But though Stone directed and narrates “Nuclear Now: Time To Look Again,” he leaves much of the story to scientists who have worked in the field of nuclear power for decades. They make a good case for renewing investment in nuclear power plants as a source of clean energy that would help battle global climate change. Along the way, Stone is given extraordinary access to the industry in the US, Russia, and France.
Stone lays out the history of nuclear power around the world, including how Americans’ support for the technology dried up dramatically after three events that all took place in 1979. One was the accident at Three Mile Island. Another was the release of “The China Syndrome,” which got a huge publicity boost from the TMI incident. The third was the No Nukes concerts, which spanned five nights at Madison Square Garden and featured a lineup of rock stars including Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Chaka Khan, and many others. Before that year, there had been a steady increase in the number of nuclear power plants built in the US, but that number dropped dramatically in the decades that followed.
He also delves into the accidents at Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011, both of which further devastated the industry. But Stone points towards the success of the US Navy’s nuclear fleet of hundreds of vessels, all incident-free since the program was begun by Admiral Hyman Rickover in 1954.
France gets nearly three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear energy plants, while the technology supplies 26% of the power to the rest of the European Union. Several nations in Asia have begun building new reactors. I live in Missouri, where a nuclear power plant (Callaway) has been operating since 1984, providing nearly a fifth of the state’s power. Several years ago, the electric utility Ameren wanted to build a second reactor on the site, but funding and other issues caused those plans to be scrapped, unfortunately. And we’re nowhere near the necessary capacity from renewables like solar, wind, and hydroelectric power, which can’t meet the growing need for electricity. That means relying even more on fossil fuels, which worsen the climate change problem.
One of the things I found most fascinating about “Nuclear Now” was its inclusion of new, modern versions of reactors that don’t have as big a footprint as the ones built decades ago. There are even some small enough to power a single community. But isn’t nuclear power dangerous? One of the experts in “Nuclear Now” says, “More people die from coal in a couple of weeks than have ever died from nuclear, which was from the one accident in Chernobyl.”
With the public showing up en masse to watch another movie about nuclear physics, “Oppenheimer,” it would make sense for “Nuclear Now” to get a broad theatrical showcase. But it has only played at a few film festivals and one-offs in cities like St. Louis, where it didn’t get the chance to develop sufficient word of mouth.
That’s a shame because Stone has wisely pulled back on the bluster and presented an even-keeled argument for why we should embrace nuclear energy again — particularly as so much of the US (and the world) suffers from the obvious effects of climate change we all feel every time we go outside.
“Nuclear Now: Time To Look Again” is not just a well-made documentary. It’s also an important one, on the same visionary scale as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”
I give it a 9.5 out of 10. Now streaming on demand for a few dollars on Amazon Prime Video and other platforms, as well as on DVD and Blu-Ray.