The environment has been a hot topic for the last few years, thanks to documentaries like An Ugly Truth which made clear that our planet is slowly changing because of our activities. Governments have agreed to reducing their emissions in order to slow down the process, but although the steps are taken the progress is slow. Companies do what they can to meet ISO norms, which includes being “green” (recycling, reducing the emissions by their car fleet to name a few examples). Despite all those efforts some question if all these steps will be enough to save humanity.
In the documentary Collapse, Michael Ruppert told that we are already too late and that alternative forms of energy are not a solution to the issue and that we will still have to rely on fossil fuels in order to execute greener plans. The way energy is created throughout the world is also a very damaging process as there is a lot of pollution because of it. Nuclear power could be a solution, because it generates less direct pollution with the only downside being radioactive waste and of course the dangers of anything happening to a nuclear plant. With the recent events in Fukushima still fresh in everyone’s memory it seems nuclear is not the way to go. But is that really the case? Pandora’s Promise is a documentary which actually tries to explain nuclear power plants and try to convince the viewer that the horror images everyone thinks of might be unnecessary.
What this documentary does is talk to experts in this field, some who even worked in designing the first nuclear plants. They talk about the concept behind such a plant and what the developments have been in this field. They manage to really give the viewer a clear picture of them and tackle all well-known issues with this form of energy. It turns out that many of the reasons of people who oppose to it actually are not completely valid. One example is that of radiation. They visit both Fukushima and Chernobyl to measure the amount of radiation. Even though there is a high count it turns out that there is also radiation in places you would normally don’t expect it and these are sometimes places where lots of people live. It was something which I found very unexpected. Something I also did not know is that nuclear plants with a new design generate far less waste as they can re-use what they generate. These are points you normally never hear about and Pandora’s Promise really opens your eyes to the strength of nuclear power. Some former opposers (activists) are interviewed who tell why they now think nuclear power should be the future. One of them is that alternative sources of energy simply makeup only a couple of percent of the total amount of energy we consume and that it is unrealistic to expect these sources to produce enough to meet demand.
This is one of those documentaries where you might not expect too much from when you start to watch them, but as they progress they provide information you have not heard before and makes you think. This documentary is very pro nuclear and of course you question whether everything it claims is true, but even if that would be only half of it then still it is something everyone should see. People are afraid of something they do not understand and Pandora’s Promise makes one subject a lot less scary.
