Over the course of their lives, Americans have an average carbon footprint of 1,200 tonnes of CO2. Paris Ortiz-Wines, a young woman from San Francisco, has already cancelled hers out. She could hop on a flight every week for the rest of her life, eat ribeyes at every meal and sip almond milk all day long, and still be in the clear. Back in 2021, Ortiz-Wines played a key role in the campaign that stopped the closure of California’s only nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon. This has already saved more than 30 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. 

Ortiz-Wines is part of a new generation of women advocating for nuclear energy, even though surveys show most women are sceptics. Call them the Nuclear Power Rangers. Engineers, community organisers, influencers, even models, they have atomic levels of gumption and are helping move the dial on our most misunderstood energy source. And that’s not an easy mission: there are a lot of villains to blast into oblivion. 

Science unequivocally proves that nuclear power is super safe and super clean. But, as Oliver Stone argues in his eye-opening documentary Nuclear Now, it’s been demonised. For decades now, an unlikely tag team has sought to snuff out nuclear energy: oil lobbyists and pro-renewables green activists. The sworn enemies buried the hatchet to take down what each sees as the competition. Do-gooding celebrities, from Jane Fonda to Jackson Browne, joined in too.  

As a result, anti-nuclear disinformation has spread far and wide. Nuclear power, we........

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