risk is nuclear’s history of construction delays. Delays would run costs higher, risking
funding shortfalls. The strain on cash flow is expected to degrade credit ratings.
Generation costs/kWh for new nuclear (including fuel & O&M but not distribution to customers) are likely to be from 25 – 30 cents/kWh. ”
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf
These costs estimates do not include the costs to comply with new US regulatory requirements for the reactor, cooling system, and spent fuel storage area ALL to withstand a direct impact from a large commercial aircraft. That requirement will increase the costs of nuclear-generated power 10 to 15 percent above Severance’s estimate. Thus, fully-costed power from a new nuclear power plant will be 28 to 35 cents per kWh.
Re the average cost of capital, lenders charge more when the risks are greater. Nuclear power plants incur significant risks of late completion, enormous cost over-runs of 2 or 3 or 4 times the initial estimate, materials and labor shortages and price escalations, legal fees, regulatory changes to incorporate lessons learned from ongoing nuclear disasters, public protests and construction disruption, and others. Partially mitigating all those is the government’s paltry loan guarantee for approximately one-third the cost at $8 billion per project.
Not only lenders, but bond issuers will charge more for the same set of factors.
@harrywr2 — not sure if that crack at “math challenged attorneys” is directed at me or not. If it was, I’m confident in my math skills. So are my clients. Both engineering and legal clients. I might just surprise you with what I know about nuclear power. Or maybe not. It really is irrelevant.
“But, the usual plaintiffs’ issues will likely suffice – improper compliance with nuclear codes, inadequate environmental reviews, endangered species act violations, shoddy construction, shareholder derivative suits, and other such things as were used in the previous round of nuclear construction madness.”
Finally, someone who is anti-nuclear who admits that the anti-nuclear movement is the reason nuclear construction costs exploded. So then, nuclear costs a lot to build because of you and yours. Kinda makes your anti-nuke ranting kind of a circular argument doesn’t it?
Roger, my personal opinion is that you have no chance whatsoever of shutting down all of America’s nuclear reactors within a ten year time frame, unless the shutdown is dictated by the Congress or the Administration.
That being said, I will say also that upfront capital costs are the biggest driver impeding new nuclear construction.
America is no longer an industrial nation, and the costs of doing any kind of large-scale and complicated industrial project have grown substantially over the last two decades, for a host of specific reasons. These costs have grown at possibly 1-1/2 times the general rate of inflation over these last two decades, and are the primary reason why the next generation of plants will cost what they will cost.
You say, ” ….. But, the usual plaintiffs’ issues will likely suffice – improper compliance with nuclear codes, inadequate environmental reviews, endangered species act violations, shoddy construction, shareholder derivative suits, and other such things as were used in the previous round of nuclear construction madness …”
There are a wealth of lessons-learned from the project management mistakes made in the nuclear construction industry in the 1970s and early 1980s, and all of those lessons learned have been incorporated into the engineering and project planning for the latest generation of plants.
And so when I hear that the kind of strategy that has been outlined above will be used once again to fight new construction; and knowing myself that these issues have been dealt with very effectively in the planning for new construction, I can only conclude that anti-nuclear lawyers are simply shaking down the nuclear industry for their own cut of the action.
@ur momisugly leg re reasons for opposition to nuclear power:
1. Costs too much to construct. Costs far too much to decommission.
2. Is unsafe
3. Creates a toxic legacy of spent nuclear fuel for future generations to deal with. Spent fuel is stored in crowded, unsafe water-filled pools.
4. Produces plutonium, a fuel for nuclear weapons
5. Cannot be built on schedule, forcing project owners to pay very high costs for substitute power until the plant finally does come on-line. (see e.g. City of Austin, Texas and City of San Antonio, Texas during the South Texas Nuclear Project fiasco).
6. Consumes far more cooling water, a scarce resource and usually a river, compared to any alternative thermal power plant. Typically a nuclear power plant rejects 2000 MW of heat into the river, for each 1000 MW of electricity delivered. This is compared to only 800 MW of heat rejected to water for a natural gas-fired combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant of 1000 MW electrical output.
7. But most importantly, it creates huge problems for the little guy, who I defend as vigorously as I am able. The little guy who is typically struggling paycheck to paycheck, may be elderly and/or on a fixed income, or has a low income, and who has no options but to purchase grid power from the utility, even when that grid power price is zooming because of nuclear power.
I refer to the Nuclear Death Spiral, see my blog at
http://energyguysmusings.blogspot.com/2009/06/coming-nuclear-death-spiral.html
By the way, did anyone besides me notice that an oil refinery and gas storage facility caught fire during the first couple of hours of this crisis?
