Year: 2010
Director: Michael Madsen
100,000 years is a long time. Just consider how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly long it is. I mean, you might think it would take you a long time to read Douglas Adams’ four Hitchhikers books, listen to all the radio shows, watch the spinoff series and endure the movie, but that would be peanuts compared to 100,000 years.
Coincidentally, 100,000 years (give or take a couple) is how long we believe nuclear waste will remain hazardous to human life. With this in mind the Finns have begun construction of a repository, burrowing 5km underground into bedrock to safely store their nuclear waste. This is an unprecedented undertaking. The site must remain intact for a thousand centuries; the entire history of large scale construction is less than a tenth of that.
Danish Film-maker Michael Madsen speaks with those involved in this extraordinary operation which will not be complete for a hundred years. They are confident the Finnish bedrock will be indifferent to likely wars and environmental catastrophies, but they do worry about human intrusion. Among the dilemmas the builders face is how to communicate the danger of the site to the citizens of an inconceivably distant future (Finland and the Finnish language may still exist in 100,000 years, but it’s a safer bet that they won’t. Our present limited understanding of many of the grand structures of antiquity might be attributable to the secrecy of their creators or the frenzied destruction of records throughout the Dark Ages, but time alone has a way of corrupting and erasing archives. One wonders what the makers of Ancient Aliens series 100,108 will make of this site? *spoiler:aliens*).
Madsen constructs his film as an admonition to those people who will follow, employing poetic flights of language to accompany striking imagery of the Finnish countryside, the vast underground site and ..er.. some guy in his pants.
Into Eternity is available to watch on YouTube.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
environmental impact documentaries like Gasland or the other eyebrow-raising nuclear themed doc, Countdown To Zero.
Those who enjoy a little speculative thought with their facts.
Yikes! Douglas Adams’ five Hitchhikers books, that should say. Still peanuts…
I recall some slick, grinning PR blerk from BNFL smirking when I challenged him over the acceptability of the mind-boggling half-life of nuclear “waste” by replying that because arsenic, a naturally occuring mineral, is deadly for ever, what’s there to worry about in waiting a while for radioactive decay? The idea that this stuff can be put away in a guaranteed safe fashion for the requisite length of time is utter, utter nonsense. The only consolation is the relatively small volume of material involved, but that should be seen as an opportunity to explore other options that don’t produce ghastly by-products in order to stop making any power at all with fission. It won’t be of course, it’ll be factored in as a reason to continue to live with the technology; there’s too much money being made for any sensible outcomes to be expected, only the short term cash generating ones.
Thanks Sewer. Will watch out for that one.