Joe Rogan Experience #1992 - Oliver Stone

1. 0:00 – 0:21

   Joe and Oliver set the stakes: why nuclear feels scarier than it is

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. OSOliver Stone0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Yeah, I, I have been fascinated by the subject for a long time and I'm very, very happy that you made this documentary. And it's a very good documentary, by the way.

   4. OSOliver Stone0:20

      Thank you.

2. 0:21 – 1:37

   The anti-nuclear wave after Three Mile Island and celebrity-driven panic

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      Thank you for making it, and thank you for highlighting this very, very important issue that seems to have been really confused. And I'm, I'm really glad how you covered it in this, uh, documentary about Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and Fukushima. We have these ideas in our mind about the dangers of nuclear power, and I love the analogy that you made in the film about how driving a car is not scary, but it's dangerous. Flying in a plane feels scary, but it's far safer.

   2. OSOliver Stone0:55

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:56

      And this is a great analogy to nuclear power. When you went over the, the data, when you talked about the amount of deaths from coal every year, when you talk about the amount of deaths overall ever from nuclear, it's r- it's stunning.

   4. OSOliver Stone1:10

      It is.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:10

      It's stunning.

   6. OSOliver Stone1:11

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:11

      And then when you cut to... In the documentary you showed the anti-nuclear movement that happened after Three Mile Island.

   8. OSOliver Stone1:19

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:19

      And how crazy it was.

   10. OSOliver Stone1:21

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:21

       Uh, there's all these stars and celebrities, and they're doing concerts, "We've gotta stop nuclear power," and what a mess.

   12. OSOliver Stone1:29

       That happens on a... When, when a fad, I mean, becomes fashionable-

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:33

       Yeah.

   14. OSOliver Stone1:33

       ... then it was a very successful movement. You're talking about the negatives here.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:37

       Mm-hmm.

3. 1:37 – 4:26

   Stone’s reversal: nuclear’s origins, the bomb association, and Hollywood’s role

   1. OSOliver Stone1:37

      And the accidents and, uh, we, we cover all that in the film, which is called Nuclear Now. And the idea that was behind it was because I really was like you. I mean, I, I went along with those things in the '70s and the '80s because-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:52

      Mm-hmm.

   3. OSOliver Stone1:52

      ... I didn't know better. I didn't... I wasn't educated. I w- I really wanted to know, what is nuclear power? I wanted to go back to the source. And you gotta go back to the beginning and you gotta go back to Marie Curie and Albert Einstein and World War II and all... How it could, how it got developed. This nuclear energy is a beautiful, incredible, almost a miracle that was given to us, that we have in Earth. It's all, it's in the earth, uranium, it's everywhere, the planet, the earth, the sun. And we, m- in a sense, uh, we took it like Prometheus in a way, kind of misinterpreted it, misused it, which is not... Which is kinda normal for, given the, what we do with natural things. World War II was happening just as the at- as the nuclear fission was being understood and that made the bomb. They made the bomb with it because there was a war on, and they, they rushed it and they did a, they did an amazing job, Oppenheimer down in, uh, the, the, in Los Alamos. But... And they got it, they were successful. But, uh, as you know, it was misunderstood at that point that nuclear energy was not nuclear bomb. In the contrary, it was pr- a bomb is very difficult to build, and it takes a lo- it takes years sometimes, it takes scientists and they have to enrich the plutonium and they have to work at it. There's all f- configurations in the bomb that don't exist in nuclear energy. So when people see a nuclear energy plant they, uh, subconsciously, they cross it with both war and they cross it with horror films that they've seen in the 1950s with radioactivity and monsters had come out of that. You know spider-

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:38

      Yeah.

   5. OSOliver Stone3:38

      ... the spider bites the, uh, man and he becomes Spider-Man, you know?

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:41

      The Hulk, yeah.

   7. OSOliver Stone3:41

      It's incredible the stuff that happens and it's all... And it's, Hollywood has done no favors to it, it's continued for years and years and years and then, of course, you add, uh, Three Mile Island. Uh, the film was coming out at the same time, uh, China Syndrome, eh, with Jane Fonda. It was a good film. I enjoyed it. (laughs) We all enjoyed it, but it really was hysterical and alarmist saying... And nothing happened at Three Mile Island except the reactor did melt down, but nobody get o- got hurt because the containment structure worked to keep it in, to keep it in. So there was no release of ra- radiation and, uh, they continued on. Silkwood was another one and then if you remember, uh, not too long ago there was the HBO thing, Chernobyl.

   8. JRJoe Rogan4:26

      Yeah.

4. 4:26 – 8:21

   Accidents re-examined: what actually happened at TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima

   1. OSOliver Stone4:26

      Which was, uh, complete fictionalization of what happened at Chernobyl. So we went to Russia and we talked to the scientists there, and we wanted to know what happened at Chernobyl and we find out and it's in the film. And the same thing is true for Fukushima which is unbelievable because I've... When you go to the bottom of it, it's... I was astounded at the... To find out that there... No- nobody died there from radiation, not one Japanese.

   2. JRJoe Rogan4:52

      Yeah.

   3. OSOliver Stone4:52

      They checked the whole thing out and it's been done to death, but you hear about 15,000, 20,000 people died from the tsunami and the earthquake which was the biggest earthquake Japan ever had. I mean, really, we show the earthquake, we show the tsunami, the wave was 100 feet tall. Uh, there was a badly built wall, the wall was not a sea wall, it was could hold and the generators were flooded beneath, uh, the water and...

   4. JRJoe Rogan5:20

      And these are, these were also not state-of-the-art, um-

   5. OSOliver Stone5:25

      That's right.

