Emily is a journalist and documentary film producer from Tokyo who has followed the intersection of culture and social issues. Emily’s most recent credits as director/producer include Taller Than The Trees (2015), a portrait of a Japanese businessman struggling to balance his career, raising a son, and caring for his mother with Alzheimer’s disease; PBS Sound Tracks: The Jazz Ambassador (2012), a chronicle of jazz virtuoso Wynton Marsalis’s rarely seen campaign to revive the art form; PBS FRONTLINE: The Atomic Artists (2011), following a Tokyo-based art collective and its response to the Fukushima nuclear crisis; and PBS Sound Tracks (2010), the pilot episode for a public television series examining cultural, political, and social stories around the world through music. Her work as director/producer/camera has also aired on Anderson Cooper 360, The History Channel, PBS NewsHour, as well as on the web sites of The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal. She earned a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and International Relations from Tufts University.
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The Great East Japan Earthquake transformed not only the landscape of the Tohoku region, but assumptions about the country's energy supply. The Price of Energy, a long-form video project, will explore critical questions raised by the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant. The project will consist of two parts: an examination of the true costs of nuclear power, including the human and environmental toll that have been levied; and an exploration of alternatives to determine whether or not a viable option exists. My hope is that uncovering a fuller picture of the costs of nuclear power can lead to a more informed public discourse about the choice of energy source and the associated trade-offs. If Japan continues to rely on nuclear power as one of the main pillars of the energy supply, I believe it should be pursued with a comprehensive understanding of what it takes and the possible consequences. Such an understanding can in turn inform policy, whether related to pricing, regulation, or the formation of a compensatory structure to mitigate the effects of accidents. Lastly, the project will examine the possible alternatives to nuclear power, and whether or not they represent viable options. The current discourse on alternative energy tends to simply pit environmentalists against industrialists, without offering an understanding of the trade-offs. The Price of Energy will seek to explain whether a shift in energy is possible, and what the ramifications may be in the availability of power.
