Review: THE NEW FIRE Generates Light on The New Nuclear Entrepreneurs

As the international controversy regarding climate change rages on, there has been no shortage of initiatives to develop clean and renewable energy strategies. Any discussion about nuclear energy, however, is weighted down, on the one hand, by biases and fears borne of a Cold war era and, on the other hand, the resistance of the established energy industry.

Enter director and producer David Schumacher whose documentary, THE NEW FIRE crackles with urgency about the imperative of restoring nuclear power as a formidable, viable, and essential response to climate change.

Schumacher (interestingly enough a musician turned environmentalist) has sounded the right chords in dispelling the established myths about nuclear. Interviews with prominent scientists and thought leaders, combined with detailed graphics, provide an absorbing and comprehensible primer on the science of Nuclear 2.0 (next-generation nuclear technology), considered the sine qua non of a sustainable green future.

Beyond the data, the exhilarating aspect of THE NEW FIRE is Schumacher's introduction to a vanguard of young entrepreneurs who are stoking innovation and advances in nuclear energy, unbound by the emotional baggage of the past.

He gives voice to a new generation of engineers like Mark Massie and Leslie Dewan of Transatomic Power, whose intelligence, creativity, and enthusiasm are inspiring and encouraging.

Safe, clean, efficient, and sustainable ~ these are the goals of Transatomic as they are of the other nuclear pioneers who share their stories of exploration and discovery ~ among them, the leaders at Oklo Inc. (developing a small, portable, and waste- and carbon-negative nuclear reactor) and the team of experts at Bill Gates-supported TerraPower.

Mark Lynas, a prominent environmental activist and the author of Nuclear 2.0: Why A Green Future Needs Nuclear Power, has argued that nuclear energy is essential to avoid catastrophic global warming and that any expectation that the popularized renewables will fulfill the earth's energy requirements is "dangerously delusional". He argues that "the pro-renewables and pro-nuclear tribes will have to join forces if we are to confront the vested interests which threaten to keep this planet on its current trajectory toward disaster."

THE NEW FIRE is compelling evidence that the "pro-nuclear tribe" is ready, willing and quite adept at doing its part in generating nuclear reactor-centric solutions. The risk, as one of the scientists in the film contended, is proportional to the reward.

Schumacher's documentary is an invaluable addition to the discussion about our planet's future.

THE NEW FIRE is one of the films to be featured at this year's Sedona International Film Festival.

Credit for photo of Mark Massie and Leslie Dewan to THE NEW FIRE