Oliver Stone’s new movie makes the case nuclear power is the obvious solution to climate change
Director Oliver Stone attends the “Nuclear” red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 09, 2022 in Venice, Italy.
Andreas Rentz | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Oliver Stone’s new movie, “Nuclear Now,” makes an impassioned case that nuclear energy is a necessary and obvious solution to climate change.
Generating electricity with nuclear reactors does not produce any greenhouse gas emissions, and is therefore worth a serious look, Stone’s movie says, because anthropogenic climate change, caused by excessive greenhouse gas emissions largely emitted from the burning of fossil fuels, is getting worse.
People ought to be more afraid of climate change than nuclear energy, the movie argues. The movie had a special screening at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier in January, opened in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, and is opening in theaters nationally starting Monday.
Stone’s interest in climate change began when he saw Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and was disturbed. He started reading about climate change, including a review of 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. He was struck by both the review and the book.
“This is a simple, practical, understandable argument for how to solve climate change from nuclear energy,” Stone told CNBC on Friday.
“I didn’t realize it was going to be so tough to pull something like this off,” Stone said, because there is no single main character for the documentary. “The story is the logic of it. Follow the history into the present: What went wrong? What could go right?”
In the movie, Stone presents a case that the beneficial potential of nuclear energy has not been reached because society conflated its collective fear of nuclear bombs with nuclear energy. In the film, which Stone narrates, he says he was anti-nuclear because he generally absorbed the environmentalist anti-nuclear agenda that has been spread for generations.
Changing public perception when fear is involved is a slow process, Stone told CNBC.
“State the facts. You have to give the information that you have,” Stone told CNBC. Not everyone is going to believe what you say, “but some people will believe it. You have to trust in the truth ultimately will obliterate the lie. You have to believe that,” Stone said.
Goldstein, who worked with Stone to write the film, says the feeling of being in a movie theater can have a more powerful effect on people’s perceptions than leaving them alone to parse facts that may feel overwhelming or out of context.
“A film is more than information. It’s an experience, and it’s a collective experience. That’s why I’m really happy we’re getting some release in theaters, because you sit in the theater with everybody else, you have this collective experience,” Goldstein told CNBC on Friday.
Oliver Stone (L) is speaking at a question and answer session after the screening of his new documentary, “Nuclear Now,” in New York City on April 29.
Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBC.com
“Everybody thinks everybody else thinks it’s bad,” Goldstein says of people’s perception of nuclear energy. But watching a movie in a collective situation gives people an opportunity to talk to other people about nuclear energy and conversation is critical, Goldstein said.
“The majority of people actually support nuclear energy, but the people who don’t support it are very loud and very scared and it draws a lot of attention,” Goldstein told CNBC.
Americans’ perspective of nuclear energy fluctuates and has been generally increasing in the last decade, according to a recent poll from Gallup showing 55% percent of Americans either strongly or somewhat favor using nuclear energy as a way to provide electricity. That’s the highest percentage since 2012, according to Gallup.
Stone says a goal of his documentary is communicating the scale of energy demand now and how much more electricity will be demanded in the future as climate change mitigation strategies electrify many processes, and as energy demand grows from countries like India and China.
“One of the things this film I hope achieves is to give you a sense of scale. We have to go wide — you have to go to big mass crowd shots — China, India — to give you a sense of what’s coming,” Stone told CNBC. “You can’t just stay in the green backyard in the United States, and do green things, like ovens and cars.”
Stone was working on “Nuclear Now” for about three years, though he was not working exclusively on the movie in that time. Stone’s memoir, “Chasing the Light,” and his controversial second look at the assassination of John F. Kennedy, “JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass,” also came out in the meantime.
Critics cite cost and time as drawbacks
Stone knew the film will be criticized because he’s making a bold statement, and indeed it has been.
“Oliver Stone’s ‘Nuclear Now’ was another disappointing myth creation falsely casting blame for nuclear power’s impotence on radiophobia and baselessly ignoring truths about climate saving alternatives,” Gregory Jaczko, former chair of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and author of Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator, told CNBC.
Jaczko says fear of accidents is not the primary reason nuclear energy is not more widespread today. Instead, nuclear energy is expensive and has been managed poorly.
“As with most nuclear fables these days, the film establishes the strawman argument that nuclear is an underutilized technology because people are afraid of nuclear power and confuse it with nuclear bombs: ‘Once we get over our radiation fear, nuclear will thrive and solve climate change.’ This isn’t the main or even a significant problem with nuclear power,” Jaczko told CNBC.
