Oliver Stone makes the case for nuclear power amid climate crisis

Oliver Stone has the JFK assassination, 9/11, Edward Snowden and more in his controversy-strewn rearview mirror. Next in his sights: atomic energy.  

The Oscar-winner’s latest documentary is called “Nuclear Now,” and it seeks to explore “the possibility for the global community to overcome the challenges of climate change and energy poverty to reach a brighter future through nuclear energy.”  

Stone said in a recent interview with ITK that the project presents “a very thorough argument [about] what nuclear energy is, what stopped it from being all pervasive in our society in the 1970s, and how renewables have worked out” before going “back to the idea of the future.”  

The cinematic effort, Stone said, came together after he was “scared” while watching Al Gore’s 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”   

“[Gore’s] film was very effective. It brought consciousness to this country about climate change — although it didn’t convince, apparently, the conservatives — it is a very important film. But on the other hand, the film never mentions nuclear energy as a solution.”  

Stone said he happened upon Staffan Qvist and Joshua Goldstein’s 2019 book, “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow,” after reading a review for it in The New York Times.   

In the book, Goldstein, an American University international relations professor emeritus, contends that the country needs “a lot of nuclear energy to solve climate change.”  

“I am a global trends person and a data person. So I did the math,” Goldstein said. “There’s just no other way to decarbonize quickly, and this is what France and Sweden had done in just 15 or 20 years — [they] took fossil fuel off the grid and put on nuclear energy.”  

“We’ve been trained from the very beginning to fear nuclear power,” Stone says in a trailer for the film. “The very thing that we fear may save us.”  

The film industry, Stone said, “has not been kind to the nuclear business,” citing movies including 1983’s “Silkwood” and the 2019 HBO miniseries, “Chernobyl,” which focused on the 1986 nuclear power plant explosion in Ukraine.  

“The whole dramatization of nuclear tends to the negative. The truth is the opposite — and that’s what I’m trying to convey here,” Stone said.  

“Nuclear energy and nuclear war are two different things. Bombs and energy are two different things,” he added.  

Making the case for nuclear energy, however, doesn’t exactly seem like an issue that a lot of Hollywood celebrities are scrambling to get behind.  

“You can’t blame Jane Fonda. I agreed with her position back in the 1970s. I wasn’t an advocate, but I was scared,” Stone said of the “Klute” actor, who helped lead tens of thousands of anti-nuclear energy protesters at the Capitol in 1979.  

“She was great on Vietnam, but she was wrong on this issue,” Stone said. Fonda and other public figures, Stone said, “overexaggerated all these problems. And that’s easy to do in America with the media that loves sensationalism.”  

Asked if being tied to conspiracy theories with his previous movies —ABC News referred to him in 2001 as a “conspiracy theorist/filmmaker” — hurts “Nuclear Now,” Stone replied, “Oh, sure. I guess so.”  

“America is very much into labeling, and it makes it easier to dismiss people,” he added. “ ‘Conspiracy theorist’ — I’m proud of that because frankly, it’s not a theory, it’s conspiracy fact.”  

“But anybody who doesn’t question what I questioned in that film, ‘JFK,’ is really not thinking. And the same is true about this thing, nuclear energy,” he said.  

The 70-year-old “Wall Street” and “Nixon” director supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the 2016 presidential election, before ultimately voting for Green Party nominee Jill Stein.   

Many progressives have criticized nuclear energy over concerns about what to do with the waste. Asked if his pro-nuclear stance jibes with his politics, Stone responded, “My politics are thinking, free thinking, free thought. I am a free person in that way.”  

“The great thing is that it’s not a partisan issue in the usual sense,” Goldstein said of nuclear energy.   

“It’s got support on both sides of the aisles. It’s had support from the Biden administration, the Trump administration, the Obama administration. It’s not the usual partisan issue,” added Goldstein, a co-writer on the film along with Stone.  

“That means that here’s something that could help us with climate change that isn’t going to run into the brick wall of partisan gridlock that we often have. And so that’s a great place to push forward,” he said.  

While Stone said he voted for Joe Biden in 2020, he has been critical of the current commander in chief. Asked to rate the job Biden’s done as president, Stone said, “I’m very disappointed, frankly.”  

“They put money into it, but not enough. Not enough support. It needs verbal support. It needs verbal enthusiasm. People have to rediscover it. The problem is Americans get bored pretty quickly: ‘Oh I heard about nuclear. I think I know everything. We’re over that.’ Well, that’s a huge mistake,” Stone said.  

Asked if he planned on supporting Biden or former President Trump in the 2024 White House race, the politically outspoken filmmaker tossed out Democratic candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.’s name, before saying he hadn’t “made a formal decision.”  

“We’re in a bleak place,” Stone added.  

But Goldstein said he and Stone are aiming to offer audiences “hope” after seeing “Nuclear Now,” which is in theaters.   

“There’s so much doom and gloom about climate change and for some good reason, because the world’s not on track. But we could get on track,” Goldstein said.   

“I’d like to look to the future and be positive,” Stone said, “and say, ‘I want to see a better future for my children.’”