Didn’t it cause massive destruction in its surrounds? Didn’t it kill some people? Has anyone yet started the call that oil refineries world wide be closed down? If not, why not????
@Doug Badgero on March 19, 2011 at 6:22 pm
“Finally, someone who is anti-nuclear who admits that the anti-nuclear movement is the reason nuclear construction costs exploded. So then, nuclear costs a lot to build because of you and yours. Kinda makes your anti-nuke ranting kind of a circular argument doesn’t it?”
Doug, no doubt some of the anti-nuclear sentiments and the higher costs in the first round of nuclear power plants (1960 – 85) were motivated by peaceniks and others. Perhaps even a few attorneys. I was not in that group, as I was off learning my craft as an engineer until 1978 then started my career as an eager engineer. The nuclear plants were all built and the lawsuits were in place long before I ever became an attorney.
The shoddy construction was a major force, though. Would you, as a nuclear advocate, really have wanted nuclear plants built and operating that did NOT have all the welds properly x-rayed? That was exactly what went on in many plants. Would you like to have the nuclear plants built to standards less than the governing nuclear codes? The owners tried that, too. Would you like them built without the upgrades, and safety systems that the government dictated must be installed? That slowed them down a bit, also. That’s all I want, to have them built according to code, have them inspected properly as they are built, and incorporate every single safety feature required by law. If their owners and construction companies would do that, there would be few delays.
The Finnish nuclear power plant being designed by Areva apparently cannot do any of that, and that is neither a US plant nor under US regulatory authority, nor built back in the 70s or 80s. It is under construction now. Their project is so far behind, the contractual parties are suing each other and have not set a completion date. That means they don’t even know when it will ever be complete, nor the final cost, either. What an industry… never can learn any lessons from previous projects.
Makes me just a bit skeptical of the claim that lessons learned in the 70s are all applied to new designs.
Rejecting heat to water in a once through cycle is not “consuming water”.
“7. But most importantly, it creates huge problems for the little guy, who I defend as vigorously as I am able. The little guy who is typically struggling paycheck to paycheck, may be elderly and/or on a fixed income, or has a low income, and who has no options but to purchase grid power from the utility, even when that grid power price is zooming because of nuclear power.”
While fighting back the urge to BARF, I feel it necessary to point out that recent increases in electricity costs have been driven by commodity price increases and environmental costs. Nuclear costs have changed very little, quite frankly I think you already know this.
@ur momisuglyRoger —
Now let me get this straight. Dealing with radioactive materials does involve very real but well-understood dangers (I’ve worked in nukes, worn the protective clothing, been through decontamination, the whole nine yards). Activists of one sort or another greatly exaggerate these dangers, and in response regulators specify required actions that are, by any sort of rational risk analysis, grossly overcautious. Then because the nuclear industry complies with these regulations, that in itself is used as evidence that the nuclear engineers are understating the peril.
Have I got that right? Circular logic, anyone? Would you rather trust a) a spokesman for the nuclear industry, or b) a lawyer? (Would you rather be eaten by a] a shark, or b] a tiger?) This is all nonsense; it’s not a question of whom you trust, but of what are the facts. If you have no time or inclination to dig out the facts, then just accept the result that your opinion is meaningless.
1. Costs too much to construct. Costs far too much to decommission.
Costs are high due to safety analysis, safety systems installed, redundancy built into every system in the plant to make it safer.
2. Is unsafe
Relative to a cocoon yes, relative to something like the coal industry, its not even close. Just the mines alone have damaged the environment more than all nuke plants, much less all the pollution (of the particulate type) that they have expelled over the course of their existence. Counting numbers of people killed, its much the same.
3. Creates a toxic legacy of spent nuclear fuel for future generations to deal with. Spent fuel is stored in crowded, unsafe water-filled pools.
Fund Yucca mountain to finish it so the industry has somewhere to put the waste, or better yet, lift the ban so the industry can recycle and enrich the fuel to use it again.
4. Produces plutonium, a fuel for nuclear weapons
The US is reducing their nuclear weapon supply not expanding it. Should we also be scared of hydrogen creation since it is used in the more powerful hydrogen bomb?
5. Cannot be built on schedule, forcing project owners to pay very high costs for substitute power until the plant finally does come on-line. (see e.g. City of Austin, Texas and City of San Antonio, Texas during the South Texas Nuclear Project fiasco).
