Must see documentary

On Monday, 5/1/23, I attended one of the Atlanta premier showings of Oliver Stone’s new documentary, Nuclear Now. If you are genuinely interested in learning about clean energy, this film is a must see.

Summary from the film’s website:??????????????????????????????????????

"With unprecedented access to the nuclear industry in France, Russia, and the United States, Nuclear Now explores the possibility for the global community to overcome the challenges of climate change and energy poverty to reach a brighter future through the power of nuclear energy."

The film is based on the book A Bright Future: How some countries have solved climate change and the rest can follow, by Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist. I bought the book for Christmas and finished it in January.

It was an outstanding film with great science education and history lessons. In the dark theater, I managed to scribble notes and read them afterward!

As soon as the film makes it to streaming services, I highly recommend you watch it. There are many myths dispelled through facts. And the storytelling is easy to follow and keeps your attention.

If you want a cleaner atmosphere while preserving current economic flourishing and delivering economic empowerment to developing countries, you must understand nuclear energy. I have provided links to more information on some of the topics in my notes.

Elba's movie notes

• Fear stops thinking – we can’t think clearly in the presence of fear
• We were miseducated
• Nice explanation of how earth was formed
• Marie Curie and her pioneering work on radioactivity and Nobel Prize winner
• Einstein – matter is energy waiting to happen
• USS Nautilus
• Hyman Rickover Navy - nuclear propulsion innovator
• Rod Adams – easiest job on a navy ship is to operate the reactor
• Eisenhower Atoms for Peace, quote from his 1953 Atoms for Peach speech, “The more important responsibility of this atomic energy agency would be to devise methods whereby this fissionable material would be allocated to serve the peaceful pursuits of mankind. Experts would be mobilized to apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine and other peaceful activities. A special purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world.”
• A vision of clean energy by Sweden and Canada
• The Sierra Club supported nuclear clean energy and then it opposed it
• Isabelle Boemeke TikTok influencer campaign in support of nuclear energy
• 60 years of spent nuclear fits inside a Walmart
• The amount of space for equivalent solar is impossible
• Renewables go in on top of fossil fuels, they don’t replace them
• Nuclear energy is an extra lung the world has
• California claims to be so clean, but they have outsourced manufacturing etc, so China is burning coal on California’s behalf
• Nuclear is orders of magnitude safer than coal
• Poor nations need cheap reliable energy
• The world needs a gigantic amount of electricity by 2050
• The math for renewables just doesn’t work
• It’s time to seriously consider nuclear
• Nuclear is too good to let it die off
• China and Russia are building a lot of nuclear
• Optimistic about small and micro modular reactors

Sources & further reading

Nuclear Now website: https://www.nuclearnowfilm.com/

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Disclaimer: Sustainability Navigator is Elba Pareja-Gallagher’s personal ESG newsletter published every Monday. Views expressed are her own. Corrections and respectful feedback are always welcome.