   6. JRJoe Rogan5:25

      ... way... It's-

   7. OSOliver Stone5:26

      Yes.

   8. JRJoe Rogan5:26

      ... like, what, what they can do now in terms of these power plants. It's-

   9. OSOliver Stone5:30

      No, the, uh, the... Everything is better, I mean the-

   10. JRJoe Rogan5:32

       Yeah.

   11. OSOliver Stone5:33

       But even tho- those, uh, those, uh, nuclear reactors built 60, 70 years ago are still f- functioning, they're legacy reactors. They do work.

   12. JRJoe Rogan5:42

       Yeah.

   13. OSOliver Stone5:42

       And we mustn't dismiss them. Yeah, it gets better and technology gets better like... As in any business you... And there's another generation and it's better, be- hopefully better. But, uh...

   14. JRJoe Rogan5:54

       The point was that they could avoid what happened in Fukushima today.

   15. OSOliver Stone5:57

       Oh, Fukushima was a... If you, if you look at the k- closely, Japan had built, uh, 20 some reactors at that point and this one is the only one... The others were exposed to the same earthquake and the same kind of...... tsunami, several of them were on that same coastline. But this particular one, this, uh, plant was, uh, was the only one that was shaken up and even then, all the radiation that was released, there was a hydrogen explosion, all the explo- the, that radiation released in the air, you heard about it, it was a, supposed to be another Chernobyl. Well, they, w- y- w- we have shots in the film showing they're taking tests on all the Japanese citizens and nobody ge- you know, it's low-level, what they call low-level radiation, which is, we can sustain it. We have our, we have DNA in our body that fixes, repairs our body as each day goes by. We, uh-

   16. JRJoe Rogan6:48

       But it's also, y- you point out very well in the film that there's a lot of radiation that you don't even take into consideration that you encounter constantly.

   17. OSOliver Stone6:56

       That's right.

   18. JRJoe Rogan6:56

       We have this idea of radiation as being a, a net negative, it's a terrible thing, but it's just a thing. You get it from being outside, you get it from rocks, you get it from all sorts of things.

   19. OSOliver Stone7:09

       There's radiation in this room, it's, it, it's, it's, uh, you get radiation from eating a banana.

   20. JRJoe Rogan7:14

       I think what you said is so, it's so true that, uh, films and, um, and, and comic books and, are fictions of radiation. That's part of the problem.

   21. OSOliver Stone7:26

       Yeah, that started early in the '50s.

   22. JRJoe Rogan7:28

       It's a giant problem 'cause-

   23. OSOliver Stone7:29

       Comic books and all that.

   24. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       ... it plays to the worst aspects of human nature, which is we just lo- love to get terrified about headlines, so we don't read into the devil of the details.

   25. OSOliver Stone7:38

       Exactly. That's what was confusing to me and I really, you know, we're miseducated, uh, uh, and there is still a bias against nuclear, if you mention it to anybody.

   26. JRJoe Rogan7:49

       Yeah, it's scary instantly.

   27. OSOliver Stone7:50

       And it's... Yeah, but the, the point is, we can live with it and we have to because we're facing Armag- we're facing a very difficult situation, a, a cliff that we're gonna f- go over, and it seems that no one's really getting it. So, that's why I felt like the film... I wanted to know, I need to ed- educate myself. So, in doing the film, I think I was able to bring out these things you talk about, what is wrong with nuclear energy? It can work, it is a miracle, we should use it, and we should use it abundantly.

5. 8:21 – 12:17

   Global energy reality check: China’s nuclear buildout and coal’s human cost

   1. OSOliver Stone8:21

      The Chinese have, and the Russians are way ahead of us, they've built this, they built it, and they built it with government backing, not like the US where we kind of back it, but we don't really back it. So, uh, as a result, well, China's really cutting out now because they have about 70, uh, reactors, uh, approximately 70 reactors. Yeah, about 74, I think. Anyway, they're building, and I've heard, uh, I can't, uh, I don't remember the source, but I did hear that they're putting another $140 billion into this thing, which means that they're gonna build 150-some reactors o- over the next, uh, by 2038. That is a serious investment, serious investment.

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:07

      Wow. That's a serious investment that would take a long time for us to catch up to.

   3. OSOliver Stone9:13

      Oh, it's not about competing, it's about-

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:14

      Right, but if we wanted to do what they're doing right now-

   5. OSOliver Stone9:17

      Well, we have, we-

   6. JRJoe Rogan9:18

      ... even if it's not competing, just to de- just to be current.

   7. OSOliver Stone9:22

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan9:22

      So, they're the leader right now in it?

   9. OSOliver Stone9:24

      Well, no, uh, we're the biggest, uh, country in the world, we still have 90-some reactors online.

   10. JRJoe Rogan9:30

       So, China's climate goals hinge on a $440 billion nuclear build-out. That's interesting. So, we ha- we still have more, even with all the negative stereotypes about nuclear reactors...

   11. OSOliver Stone9:42

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:42

       ... planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years.

   13. OSOliver Stone9:45

       150, yeah, that's-

   14. JRJoe Rogan9:45

       More than the rest of the world has built in the past 35.

   15. OSOliver Stone9:48

       That's correct.

   16. JRJoe Rogan9:49

       Wow.

   17. OSOliver Stone9:50

       That's, I'm, um, surprised you remember. Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan9:52

       No, it just says it right there, the article.

   19. OSOliver Stone9:53

       Oh, okay.

   20. JRJoe Rogan9:54

       Jamie just had it pulled up.

   21. OSOliver Stone9:55

       China, uh, has... Wow, and you got a system worked out, huh? (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan9:58

       Yeah, Jamie's the wizard. Look at him over there. He's the best.