“The primary problems are cost competitiveness, operational ineffectiveness, engineering weakness, managerial incompetence, and design mistakes. These are well documented deficiencies. For example, after the Fukushima accident, as NRC Chairman I was under no pressure to shut down nuclear reactors due to radiophobia,” Jaczko told CNBC.
Another problem is the length of time it takes to build nuclear reactors.
Stone “cites in several places IPCC’s reference of a 2050 goal for decarbonization, which implies there is time for nuclear to contribute, notably sidestepping the inability of nuclear to deploy quickly,” Jaczko told CNBC. “But this ignores that most experts believes these IPCC estimates require decarbonization in the electricity sector, the easiest area to decarbonize, to happen by 2035, an unrealistic timeline for significant nuclear power contribution. The remaining 15 years would be for decarbonizing other sectors, which nuclear may or may not contribute to,” Jaczko told CNBC.
Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, echoed similar concerns. Renewable energy, like wind and solar, are cheaper and faster to build than nuclear, Edwards told CNBC. (Edwards has not seen the full documentary yet, but is responding based on what he has seen and heard about the documentary.)
“If you believe the climate crisis is a real emergency demanding immediate action to reduce carbon emissions quickly, then the fastest, cheapest, and most proven technologies should be employed first,” Edwards told CNBC. That means that energy efficiency measures and renewable energy should be the top priorities, Edwards says.
But Stone also felt compelled to make the documentary because he sees nuclear energy as an underappreciated and misunderstood climate solution.
“The film is a warning, a dramatic warning, of a major distortion in history, and a need to return to the using nuclear in any possible way,” Stone said.
VinFast delivered its first VF9 vehicles to customers in Los Angeles yesterday, kicking off US deliveries of the new 3-row electric SUV.
VinFast is a relatively new EV brand, founded in Vietnam in 2017, under the umbrella of massive Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup. It started delivering cars to the US in 2023 with its VF8 mid-size SUV.
The VF9 is its three-row large SUV, which has been delivering in Vietnam since the 2023 model year, and also in some other Southeast Asian and a few European markets. But now it’s ready to start delivering the VF9 here in the US, and it started last night in Los Angeles.
VinFast held a small event at its US headquarters in Los Angeles to deliver the first 8 VF9s to the US market, and invited us out to the event and to have a quick look at the car.
VinFast told us that it currently has 36 dealerships in 15 states, with 13 company owned stores in California. So deliveries won’t just start right away in California, but other territories as well. However, VinFast couldn’t provide us an estimate of what the delay before delivery would be if ordering a vehicle today.
VinFast trim levels
The VF9 comes in two trim levels, Eco and Plus. The Eco model starts at $69,800 with the Plus version $4k more at $73,800. First deliveries will start with the Plus model, with the Eco coming a few months later.
But despite those somewhat high starting prices, VinFast is also offering a limited-time promotion for the first 100 vehicle deliveries to lease the Plus for $529/mo with $2,000 down. And since the VF8 has seen some really great lease deals, we could imagine the VF9 might get the same treatment after deliveries start happening in earnest.
The trim levels don’t differ significantly in drive capabilities, with the same battery and motor between the two. See the full spec sheet here.
The main differences are in a bunch of additional interior comforts on the Plus, like ventilated massaging seats, 2nd row seat heaters, seat and steering wheel position memory, rear LCD display, panoramic roof and a subwoofer. The Plus also has fog lights and cornering lights.
However, the Plus also has lower range at 291 miles instead of 330 miles, primarily due to larger 21in wheels compared to the base 20in wheels. Wheels can make a huge difference in aerodynamic efficiency, especially with different wheel cover designs.
The Plus is also about 100lbs heavier than the Eco, and can come in a 6-seat “captain’s chair” configuration, whereas the Eco only comes in a 7-seat layout.
Extremely quick first drive
We got a chance to drive the VF9 very briefly, but given that it was in the middle of LA rush hour traffic and only a few miles, this barely even qualifies for “first drive” status.
However, the vehicle felt quite spacious inside – as one would expect from a large SUV. We only sat in the seats for a few minutes, but the seat material was passably comfortable (not like the outstandingly comfortable EX90). The third row has a huge amount of headroom, but little legroom – you’re basically sitting on the floor back there, and it takes some work to get out of it, too.
The drive software does seem to have matured compared to the previous VF8 version I drove. That VF8 had horrendous throttle lag, especially when starting from 0mph, but I didn’t experience that quite so much here in the VF9. It felt better. They’re making progress.
The throttle pedal is a little weirdly jumpy though in sport mode, so despite that I set almost all EVs to sport mode and just leave it there, this might be a car that I’d drive in standard or eco more often. And hope that Vinfast continues to tweak the drive software to make it feel a little more refined. But that said, again, I’d like a chance to test this more and get a feel for it.
