07: Neon Green Energy (Part 02)

In 2015, an inaccessible art exhibition opened inside the radioactive Fukushima exclusion zone in Japan. Its organizers, a collective called Don't Follow the Wind, entered the zone dozens of times over multiple years, working with displaced local residents and a roster of international artists to secretly install site-specific artworks across an area that is categorically uninhabitable. The show will open to the public when the zone is deemed safe for reentry. That could be in three years, or 30 years, or 30,000 years. 

Widespread adoption of nuclear power will make future Fukushimas inevitable. It will also require enormous amounts of new uranium mining. For tech billionaires, these are small prices to pay to cover what they claim are going to be enormous demands on data centers—demands they're already blaming on you, for using ChatGPT to make shopping lists. 

In this second installment of Neon Green Energy, you'll hear from several familiar voices, including photographer Abbey Hepner, whose experiences volunteering in the cleanup efforts in Japan led to a project about "nuclear mascots." You'll also hear from people involved with Don't Follow the Wind: curator Jason Waite, interdisciplinary artist Kentarō Ikegami, and artist and geographer Trevor Paglen. Greenpeace nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie also returns to explain why, after 70 years of operation, nuclear reactors have proved themselves "irrelevant" in the quest for net zero. 

Learn more, make a donation, or find a text-based version of today's program at: timezeropod.com.