With energy as its subject matter, a newly released docuseries aims to demystify the political and social discourse surrounding the topic by shining a light on the nation’s vulnerable electric grid and making a case for nuclear power as the most viable alternative to renewables.
Juice: Power, Politics, and the Grid, created by executive producer Robert Bryce and director Tyson Culver, takes audiences from the U.S. to numerous other countries to show how politicians and corporate greed have weakened the electric grid and why nuclear fission is the best solution for energy sustainability in the long run. The five-part series serves as a follow-up to their 2019 documentary film, Juice: How Electricity Explains The World.
In separate interviews with National Review, Bryce and Culver described how they got started on their latest project together.
Although they started working on it about four years ago, the docuseries came into clarity when Winter Storm Uri hit Texas in February 2021, leading to widespread power outages across the state. Both Bryce and Culver were among the roughly 5 million Texas residents to experience extended blackouts for a few days that month nearly three years ago. Bryce described the devastating winter storm as a “catalyst” for the sequel.
“We want to change the conversation. We saw what happened here,” said Bryce, who has been reporting on the intersection of energy and politics for more than three decades. “We want to make sure that people understand how our electric grid is being undermined and why we need to do something to fix it.”
Bryce emphasized the importance of the electric grid, saying it needs to be more “weather-resilient, not weather-dependent,” as the Texas 2021 winter phenomenon demonstrated.
At the time, Governor Greg Abbott and other Texas Republicans blamed renewable energy, specifically frozen wind turbines, for the power outages, whereas the news media and Democrats pointed to frozen natural gas pipelines as the primary reason for the grid’s failure. In reality, an over-reliance on both types of energy and electricity was the culprit. In the first episode, author Meredith Angwin calls this combination the “fatal trifecta.”
To minimize the chances of this occurring again, the series argues the electric grid should become less reliant on natural gas and renewables. Instead, the grid should rely on nuclear plants as its main source of power, Bryce argues.
“We need more fuel diversity, and that means not shutting down our coal plants until we can replace them with nuclear plants,” Bryce said, adding that “we need to get started” on transitioning to nuclear power.
Culver agreed, hoping their project “inspires action” to help keep nuclear plants open or maybe even spark a friendly conversation with others.
“I hope that if they walk into it and they go into it with an open mind, . . . they consider that maybe everything they’ve read and heard isn’t correct,” the filmmaker said. “I also hope that it helps alleviate a bit of the tribalism that goes along with energy,” referring to the heated disagreement between the left and the right regarding renewables such as solar or wind energy.
The series benefits from the collaboration between Bryce and Culver, both of whom come from differing political backgrounds and often dialogue with each other on energy.
When asked about how the series builds on the documentary from five years ago, Culver described the first Juice project as an “opening stanza” on electricity, while the second one affords more opportunity to “expand the conversation and dig a little bit deeper,” he said.
While the first episode focuses on Texas and the implications of its weakened electric grid, the second details how California’s electricity prices are increasing three times faster than the rest of the U.S. due to the state’s over-reliance on renewable energy.
In the third episode, the Osage Nation’s 12-year-long legal battle with green-energy company Enel is covered extensively. Notably, the Native American tribe, which was featured in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, defeated the Italian corporation in court on December 20. As a result of the judge’s ruling, Enel was ordered to remove 84 wind turbines previously built on 8,400 acres of land in Oklahoma’s Osage County.
The fourth takes viewers to Japan, where the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident still lingers in the public’s consciousness, and Canada, which has seen a nuclear resurgence in recent years. Lastly, the fifth and final episode challenges the audience’s perception of nuclear energy and presents fission as the solution to making the electric grid weather-resilient.
With each episode lasting about 20 minutes, the docuseries features interviews with more than 30 thought leaders, including journalist Michael Shellenberger, historian Patty Limerick, political scientist Roger Pielke Jr., civil rights leader Jennifer Hernandez, and nuclear activist Chris Keefer.
With all five episodes debuting Wednesday, Juice: Power, Politics, and the Grid is now available on YouTube and its website.