   23. OSOliver Stone10:01

       He doesn't, he doesn't know what the film is about, even.

   24. JRJoe Rogan10:03

       (laughs)

   25. OSOliver Stone10:03

       But, uh-

   26. JRJoe Rogan10:04

       This, uh, this, uh, article that you just pulled up, Jamie, this is from, uh, Bloomberg.

   27. OSOliver Stone10:09

       Oh. Jesus Christ.

   28. JRJoe Rogan10:10

       Yeah.

   29. OSOliver Stone10:11

       Well, you see, you got the source right away, I, I, uh-

   30. JRJoe Rogan10:13

       Yeah, and this is from 2021, um, it's, this, this whole thing, i- it's, it w- is exactly how you lay it out in the film. It's almost like we have to cure ourselves of these misconceptions.
6. 12:17 – 18:54

   Why renewables still lean on fossil backup—and why nuclear avoids storage needs

   1. OSOliver Stone12:17

      Now, the other, uh, truth that we miss is gas. Now, we know how ugly the oil thing is. I mean, there's the waste and all the oil, and this fossil fuel itself is destroying the universe because we're putting carbon into the atmosphere, CO2. But, uh, g- gas is c- considered... They're using gas everywhere. Uh, even the m- it s- it seems like a modern thing. They say, well, renewables, which is solar and, uh, wind, those are... Uh, we're all for that. I want wind, we want solar. But they don't work all the time. They run out in the winter, at night, bad weather.

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:57

      Is it also a problem with battery technology when it comes to those things?

   3. OSOliver Stone13:00

      Well, that's part of it too. But the point is, when they run out, what they need is gas backup.

   4. JRJoe Rogan13:05

      Mm-hmm.

   5. OSOliver Stone13:05

      It's backup. You see, nuclear doesn't need storage, and it doesn't need backup, what's the beauty of it. It's a real clean energy. And, uh, gas does... I mean, uh, uh, uh, renewables do need backup, and that backup is gas.

   6. JRJoe Rogan13:22

      The, uh... So it's not 100%, like, the, one of the, one of the issues is about, uh, storage, the waste.

   7. OSOliver Stone13:29

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan13:29

      And when you talked about just the, the size of the amount of storage, it's not nearly as much as a lot of people think it is.

   9. OSOliver Stone13:37

      Mm. Mm. Of the amount of... We, uh, it, it's... All the waste that we, America has used up to now in the last... Since the 19, uh, 58, whenever Shippingport was built, has... Amounts to about the size of Walmart, frankly. You could put it in a Walmart (laughs) .

   10. JRJoe Rogan13:55

       Right.

   11. OSOliver Stone13:55

       In other words, people make a big deal about waste, but they don't realize that it's so intensive, uh, in energy, huge amount of energy, that it's, it's, uh, com- how do you say? Compact as a result, so it fits into a, uh... If, uh, waste itself, uh, is, is, is a positive about nuclear because first of all there's been no harm done. So if it's been buried in casks and... And first of all, it goes in the water for maybe two, three years, and that's a conductor that takes, takes the radioactivity down, and then it gets put into casks that are 12 to 14 feet. They build these casks in the United States. They're concrete and steel. Concrete, uh, is a great, um... Uh, does not conduct, uh, radioactivity. Concrete stops it. So concrete and, and steel g- casks work. They can go for 100 years, and then you can go another 100 years, and then eventually, eventually, you realize that radioactivity drops each time. In f- in four, five years, it's way down. It tops to almost... If you c- I, I don't have all the figures, but you can see that it's, it's a ridiculous fear given... Compared to what? Given that climate change is so dangerous.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:15

       And compared to the deaths that are already occurring every year just from ewing- using the methods we have now, in, in comparison to the amount of people that have died from nuclear, it's r-

   13. OSOliver Stone15:25

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:25

       ... very, very small.

   15. OSOliver Stone15:27

       Well, the only people who have died from nuclear that we know of are at Chernobyl.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:30

       Right.

   17. OSOliver Stone15:30

       There was 50 first responders who died in the actual, uh... They were the badly, badly protected. They were sent in by a corrupt and, and decaying Soviet government, and then they were hiding the fact that there was a leak. The radioactivity went all over Northern Europe. And still, that was als- it was not th- what we think it is. It's not like Hiroshima or-

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:55

       Right.

   19. OSOliver Stone15:55

       ... Nagasaki. It wasn't that enriched, uh, kind of radiation. It was a low level radiation that exists that went out there. And they went out, the UN went in, and the WHO went in, and it was really exhaustive what they did. And, uh, they came up with a number of about 4,000 possible deaths from cancer after Chernobyl. Now, since then, there's been another examination by another scientific organization that says that is even an, a high number. We don't really know 'cause people die from cancer, you know, naturally. So we don't really know how bad Chernobyl was, but nothing like what has been pre- what the environmentalists-

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:37

       Right.

   21. OSOliver Stone16:38

       ... say is the end of the world and-

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:39

       Or the HBO series.

   23. OSOliver Stone16:41

       Oh, the HBO was a disa- I mean, it was-

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:43

       I didn't see it, but I heard it was great.

   25. OSOliver Stone16:45

       Yeah, I mean-

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:45

       Great fiction.

   27. OSOliver Stone16:45

       ... it was great as tension, as tension and-

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:48

       Yeah.

