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Director Oliver Stone attends the “Nuclear” red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 09, 2022 in Venice, Italy.

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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.

WEF Davos: Can nuclear energy play a role in combatting the climate crisis?

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Isuzu’s first electric pickup is here and it’s a beast: Meet the new D-MAX EV

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Isuzu's first electric pickup is here and it's a beast: Meet the new D-MAX EV

A fully electric Isuzu pickup truck? That’s right. The D-MAX EV is Isuzu’s first electric pickup, and it will be rolling in the next few months. After kicking off mass production, Isuzu said the new EV pickup will “match the performance of existing diesel models,” boasting high towing capacity and payload.

Isuzu’s first electric pickup is launching in 2025

Isuzu announced on Tuesday that the D-MAX EV has officially entered mass production. The company has started building left-hand drive models, which will be shipped to Europe in the third quarter of 2025.

By the end of the year, production of right-hand drive models will begin for the UK, with sales expected to start in 2026.

The electric pickup is nearly identical to Isuzu’s popular gas-powered D-MAX, but swaps the diesel powertrain for a pair of electric motors. The D-MAX EV features new e-Axles, one on the front and the other at the rear, for a full-time 4WD system.

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The dual-motor powertrain enables it to match the performance of existing diesel models, with a combined 188 hp (140 kW) and a maximum torque of 240 lb-ft (325 Nm).

It can also tow over 7,700 lbs (3,500 kg) with a maximum payload of over 2,200 lbs (1,010 kg). That’s about the same as the D-MAX diesel, which has a 3,500 kg towing capacity and a payload capacity of up to 1,200 kg.

Powered by a 66.9 kWh battery, Isuzu’s first electric pickup boasts a driving range of up to 263 km (162 miles) on the WLTP. In the city, it can have a driving range of up to 224 miles (361 km).

Isuzu D-Max EV specs
Drive System Full-time 4×4
Battery Type Lithium-ion
Battery Capacity 66.9 kWh
Max Output 130 kW (174 hp)
Max Torque 325 Nm
Max Speed Over 130 km/h (+80 mph)
Max Payload 1,000 kg (+2,200 lbs)
Max Towing Capacity 3.5t (+7,700 lbs)
Isuzu D-Max EV electric pickup specs

Built for on and off-road performance, the rugged electric pickup features over 8″ (210 mm) of ground clearance with a wading depth of nearly 24″ (600 mm).

Although prices have not been announced, the D-MAX EV is expected to start slightly higher than the diesel model, which has a base price of around € 36,500 ($41,600).

Isuzu’s popular D-MAX is sold in over 100 countries, including Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Central and South America. The electric version will arrive in Europe in the next few months, followed by the UK and other regions in 2026.

The electric D-MAX will compete with the Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger, and other electric pickups, such as Geely’s Radar R6, BYD’s Shark, and Ford’s F-150 Lightning.

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Tesla insider buys stock for the first time in years and it’s hilarious

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Tesla insider buys stock for the first time in years and it's hilarious

For the first time in five years, a Tesla insider required to report Tesla stock transactions bought stocks rather than selling them.

But the transaction is so small that it makes the whole situation hilarious.

Insiders in public companies are top executives and board members who are required to report to the SEC any transaction related to the company’s stock.

For Tesla, it has become a running joke that insiders only sell, never buy the stock.

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This has been true without exception for years.

We don’t know as much about executives as Tesla has a very short top executive bench who are required to file transactions. However, when it comes to its board members, they have been selling at an impressive rate.

We recently reported on Kimball Musk, Elon’s brother, and Tesla’s Chief Financial Officer Taneja Vaibhav recently selling ahead of a recent drop in the company’s stock price.

Tesla’s chairwoman, Robyn Denholm, also sold $33 million worth of Tesla shares in February and over $100 million in the 3 months prior.

However, we now have confirmation that a Tesla board member is buying, rather than selling.

Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder who joined Tesla’s board in 2022, confirmed that he bought 4,000 shares in Tesla last week worth about $1 million:

Electrek’s Take

Gebbia is estimated to be worth over $7 billion. Therefore, his purchase of $1 million worth of Tesla stock would be equivalent to my buying a fractional share in Tesla.

Furthermore, the disclosure confirmed that despite being on the board for the last 3 years, Gebbia owned only 111 shares in Tesla before the transaction.

That’s quite the show of confidence in Tesla.

Thie whole situation with the board is disappointing. Tesla’s core business is melting. The company reported its worst quarter in years last week, and the stock surged 20%.

None of it makes any sense.

The board is sitting on its hands while the most powerful force accelerating the advent of electric transport is being destroyed in favor of nonsensical predictions about the potential of solving self-driving and humanoid robots.

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Venmo revenue grows 20%, with debit card payment volume soaring

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Venmo revenue grows 20%, with debit card payment volume soaring

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Venmo, long a centerpiece of PayPal‘s growth story but often criticized for its lack of monetization, is becoming a bigger contributor to the business.

PayPal said Tuesday in its first-quarter earnings release that revenue at Venmo increased 20% year-over-year in the first quarter, though the company didn’t provide a dollar figure. PayPal acquired Venmo in 2013 through the acquisition of parent company Braintree.

While it’s long been a popular consumer service for sending money to friends, Venmo’s ability to drive meaningful revenue has been a major question mark for investors, especially as competition from rivals like Zelle and Square Cash has intensified.

Venmo’s total payment volume rose 10% from a year earlier, but revenue grew twice as fast, reflecting the business opportunity. Venmo only gets revenue from specific products like Pay with Venmo at online checkout, Venmo debit cards, and instant transfers, but not from peer-to-peer payments.

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Ahead of the earnings report, Jefferies analysts noted that Venmo revenue growth appeared to be “accelerating sharply” and flagged its rising contribution to branded checkout as a key area to watch. Compass Point analysts similarly said that while competition from Zelle and Square Cash remains fierce, Venmo’s traction with debit cards and online checkout could “open up new monetization avenues” if adoption trends continue.

The company added nearly 2 million first-time PayPal and Venmo debit card users during the quarter, and total debit card payment volume across PayPal and Venmo climbed more than 60%. Meanwhile, Pay with Venmo transaction volume surged 50% year over year, and Venmo debit card monthly active users grew about 40%.

PayPal reported better-than-expected earnings for the quarter but missed on revenue. The company reaffirmed its full-year guidance, citing macroeconomic uncertainty.

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PayPal CEO Alex Chriss: Huge opportunity to deliver to consumers and help small business

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