Refer to #1
6. Consumes far more cooling water, a scarce resource and usually a river, compared to any alternative thermal power plant. Typically a nuclear power plant rejects 2000 MW of heat into the river, for each 1000 MW of electricity delivered. This is compared to only 800 MW of heat rejected to water for a natural gas-fired combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant of 1000 MW electrical output.
Many plants also use cooling towers, man-made lakes, the ocean, or large cooling lagoons which have a closed loop cooling system. Also, how is adding heat to a river “consuming” water when everything taken in is discharged back to the river?
If any new plants come online you will see a higher efficiency so there will be a higher electric output relative to the heat put in the river. Comparing efficiency of gas plants designed in the past 10 years to a nuke plant designed in the 60’s or 70’s is comparing apples to oranges.
7. But most importantly, it creates huge problems for the little guy, who I defend as vigorously as I am able. The little guy who is typically struggling paycheck to paycheck, may be elderly and/or on a fixed income, or has a low income, and who has no options but to purchase grid power from the utility, even when that grid power price is zooming because of nuclear power.
Nuclear power is by far from the most expensive input into the grid. If you want to argue cost, go after solar, wind, and taxes.
Whether there has been an over reaction by the media or not is irrelevant. The fact remains that no-one can say that a nuclear power plant is safe, particularly in a country like Japan, so prone to earthquakes. The nuclear energy industry was a quick fix solution to supply countries with electricity. I would not trust a spokesperson from this industry anymore than I would trust one from the solar power or wind turbine industries to give an unbiased opinion. Nuclear power will probably turn out to be the scourge of the 20th and 21st centuries in one way or another. No nuclear power plant can be declared earthquake and tsunami proof because we cannot predict what would happen in an even more powerful earthquake than this latest one in Japan. Then there is the ongoing issue of nuclear waste, something else that will eventually have to be tackled in the years to come.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
An unrelated question: what are the Japanese women like? Are they as friendly toward men as I have been hearing?
Yes, especially in the Kabukicho and Roppongi districts. But seriously, it depends on the man, like anywhere else. It’s easy for me because I’m 6’4″ and Japanese women are often in awe of my height, which naturally leads to friendly conversation (unlike say, in the US or Europe, where tall stature is not at all uncommon).
RE nuclear plants consuming cooling water, or river water. That probably is not clear until one knows the facts. I refer to one example, the South Texas Nuclear Plant which is located on the coast of Texas near Victoria, and the mouth of the Colorado River.
Despite being near the Gulf of Mexico, the plant has a fresh water cooling system ( an evaporative pond) that is replenished by the Colorado River. The STNP has first call on water supplies from the river, and thus prevents anyone upriver from taking the water for any purpose. The amount of water the STNP takes is not for once-through cooling, it is for evaporative cooling in their cooling pond.
As an aside, STNP required 13 years from start of construction (1975) to first commercial power generation (1988), and 14 years for the second reactor to generate power. The initial cost estimate was $974 million, the final cost to complete was around $5 billion. The cost overrun was approximately 6-to-1. Even after all that time and money, the plant was not right. Five years after startup, it was out of service for more than one year to resolve problems with the feedwater pumps.
Steam-driven water pumps are a known, not difficult technology. One must seriously wonder why something as simple as steam turbines and water pumps could not be constructed properly the first time and had to be resolved later.
@ur momisugly Cory: nope, I’ll stand by my statements. Let’s look at some of the cost differences between a nuke and a gas-fired power plant, for the same output of electricity.
Heat Generation Area
Natural gas: has a fire-box with multiple gas burners along the bottom or side wall near the bottom. Interior is lined with refractory for heat reflection. Exterior of walls lined with insulation and a metal weather-barrier. Viewports are provided to have a direct eye-view of the flames from the various burners. Steel or alloy tubes filled with water running vertically (usually) inside the firebox. I have personally stood next to hundreds of these, wearing only standard industrial safety gear and looked through the viewport right at the gas flame. Only the plastic eyeglasses were between my eye and the flame.
Nuclear: nuclear pellets contained in multiple vertical alloy tubes arranged in geometric designs, spaced precisely so they don’t overheat and melt down. Moderator rods protrude between the rows of tubes to absorb neutrons and damp the reaction. A mechanised control system (VERY reliable) is installed to insert and remove the moderator rods. The reactor tubes are encased in a high-alloy steel shell made many inches thick to contain the nuclear fuel in the event of a meltdown (the reactor vessel). The reactor vessel, steam generators (if a Pressurized Water Reactor Design) are all enclosed in a thick reinforced concrete structure many feet thick and with a seriously thick floor, the Containment. Water is circulated through the reactor vessel to remove heat and produce steam.
