Why documentarian Oliver Stone says now is the time for nuclear power

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone is making the case that nuclear energy is a clean and safe solution — and that fears of nuclear come out of the times it was born under.

“If it [nuclear energy] had been born into a peaceful age, we’d have a whole different approach and mentality towards it,” Stone said on Boston Public Radio Wednesday. “It was born under a dark cloud,” he continued, referring to the atomic bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima that are infamous to this day.

Stone delves into the potential of nuclear energy in his new documentary, “ Nuclear Now.” The film, based on the book “A Bright Future” by Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist, analyzes how nuclear energy can tackle climate change and energy poverty with footage of the nuclear industry in France, Russia and the United States.

Stone, who has won multiple Oscars for Best Director, says that many people misunderstand nuclear energy.

“I include myself,” he said. “I did not know [about the pros of nuclear energy] until I made the film and that was a way to educate myself.”

Notions about nuclear are typically tied to nuclear war and atomic bombs. But the country was once on the path to accepting a nuclear society in the 1970s. President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the Atoms for Peace program in 1953 and played a significant role in the development of nuclear energy.

“We wouldn’t even be talking about climate change [today] because other countries would have followed. France followed us very closely, Sweden followed us, and Russia. They were all doing this [developing nuclear energy] in the 1970s,” Stone argued.

But fear of nuclear may be changing. After a showing of his film, Stone recalled that young people came up to him to say that his work moved them and inspired them to want to take action.

“They’re not as scared of nuclear war, which was a big issue in the ’50s and ’60s,” he said. “They’re less scared of that than climate change. And that’s important.”

Despite the negative connotations, he says nuclear power is “nature’s gift” — and much safer than alternatives like coal, gas and oil. Many of the scientists featured in his documentary have a similarly positive view of nuclear energy, which currently generates nearly 20% of the electricity in the United States.

“On the list of deaths when you check the chart in the film, nuclear is at the bottom,” Stone said. “There’s nothing compared to it.”