May 5, 2010: Into Eternity
Into Eternity is a documentary about long-term nuclear waste storage. The particular story concerns a huge engineering project in Finland to store the waste deep beneath the surface of the earth, but it’s clear that the concerns apply anywhere in the world, and are even more pressing for countries which do not have large tracts of land with the right geological characteristics for this.
As construction proceeds, harshly lit video images flash across the screen, from creepy and imposing gates to antiseptic brightly lit rooms full of heavy equipment. In the meantime, legislators, regulators, scientists, academics and politicians weigh in on the problem and whether or not this is the right solution. It’s nice to think that burying nuclear waste deep in the earth will do the trick nicely, and in a sense it will, but the people creating these facilities need to provide for the site to be closed off for 100,000 years, which is far beyond a comprehensible time scale for human construction. Chaucer was writing in English only 600 years ago, and current-day native speakers of the language can barely read those works. A simple “Keep Out” sign on a chain link fence isn’t gonna cut it here.
I’ll admit I dozed through this one a bit, not only because I was particularly tired but because it was a bit dry at times. An interesting point is that the film is presented in the english language, although it’s mostly broken english and all with subtitles. At the Q&A the director pointed out, surprising me that I guessed correctly, that the choice of language was made for greater international appeal for the documentary. It’s sad that this makes a difference, but I guess it’s good that the director perceived this advantage he could give himself.
Personally I’m a fan of nuclear power, and these underground storage techniques strike me as being a much more palatable price to pay for our energy thirst than the airborne pollution we scatter around the globe. The film doesn’t try to push the point too hard, but I think it falls on the same side.
Nuclear energy – lesser of the evils?
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