   29. OSOliver Stone16:48

       ... all that. You know, I, I, I make movies, I know.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:50

       (laughs)
7. 18:54 – 23:04

   Waste, safety, and the “Walmart-sized” myth-busting on nuclear spent fuel

   1. OSOliver Stone18:54

      That's the, that's the way the reaction... So s- now they're building in a, in the US, they have 50 new company, 50 companies working on-... 50 companies working privately toward, with some Department of Energy help, towards making SMRs, small modular reactors, that are sleek, great-looking, and they all have different, uh, different, uh, methods of working, including natrium, including Bill Gates is there with a, with a new company. And, and, uh...

   2. JRJoe Rogan19:23

      Does this lead to nuclear-powered cars? 'Cause if so, I'm in.

   3. OSOliver Stone19:26

      Yeah, sure. Well, no, that's another thing.

   4. JRJoe Rogan19:28

      I want one of those.

   5. OSOliver Stone19:29

      No, cars, transportation, that has, that can be dealt with. That's another c- See, it's not just electricity that has to be i- improved. A, a lot... We have to, we have to nuclearize electricity, which is about a third of the problem, but we still have the problems after that of...

   6. JRJoe Rogan19:48

      Internal combustion engines.

   7. OSOliver Stone19:49

      ... transport, transportation-

   8. JRJoe Rogan19:51

      Yeah.

   9. OSOliver Stone19:51

      ... uh, and aside from that, heating buildings, heating offices.

   10. JRJoe Rogan19:54

       Cooking.

   11. OSOliver Stone19:55

       Heating in general.

   12. JRJoe Rogan19:56

       Yeah.

   13. OSOliver Stone19:57

       Uh, for apartments, uh, for offices. And then there's the industry aspect of it. Uh, uh, concrete, steel. Uh, these are huge, highly intensive, uh, CO2-

   14. JRJoe Rogan20:09

       Yeah.

   15. OSOliver Stone20:09

       You know, they, they consume a lot of carbon to make these things. And, and don't forget agriculture. (laughs) Jesus.

   16. JRJoe Rogan20:16

       Yeah.

   17. OSOliver Stone20:16

       I mean, it sounds horrible-

   18. JRJoe Rogan20:17

       Right.

   19. OSOliver Stone20:17

       ... but ammonia is one of the worst, uh, byproducts of the, of, um ... Ammonia is in the air, and you remember the Oklahoma bombing.

   20. JRJoe Rogan20:26

       Yeah.

   21. OSOliver Stone20:26

       But ammonia is, is, is terrible. And what we have to do is get ... electrify everything, essentially. So the demand for electricity, given the whole world's coming into ... I- I- look at all the people in Africa, Asia, who are coming to want what we have. They see television. They see what Americans have.

   22. JRJoe Rogan20:46

       Have you gotten into regenerative farming at all and looked into that?

   23. OSOliver Stone20:49

       Not really, no.

   24. JRJoe Rogan20:50

       S- it's something to consider, because when you, you were talking about ammonium, when you were talking about n- just the, the, the, the different fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides that get put into the ground. You know, I don't know if it's scalable for, uh, the entire country. That's the real problem with it. But there's people like Joel Salatin and, um, uh, White Oak Pastures that's down in, uh, Georgia, and they figured out a way to have farms where it's regenerative, where the animals are eating the grass, they're fertilizing the grass. The fertilizer, u- they use the fertilizer for, you know, to, to grow food, and they bring in these animals to these ecosystems, and they have them exist in a way that it just basically contained nature.

   25. OSOliver Stone21:36

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan21:36

       It's just the way the natural cycle is, and they have a, a zero carbon footprint. It's essentially ... It, it, it, it ... everything sort of works in balance, and that's how it's supposed to happen.

   27. OSOliver Stone21:50

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan21:50

       And, but you look at, uh, uh, especially from White Oak Pastures, he had video of the runoff from a rainstorm onto ... from his property into the river, which is nothing, to the nextdoor neighbor's property, who runs an industrialized farm, and it's a fucking disaster. It's horrific to look at, 'cause you just see the topsoil's gone. Look at the, look at the difference. There's a cr- clear line between his property on the left and the neighbor's property on the right. I mean, how insane is it that this is normal for us? This is the problem. The problem is they've gone into these monocrop agriculture situations, where they plot ... They use the same land over and over again, and they have to apply fertilizer, and they have to apply herbicides and pesticides. It makes it, make it toxic for everything, but whatever the fuck it is they're growing, a lot of the stuff they're growing is genetically modified in order to be more tolerant of these pesticides-

   29. OSOliver Stone22:47

       Right.

   30. JRJoe Rogan22:48

       ... and herba- herbicides, and that's not good.
8. 23:04 – 33:52

   Electrify everything: soaring demand and the difficulty of the 2050 target

   1. OSOliver Stone23:04

      But the point is that we're gonna need, they, some people say three, four, five times amount of electricity that we have now by 2050, which is the ... We use 2050 as the goal mark-

   2. JRJoe Rogan23:16

      Yes.

   3. OSOliver Stone23:16

      ... because that's the IPP- IPCC standard. They said that by 2050, uh, all the countries of the world have to bring down the carbon emissions to zero. (laughs) To zero. Now, that's-

   4. JRJoe Rogan23:27

      Yeah, how is that gonna be possible?