Power was good though not amazing, it’s a large car after all so comfort is going to be more of a premium than speed.
I like VinFast’s user interface well enough – it’s pretty well laid out, it doesn’t suffer from the lag that some other UIs do, and you can always escape to CarPlay or Android Auto if that’s your preference. Though the gathered media did experience some random faults on the 3 early-production press cars we had access to for the night, like a faulty anti-window-pinch sensor and rear hatch closure sensor.
All in all, after the relatively poor overall reviews for the VF8 and a middling experience myself when I drove one, I came away pleasantly surprised by the VF9, with a vehicle that was nicer than I expected on this very short drive. I’m still not a large SUV guy and would love to see some of VinFast’s smaller vehicles here (the VF7 is coming to the US, but I’d like to see the even-smaller ones), but as long as the arrow keeps going in the right direction and VinFast keeps improving, there could be a nice future here for Vietnam.
And that’s the thing… I really want VinFast to succeed. I like the idea of having another country join the international stage of auto manufacturing, and it would be great for Vietnam to gain some chops in the realm of complex manufacturing. The country already does well in textiles and electronics… but cars are a whole different thing. This drive was too short to draw many conclusions, but VinFast does seem to be improving from the short experience we had.
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Crude oil futures edged slightly lower on Tuesday, after rallying about 3% in the prior session on fears that the war between Ukraine and Russia is escalating.
President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles to hit targets in Russia in a major departure from Washington’s previous position, according to media reports.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lowered Moscow’s threshold for using nuclear weapons.
Here are Tuesday’s energy prices as of 7:39 a.m. ET:
- West Texas Intermediate December contract: $68.79 per barrel, down 37 cents, or 0.53%. Year to date, U.S. crude oil has declined about 4%.
- Brent January contract: $73.02 per barrel, down 28 cents, or 0.38%. Year to date, the global benchmark has shed about 5%.
- RBOB Gasoline December contract: $2.0133 per gallon, down 0.25%.Year to date, gasoline has fallen about 4%.
- Natural Gas December contract: $2.950 per thousand cubic feet, down 0.77%. Year to date, gas has gained more than 16%.
Stock market futures fell on the growing geopolitical tensions, with Dow futures down more than 200 points.
Biden’s decision comes just two months before he departs office. President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine.
Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine roiled global energy markets in 2022 as European nations sought to end their dependence Russian natural gas.
China’s Xiaomi has reported a 30.5% growth in third-quarter revenue for its EV business, with the company also bumping up its yearly delivery target for the SU7 series EVs to 130,000 units.
Back in May, Xiaomi – the world’s third-largest smartphone maker – had said that it planned to build 100,000 EVs by the end of the year, with the company well on its way to achieving that goal. CEO Lei Jun said on his social media account that the company was bumping up its previous target of 120,000 of its first EV as “demand surges,” reports Reuters.
Last December, Xiaomi debuted its first vehicle, the SU7, which officially launched in March, offering three versions – Standard, Pro, and Max, with the Standard starting at $30,761 – strategically about $4,000 cheaper than the price of Tesla’s Model 3 in China. A souped-up hypercar version, the Ultra, has also since been unveiled.
Since its launch, the SU7 has been a hit in China and is set to easily surpass production goals of 100,000 units one month early. To boost that momentum, Xiaomi now expects to complete the construction of an expansion of its EV factory in mid-2025, which should ramp up its numbers even more – at least, that’s the aim.
In the third quarter of this year, Xiaomi has said that it delivered 39,790 units of the SU7, for a total sales figure from its March launch to the end of September to 67,157 units.
Huatai Securities has forecast Xiaomi will deliver 400,000 EVs in 2025, with its EV business accounting for about a fifth of its revenue compared with 8% this year, Reuters reports.
Of course, analysts have predicted the company would lose money on its SU7, to the tune of around $10,000 a vehicle, but the smartphone maker has a tidy cash reserve of $15 billion to help it weather the storm.
While facing plenty of competition in China from the likes of BYD, the company has, for one, tremendous brand appeal to the Chinese consumer, who are already familiar with its products and user interfaces. In addition to an alluring price point, the SU7 is a connected car that syncs with other devices. Compared to other EV makers, Xiaomi, too, has an edge on software and a jumpstart on autonomous driving, which it has been testing on roads for a few years.
The company says it plans to invest $10 billion over the next 10 years in building its EV empire, reports have said. By the end of the year, the company expects to expand to 22 sales stores, 135 service centers, and 53 delivery hubs in 59 cities.
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