Steam generator is present for a PWR system. Steam for the turbine is produced here and sent off to the high pressure steam turbine.
Note that none of this equipment is present in the natural gas power plant.
Steam Generating Area
Natural Gas: a boiler mud drum or steam drum exists to separate out the steam from the water. Analog in the PWR is the steam generator. The steam drum is smaller in the natural gas design because not as much steam is needed due to the much higher pressure.
Nuclear reactor: steam generator, or the reactor vessel if a Boiling Water Reactor design.
Turbine Area
Natural Gas: a high pressure turbine and a low pressure turbine, with both being smaller than in the nuclear counterpart because less steam flows due to the higher initial pressure. In a power plant, higher steam pressure equates to less steam flow for a constant power output.
Nuclear: a high pressure turbine and low pressure turbine, larger than in the natural gas design. If a BWR, the turbine is subjected to radiation from the steam. PWR this is not the case.
Steam Condenser Area
Natural Gas: smaller condenser due to less steam rate required.
Nuclear: larger condenser due to more steam required.
Boiler Feed Water Pumps and Motors or Steam Turbines
Natural Gas: smaller pumps but higher pressure. Multiple pumps are required with backups.
Nuclear: larger pumps due to higher water flow but lower pressure. Multiple pumps are required with backups.
Generator Area:
Both technologies have roughly the same size generator.
Reactor Coolant System
Natural Gas: does not exist, no need for this.
Nuclear: is present to cool down the reactor after control rods are inserted.
Cooling System for Condensers (typically a cooling tower)
Natural Gas: cooling tower is smaller because less steam flow is required.
Nuclear: cooling tower is larger because more steam flow is required.
Spent Fuel Assembly Storage Area and coolant system
Natural Gas: not present, not required.
Nuclear: present, is required.
Construction Details: x-ray required for critical welds in a nuclear power plant, not required for natural gas fired plant.
Summary: there is much more equipment, and it is larger equipment, more expensive materials, and built to nuclear codes for the nuclear plant. It is not simply the lawsuits that make the nuclear plants more expensive, they are inherently much more expensive due to having much more equipment, much larger equipment, the design, the multiple redundancies required by law.
@ur momisugly RogerSowell
“Sorry, not what those data show. R-squared is 0.11.”
Twice nothing (0.05) is still nothing (0.11). Try defending a heat transfer correlation with an R-squared of 0.11 in a nuclear safety licensing presentation or a thesis defense (assuming your adviser would allow you to have his name associated with it).
Hopefully, the plant instrumentation was working in the first few hours of the earthquake and tsunami and that data is retrievable. The tentative conclusions are:
1. The plants performed extraordinarily well OUTSIDE THEIR DESIGN BASIS.
2. For the degree of core damage and containment damage, remarkably low levels of activity escaped.
3. This was not attributable to luck (other than the units that were already shut down). In fact, all the luck so far has been BAD.
This accident was equivalent to a 1970 Volkswagen Beetle at 70 mph having a head on collision with a tractor trailer, its (backfitted) air bags deployed with the passengers badly bruised only to be hit by another tractor trailer. The paramedics have yet to get the passengers out.
Having said this, I think the US nuclear renaissance was in trouble even before this event. No one will risk (their own) precious capital of $10 billion for plants that will take years to build to possibly face depressed electricity demand from a prolonged economic slump. Possibly, the few plants getting loan guarantees will actually go on line. No matter how rational the arguments are, the events in Japan have probably sowed enough doubt among the US public to withdraw support for nuclear power.
I think the nuclear industry made a big mistake in climbing on the global warming bandwagon. Another mistake was the continuing emphasis on the large, light water reactor concept. These designs need large amounts of capital that make them too risky for private enterprise. And if an energy source needs subsidies, to me that is an indication that something is wrong.
What I would like to see is some sort of “X-Prize” competition for a small (< 100 MWt) nuclear power design that culminate with scale tests in the Idaho desert that simulate (after 1 year of "normal" operation to get economic/performance data) an earthquake (using hydraulics?), loss of coolant, loss of electrical power or whatever challenges the specific design. One of evaluation the criteria would be the radiation released as measured by prepositioned dosimeters. This may be the only way to convince the public to accept them.
@lanceman: re data correlation coefficient.
Again, perhaps this is not making sense, the data is what the data is. You mention heat transfer coefficient data – I have considerable experience with that and know that the data from operating heat exchangers is all over the map. Drawing trend lines is questionable, and only our engineering experience would show the proper path through that data. Many times the R-squared was less than 0.1.