   5. OSOliver Stone23:29

      ... that's, that's gonna be ... It doesn't work. I mean, the gr- the green ... Renewables are great. There's great idea and made great sense when you saw Al Gore's film, but the truth is that CO2 keeps going up, not down. It's gone up since then, and we've spent trillions of dollars since the 2000 period. This is 20-some years now, and it just hasn't worked, and nobody admits it. That's what's crazy. So, the only way to get the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is do it, do it clean, do it right now. You gotta get rid of gas, and you gotta get rid of oil, basically. And you gotta be severe about it. That means you have to have an alternative, a clean, cheap, scalable alternative, and th- this is g- and nuclear is the only one that's proven itself, proven itself for so many years. And yet, nobody ... (laughs) It doesn't even get talked about. I mean, journalists will say, "And there's nuclear, which is dangerous," but it's not dangerous if you do it right, if you build it right and you keep it right. It's been done time and time again. It just ... That one ... You know, I wish there had been more accidents. It would have really taught the lesson. Every industry has had ... needed accidents. I mean, when they started the railroad, when they s- (laughs) they thought that your brain would get pushed back in your head-

   6. JRJoe Rogan24:41

      Right.

   7. OSOliver Stone24:41

      ... because of the speed of the, uh, of going forward. Same thing was true with airplanes. You need ... You had more crashes before the airplane has been, you know, modified into this incredibly powerful machine. We're not gonna get rid of the airplane. We're gonna have to ... We have to use fuel ... We have to use aviation fuel, and that will come from the marriage of hydrogen and carbon, actually, and it will need a lot of heat, and, and, uh, that heat is gonna come from nuclear. It's not gonna come from anything else, that amount of heat.

   8. JRJoe Rogan25:14

      ... it's- we also have to take into consideration that if the population continues to grow and we're doing things the same way, whatever our output is now that's damaging, it's gonna get worse and worse and worse.

   9. OSOliver Stone25:23

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan25:23

       There's gonna be more people.

   11. OSOliver Stone25:25

       U- United States is in good shape compared to the rest of the world, but look at India.

   12. JRJoe Rogan25:29

       Yeah.

   13. OSOliver Stone25:29

       Look at th- (sighs) look at Africa, which is... I mean, people will burn wood if they have to, uh, much less coal. I mean, they- they- they're- they're not gonna stop people from getting things, and they're gonna want energy. That's what's gonna be the prime. India is crucial. We- we- we- we write, we bring it up in the film, but they have some... They are doing some great nuclear work. They have 20-some reactors in India, but they are definitely on the path of coal, like China. They- they- they're gonna be getting... Uh, their demand is enormous for coal. So what happens? It's- it was no- there's no luck. We can't get out of that mess. We- we're gonna have so much, so much pollution, so much ga- uh, warming that, uh, the only way we can do it is by building nuclear now and taking everything else we can throw in there, including renewables-

   14. JRJoe Rogan26:20

       Yeah.

   15. OSOliver Stone26:20

       ... alongside it.

   16. JRJoe Rogan26:23

       Well, (sighs) it's- I think it has to become something that people are aware of and becomes trendy, and that's one of the great things-

   17. OSOliver Stone26:30

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan26:30

       ... in the film. Um, the, uh, the- this Brazilian woman that lives in Austin you were saying?

   19. OSOliver Stone26:35

       Oh, yeah. Uh, yeah, she lives in Austin. Yeah. Her name is Isabel Boemke, B-O-E-M.

   20. JRJoe Rogan26:40

       And she, she makes TikTok films.

   21. OSOliver Stone26:42

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan26:43

       And these little TikTok videos, the- the great thing about those is they become viral, and maybe that is how the message gets out.

   23. OSOliver Stone26:51

       Yeah. I- I think that's part of it. I think it needs to be addressed by leaders. Uh, the leadership of, let's say, P- President Xi of China has committed to the UN that he, by 2060, they will have zero carbon emissions. Because, that's gonna be-

   24. JRJoe Rogan27:06

       Well, I think you're gonna-

   25. OSOliver Stone27:08

       That's a vow.

   26. JRJoe Rogan27:09

       It's gonna take someone who's got some courage.

   27. OSOliver Stone27:11

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan27:11

       Because it, politically, it's- it's an issue, because people do have this false narrative in their head.

   29. OSOliver Stone27:17

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan27:18

       So it's gonna take someone who's willing to step outside of what the polling would show, because I- I would imagine that most-
9. 33:52 – 39:41

   Country case studies: Germany’s shutdown vs France’s nuclear build speed

   1. OSOliver Stone33:52

      Germany is the craziest of all. I mean-

   2. JRJoe Rogan33:55

      Yeah.

   3. OSOliver Stone33:55

      They're smart people. I thought they were mathematical geniuses, the engineering.

   4. JRJoe Rogan33:58

      Well, explain what you're talking about, because m- a lot of people probably don't even know that they shut down-

   5. OSOliver Stone34:02

      Well, they origin- They originally built 20-some reactors in the '60s and '70s, and they, they were doing very fine with it, and they... No problems. And now, they've shut them all down because of the Green Party, which is a political party. Green Party, which is also pro-war, pro-NATO. You know, it's a very-

   6. JRJoe Rogan34:19

      Yeah.

   7. OSOliver Stone34:19

      ... strange Green Party. It's a hybrid. Anyway, they came into power and they're... It's a democracy and they, they don't want any nuclear. So they destroyed, they shut down, uh, all their plants that were working. And we show that in the film, the destruction of-

   8. JRJoe Rogan34:35

      It's insane.

   9. OSOliver Stone34:35

      And what did they go with? They went, they returned, they replaced it with coal and, and gas. And as a result... And a lot of solar and a lot of, uh, a lot of turbines. They, in fact, if you think, look at the solar park that they built. They built a gigantic solar park in Germany. 495,000 panels. 490... Can you imagine that? 500 acres. 495,000 panels, that's enormous. And that park, if you took... They took down a nuclear reactor i- in the area. That one was about 100 acres, but it was producing a- about 100 times more electricity than th- than this 500 acres on one-fifth the land.

