Hollywood director Oliver Stone believes nuclear power is safe. Period. Full stop. And the war in Ukraine hasn’t changed his thinking. At a time when most scientists agree we need to drastically cut our fossil fuel use to avoid permanently damaging our ecosystems, he is all in. We need nuclear, Stone says. Nuclear Now.
Nuclear Now is the name of his latest documentary. In it, he makes the case that the deadliest nuclear disaster – at the Chernobyl power plant in 1986 in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union – pales in comparison to the harms done by fossil fuels to human health and the environment on a daily basis. He argues, based on research first published in the book A Bright Future, that nuclear power is crucial to satisfying modern energy demands while reducing carbon emissions.