You might be interested, as you appear to be an engineer, in the original Fanning friction factor charts. Our professor in undergrad produced Fanning’s hand-drawn and plotted chart and showed it to us in class. The chart has a series of smooth lines in all the textbooks, yet had data all over the chart on his original document. The renowned professor not only accepted his work but awarded Fanning an “A.” R-squared was on the low side. Fanning did the work at University of Texas in Austin, on the lawn right outside my classroom. So much for only high r-squared work having any value. The Fanning friction factor is fundamental in any fluid flow calculation.
Obtaining heat transfer results from an operating cooling tower also has notoriously scattered results. Yet, design engineers produce acceptable designs for these systems time after time. I could go on and on, but I’ll stop.
R-squared is highly over-rated. You and I will obviously not agree on this point, so I suggest we leave it at that. My experience (very successful) is that r-squared is not of much importance. Yours is apparently the opposite. My work with such data allowed refineries and chemical plants and power plants to operate smoothly and much more profitably – in spite of having low r-squared valued for almost all of the data.
…….not to mention the depletion of the iodine pill reserves.
Breaking news, air is to be released from the suppression pool of the #3 reactor as a result of rising pressure, it is expected that this air is radioactive and fire and power cable workers are to be evacuated.
What is air doing in the reactor?
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20_18.html?play
“The IAEA seems to accept that things are settling down: a senior official at the agency tells Reuters that the situation is now “reasonably stable”.”
One thing that has been reasonably stable is that winds have been almost exclusively blowing offshore for the last week.
That has changed, westerly winds are forecast to be predominate for the next few days. Can wind direction ever be “stable”?
And now there are concerns that the #3 reactor might blow if pressure is not released, leading to the release of more radioactive gas into the air.
“Reasonably stable” is an expression that appears to be motivated by either propaganda or ignorance of the status of at least one reactor.
Hopefully this race to restore function to the plant will be successful before surrounding areas are poisoned even more.
Glenn
I have heard that a power line from the grid has been run to #1 and #2. They are first planning to use that for pumping water for reactors and cooling ponds–if the report I heard is correct.
Thanks for the update about #3.
>>Roger Sowell
>>Dividing out, (1200 divide by 0.59) yields 2,016 man-hours per barrel.
>>That is a far cry from your original assertion that a barrel of oil contains
>>100,000 man-hours of work.
You forgot to add in the work done by the horses – the plough does not plough itself. Add in four horses per ploughman (or 50 extra men per ploughman) and I think you will end up with about the 100,000 man hours of work per barrel of oil I mentioned previously.
In other words, oil and nuclear power are tremendous energy sources that sustain our society. Without them, civilisation would wither and die, and 99% of our population would have to die with it.
So when you are out there, campaigning for an end to nuclear power, consider yourself to be a proponent of genocide by proxy.
.
“Breaking news, air is to be released from the suppression pool of the #3 reactor as a result of rising pressure, it is expected that this air is radioactive and fire and power cable workers are to be evacuated.
What is air doing in the reactor?”
It’s not. It’s in the primary containment/suppression system, just as it’s meant to be. Which, incidentally was feared daamged earlier. Since it’s holding about 2-3 bars pressure, I think we can discount the idea it’s breached.
And they’ve subsequently postponed/ cancelled that. Which, I suspect is because it’s now anticipated that they’ll have power back even to reactor #3, which would allow them to get the secondary heat removal systems back on line, and depressurise it that way.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Stabilisation_at_Fukushima_Daiichi_2003111.html
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@ur momisugly Ralph, nice try. Changing the goalposts is a classic tactic of those who…. well…didn’t win. Add in horses! Next, why not add in the labor to make the plows! Then the labor to grow the food for the horses, and the men! And the labor to construct the harnesses! And the labor to make the men’s clothes! And their shoes! And can’t forget the horseshoes, all that iron and coal and blacksmith labor! And the labor to bring water to the horses!
Oil is required, nuclear is not. It’s as simple as that.
As to promoting genocide, that’s hilarious! One can only wonder how the world managed in the millions of years before the first nuclear reactor came online. Surely, it was impossible because, per your belief, no nuclear power equates to genocide.
In the alternative, starting from 1945 with the first nuclear reactors, only those states with nuclear power plants can possibly prosper. All the states without nuclear reactors are doomed, doomed I say! to full genocide of all their citizens. Why don’t you send the alert to them. Here’s the list: Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. You’ll be doing them a favor, alerting them to the imminent peril of perishing. Good luck with that.