   10. JRJoe Rogan35:20

       Not only that. At what point in time does that become pollution? Like, if you were talking about-

   11. OSOliver Stone35:24

       Well, yes, there is a pollution factor, yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan35:25

       But, yeah, I mean, just whatever the panels are. Like, whatever that area is-

   13. OSOliver Stone35:30

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan35:30

       ... like, what have you done to that area?

   15. OSOliver Stone35:31

       Exactly.

   16. JRJoe Rogan35:32

       I know we don't think about... We just think about it as land.

   17. OSOliver Stone35:34

       Exactly.

   18. JRJoe Rogan35:34

       But that's part of Earth. So you've covered part of Earth with this, with these f- fucking panels.

   19. OSOliver Stone35:42

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan35:42

       It's, it's... Looks gross. The turbines look gross too. I went, I, I went down to, um... I was going down to South Texas and I, I drove past this, uh, turbine farm.

   21. OSOliver Stone35:53

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan35:53

       And I'm like, "How is that not bothering people?" That's a... It's, like, eye pollution. You're looking at these things that are spi- these giant machines that are spinning instead of just the landscape. It looks like we're tricking ourselves into thinking that this is, like, 100% clean. It's not clean if all you're looking at is turbines. If you're driving on a highway and you see hundreds of turbines with lights on 'em so planes don't fly into 'em, that's not clean. Like, that's a part of the problem. Like, that's polluting the environment.

   23. OSOliver Stone36:28

       Well, each country-

   24. JRJoe Rogan36:29

       It looks like shit.

   25. OSOliver Stone36:30

       Y- I understand. Each country's different, so it depends what they wanna do with their land. I mean, Denmark has had some success with it. Germany's had greater success with wind than they have with solar, that's for sure. But they're not dealing with it, because we're still putting out-

   26. JRJoe Rogan36:44

       Yeah.

   27. OSOliver Stone36:44

       ... We're putting out shit in the air.

   28. JRJoe Rogan36:46

       It's also... Yeah, I mean, it's certainly better than burning coal. It's certainly better than many alternatives. But it's still, it's not perfect.

   29. OSOliver Stone36:53

       Well, we should talk about methane, because that is not better. It's more damaging in the l- in the, in the short term.

   30. JRJoe Rogan36:59

       Methane is.
10. 39:41 – 45:44

    Methane, gas stoves, and “hidden” pollution—plus nuclear heat potential

    1. OSOliver Stone39:41

       There's so much heat comes off nuclear that it really should... is not being used.

    2. JRJoe Rogan39:45

       Right.

    3. OSOliver Stone39:45

       As, as the, as the scientist says in the film, it could heat New York City.

    4. JRJoe Rogan39:49

       Yeah. So if it's cau- even if it's causing kids asthma, like, it's not good for anybody then, like, if that's really what's going on with gas. Uh, but the, the amount of time that it would take to get the United States... Like, what, what would that take to get rid of all of the things that are polluting the environment, all of the things that are putting out particulates, the coal and all that stuff-

    5. OSOliver Stone40:09

       Well, we give it-

    6. JRJoe Rogan40:09

       ... replace it with nuclear?

    7. OSOliver Stone40:10

       We give it that... We showed that graph from here to 2050, thinking backwards and trying... You have to get this thing going. You have to get the, the nuclear part going. And it's gonna go slower at the beginning because they take longer to build. But once they're re- uh, once they're up, the maintenance is very, very easy to do on these things.

    8. JRJoe Rogan40:28

       Yeah.

    9. OSOliver Stone40:28

       So in 2030 to 2040, if you're built, this stuff is gonna start to pay off. From 2040 to 2050, it's gonna be a huge run, a huge race, and we can do it. We may not get all the way to zero, but it- it's, it's certainly doable. If Rickover were in charge of a program, he could... he would push it through. And, but it's not just us. I mean, honestly, the Chinese are doing their part. They're trying. They're really trying-

    10. JRJoe Rogan40:53

        Yeah.

    11. OSOliver Stone40:53

        ... because they see the problem. And, you know, for a president to say that, Xi, when he said he's gonna go down to zero, uh, by 2060, that's 10 years later, that's pretty good. That's amazing, if they can stick to it.

    12. JRJoe Rogan41:06

        Hmm.

    13. OSOliver Stone41:06

        But Russia, too, plays a huge role. So does India, by the way. Uh-

    14. JRJoe Rogan41:10

        Well, they obviously have much more control over how things run. They, they don't really rely on the public's opinion or people's voting.

    15. OSOliver Stone41:18

        No. Exactly, exactly.

    16. JRJoe Rogan41:18

        Which is-

    17. OSOliver Stone41:18

        But that's okay because we have t-

    18. JRJoe Rogan41:20

        (laughs) Yeah.

    19. OSOliver Stone41:20

        We're talking about the Earth here.

    20. JRJoe Rogan41:22

        Yes.

    21. OSOliver Stone41:22

        But, you know, let's talk about France. You know, France has been nuclear since 1975. They w- they built 56 reactors in 15 years. That's pretty fast.

    22. JRJoe Rogan41:31

        Mm-hmm.

    23. OSOliver Stone41:32

        And they were all... They're all working. They... Some of them are getting very old now, and they have to be, uh, have to be either renewed or replaced, but, uh, they still have those nuclear en-... They... A lot of their electricity in France, 70%, is nuclear.

    24. JRJoe Rogan41:46

        Hmm.

    25. OSOliver Stone41:47

        They're, uh... They have some, uh, hydropower and, uh, I think some gas, but not much.

