Documentary
2017
U/A 7+
“Can we make enough renewable energy to supply the world and replace fossil fuels? How will we do that, and will we do that?” asks filmmaker Jamie Redford. The grandson of a longtime Chevron worker and son of actor/environmentalist Robert Redford, Jamie admits to struggling with what energy start-up investor Matthew Nordan calls “energy paralysis.” To get a better idea of how energy production works, Jamie tracks his own power lines to a “suitably depressing” power plant – located in eyeshot of a field of energy-producing windmills. Inspired, he visits the world’s largest solar-thermal facility – the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert. According to the facility’s developer Dave Ramm, despite the intermittency of renewables, solar thermal “can deliver energy on demand” as a viable alternative to the cost of defending foreign-oil interests with troops and government funds.Show more