    26. JRJoe Rogan41:54

        Well, I- I genuinely think that it takes someone like you making a documentary-

    27. OSOliver Stone41:59

        (laughs)

    28. JRJoe Rogan41:59

        ... about this to get the word out there to the point where people really start demanding this. I really do 'cause I think that-

    29. OSOliver Stone42:07

        Well, I'm trying. (laughs)

    30. JRJoe Rogan42:08

        ... you're count- you're countering all those movies that you discussed-
11. 45:44 – 1:03:03

    How Stone made 'Nuclear Now': research, experts, and simplifying for the public

    1. JRJoe Rogan45:44

       Was this something, this, this subject that you, when you, when you decided to make a documentary about this, w- w- it, was it simply just because you had the information and you felt compelled that this is just not a story that's being told correctly?

    2. OSOliver Stone45:58

       No. I s- I s- I bo- I read a boo- I read a review, a book review in the, in The New York Times, of all things, in, about, uh, Joh- Joh- Joshua Goldstein's book with Steven Kvist, the Swedish, uh, nuclear scientist, and, uh, it was called Bright Future. I bought the book, read it. It's very practical and simple, and it goes into the truth, which is, this is all, there's been a lot of lies. And then I bought the book and made the movie with him. He gave me a lot of... I, I had to learn a lot. I had to travel a lot, and it was difficult. It was not an easy film to make. Uh, I wanted to make it understandable to a ninth grade level, you know?

    3. JRJoe Rogan46:36

       Yeah.

    4. OSOliver Stone46:36

       Trying to make it simple. I, I, I think it works at that level.

    5. JRJoe Rogan46:39

       Yeah, it absolutely does. Yeah. Definitely. Um, it's, um, it's just very important to do, and I'm really glad you did it 'cause it's, I've talked to so many intelligent people that share your perspective on this.

    6. OSOliver Stone46:51

       Good.

    7. JRJoe Rogan46:52

       But it's just not being discussed publicly enough.

    8. OSOliver Stone46:55

       Well-

    9. JRJoe Rogan46:56

       That it might have been our solution the whole time.

    10. OSOliver Stone46:59

        It was.

    11. JRJoe Rogan47:00

        Yeah.

    12. OSOliver Stone47:00

        It was, uh-

    13. JRJoe Rogan47:01

        Yeah, I shouldn't have said might have.

    14. OSOliver Stone47:02

        Eisenhower was on the right path.

    15. JRJoe Rogan47:04

        Yeah.

    16. OSOliver Stone47:04

        And John Kennedy supported it completely.

    17. JRJoe Rogan47:06

        Yeah.

    18. OSOliver Stone47:07

        Remember, he, we use, we quote him in the, in the film. Uh, it, it got k- It got derailed, uh, obviously in the, uh, '70s with, uh, N- Ralph Nader was very inf- influential, and, uh, he's a l- He's done great work, Na- Nader, but of course, on car safety, but, you know, he was wrong about exa- He exaggerated this to a degree that was not necessary.

    19. JRJoe Rogan47:29

        Do you think people exaggerated it because they had their own heightened anxiety about it and-

    20. OSOliver Stone47:35

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan47:35

        ... uh-

    22. OSOliver Stone47:35

        Yeah.

    23. JRJoe Rogan47:35

        So it's not like they did it on purpose. They did it because they were genuinely misinformed.

    24. OSOliver Stone47:40

        That's correct.

    25. JRJoe Rogan47:41

        Yeah.

    26. OSOliver Stone47:41

        I do believe that. Uh, Nader is a good man. I think-

    27. JRJoe Rogan47:44

        Yeah, I believe so too.

    28. OSOliver Stone47:45

        ... uh, uh, and he still believes in it, that he's right. But i- it's a question of degree, you know? Like, not, he said all of Cleveland's gonna blow up from one nuclear reactor. That's not true.

    29. JRJoe Rogan47:56

        Right.

    30. OSOliver Stone47:56

        You know? If it blew up, it, it's not gonna blow up Cleveland.
12. 1:03:03 – 1:07:06

    Climate change as ideology vs evidence—and why air quality still matters

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:03:03

       Absolutely. I think there's two schools of thought when it comes to climate change. There's the school of thought that it's not an issue, it's a natural cycle, and there's the school of thought that human beings are pushing the world to the brink of demise.

    2. OSOliver Stone1:03:17

       Right.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:03:18

       Um, I, I think human beings are doing a lot. Whenever people try to come up with excuses for things, I was like, "Whew." Like, "Well, it's always been this way." And so, "Mm." But how much impact are we having? Instead of looking at it like the w- the climate's always going to change, which it always does. That's the thing about the climate. If you look at the climate models of e- when they do ice core samples, when they try to figure out, like, how warm it used to be and what the atmosphere was like, it's always changed. I mean, it's changed radically. But how much are we fucking it up? B- forget about if, if it, if, if it's never static, it's never like the climate is like this. Right? If human beings never existed, internal combustion en- engines never existed, you still have volcanoes, you got chaos, you got f- asteroids, you got all kinds of shit. There's no stable. There's no flat, safe, "We get to this. We're on our life vest, we're on a life raft, we're gonna make it out." No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

    4. OSOliver Stone1:04:17

       No, even if I lived in Iowa?

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:04:18

       No, no, no, no, no. That's all nonsense.

    6. OSOliver Stone1:04:19

       In a ... In a nice small town?

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:04:21

       Yeah.

    8. OSOliver Stone1:04:21

       In a country town?

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:04:22

       D- that's i- that's what we want, right?

    10. OSOliver Stone1:04:24

        (laughs)

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:04:24

        We want this idea. But the, the reality is, the reality is ice ages. The reality is new super volcanoes. The reality is asteroid impacts. That's the reality. Th- those are the horrific things that radically change the temperature of Earth-

    12. OSOliver Stone1:04:39

        Oh, my, wh- wh-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:04:39

        ... and the environment and, and all kinds of things.

    14. OSOliver Stone1:04:42

        What about that lady in, somewhere in Missouri with the r- the tornado came out of nowhere and just blew the house away?

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:04:48

        Yeah, Jesus Christ. That's crazy too. Th- those are things that are-

    16. OSOliver Stone1:04:51

        Tornado, I mean, it's ...

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:04:52

        Yeah. Those, those are things that are absolutely real and terrifying.

    18. OSOliver Stone1:04:55

        I saw those in d- I saw those in the Midwest when I was shooting, you know-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:04:57

        Oh.

    20. OSOliver Stone1:04:57

        ... especially in Louisiana and Texas Panhandle, that area.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:05:01

        Yeah.

    22. OSOliver Stone1:05:01

        They have a lot of, uh, whirlwinds, a lot of wind sh- a lot of ... wind shifts.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:05:06

        Oh, it's incredible. There's a g- an amazing video of this guy driving at night.

    24. OSOliver Stone1:05:09

        Yeah.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:05:09

        And the tornado's in the distance, and you only see it when the lightning strikes.

    26. OSOliver Stone1:05:15

        Oh, God.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:05:15

        And it's huge.

    28. OSOliver Stone1:05:18

        Huge.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:05:18

        I mean, it's h- it's like city blocks and it's in the sky. This is just a massive funnel, and these people are in a car.

    30. OSOliver Stone1:05:27

        Jesus.
13. 1:07:06 – 1:17:47

    Cosmic detour: hypernovas, extraterrestrial life, and the “Tic Tac” UFO story

    1. OSOliver Stone1:07:06

       Do you believe in extraterrestrial life?

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:07:08

       Yes.

    3. OSOliver Stone1:07:08

       Yeah, yeah?

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:07:09

       100%.

    5. OSOliver Stone1:07:10

       100%?

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:07:10

       Yeah. I just don't know if it's here. I don't know if it's visited. But just the, the vastness of the universe itself, and if you believe in the concept of infinity, that means the, the possibilities of this happening exactly the way we are, are also infinite.

    7. OSOliver Stone1:07:27

       Yeah.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:07:27

       It's n- it's not ... It's ... Infinity, it's really hard to put it in your head, because it doesn't make sense. But the ... A true infinity would mean that everything that you've ever done and everything that I've ever done, and everything we've ever said, and every piece of paper you ever put down, all that has happened an infinite number of times in the universe, in some other place. That's how cra- and every other variable in between. That's how crazy infinity is. So, I think that if we, if we imagine that we're the only ones, that seems silly.

    9. OSOliver Stone1:08:04

       Yeah.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:08:04

        It just do- doesn't even make sense. It just too ... It's kinda like nuclear power, because you t- you talk about nuclear power to people, they go, "Whey, nuclear bombs, nuclear bad. Nuclear is dangerous, nuclear is dangerous." I, I think we think that way about aliens, because I think there's been so many kooks that have had so many fake stories and so many doctored photos and everything's blurry, and just weird people that probably lied, and then compelling stories that are really confusing, like really intelligent people, like Commander David Fravor, who, uh, was a fighter jet pilot in 2004 and encountered this thing.... that they track going from 50,000 feet above sea level to 50 in a second.

    11. OSOliver Stone1:08:47

        I think I saw... Was there a clip of-

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:08:50

        There's video of this. Yeah.

    13. OSOliver Stone1:08:51

        Yeah, I think I saw.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:08:51

        Yeah. There's a video of this thing. They, they tracked it. They think it was interacting with something that was submerged. They were, they were as it was closed. And then this thing, when it jetted off at this insane rate of speed, first of all, it blocked their tracking. It, it, it blocked their, um, whatever the radar or whatever, whatever sensors that they were using. And then it shot off at an insane rate of speed and stopped at their CAP point, which is the point where they had a predetermined point where they were gonna meet up in this exercise that they were doing. This thing went to that spot and it was 20 feet long and looked like a Tic Tac.

    15. OSOliver Stone1:09:29

        (laughs)

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:09:29

        And it was just hovering-

    17. OSOliver Stone1:09:30

        A Tic Tac? What's a Tic Tac?

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:09:31

        Like a Tic Tac, like a candy, like a little white Tic Tac candy.

    19. OSOliver Stone1:09:34

        Uh-huh.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:09:35

        So they called it the Tic Tac UFO. When I talk to guys-

    21. OSOliver Stone1:09:37

        (laughs)

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:09:39

        ... like that, when I talk to guys like that, I go, "Well, if it's not a UFO, if that's not from another planet, that is maybe more scarier than if the Chinese have something that's that advanced that can move like that, is this some new type of technology that might be a- available to the, the..." Like, probably just, like, the high-end military applications that they're using for drones and all these different propulsion methods. If they've figured something that crazy out, it's kind of game over. If they can go 50,000 feet above sea level to 50 in a second-

    23. OSOliver Stone1:10:14

        Yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:10:14

        ... like, what is that?

    25. OSOliver Stone1:10:16

        Well, if they wanted to use it, they would have done it by now.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:10:19

        Perhaps, or perhaps it's an alien.

    27. OSOliver Stone1:10:22

        Well, yeah. Yeah.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:10:22

        Or a probe from some alien planet, or it's something non-biological. Maybe they've gotten past the nece- necessity of biological life.

    29. OSOliver Stone1:10:31

        Well, if you were an alien, wouldn't you want to visit this place and-

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:10:33

        Hundred percent.

Episode duration: 1:49:12