Pandora's Promise

Pandora's Promise

By Riley Anderson

(Google Images)

     

Throughout the course of the last week I have been slowly watching the film Pandora's Promise, directed by Robert Stone. The film dives into the controversy that currently surrounds nuclear power, in the opening of the film there are a series of interviews with experts and clips from activists on the issue. The experts such as Stewart Brand, Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas and others all are environmentally conscious people, but they all share a common ideal that is pro-nuclear. This raises a question to many environmentalists because of the hazardous effects that come with nuclear power. Nuclear power is a very vague concept to many people in the world because we feel as if it has little to do with our life, and when we think of nuclear power we automatically think of nuclear bombs. The beginning of the film opened with this common notion, there were clips of the Fukushima Daiich Disaster, which is located in Japan. The plant had a meltdown following the tsunami and the plant began to explode, and following this clip they showed how far the radiation would be able to reach. It was believed that the radiation would eventually reach North American but in "safe amounts" which raises a very controversial question, is any radiation a safe amount?

Fukushima Radiation Spread (Google Images)

Following this clip Mark Lynas talks about nuclear power as a whole and one prominent idea that was stuck in my head was "There's no other energy source that does this, that leaves huge areas contaminated" (Pandora's Promise). So how could an environmentally conscious individual possibly be pro-nuclear? Mark does state that after seeing evidence of the disasters that are caused from nuclear power that it is almost impossible not to wobble on the topic. This was the turning point where I found myself asking why would there be so many people who would be pro-nuclear, but I soon found out my answer. 

     Len Koch is a nuclear engineer who aided in building the first nuclear power reactors, Len talks about how "One pound of Uranium, which is the size of my fingertip, if you could release off the energy, it has the equivalent of about 5,000 barrels of oil." Therefore this has massive potential to be used effectively, which provokes the high risk and high reward idea of thinking. Upon further research a pound of uranium costs about $34.25 per pound and Petroleum Oil is about 25 cents per pound, keeping in mind that 1 gallon of oil is about 7 pounds. Then when you think that paying the 35 dollars for the pound of Uranium produces that of 5,000 barrels the result is very tempting. The film continues to talk about the negative history that is correlated with nuclear energy, dating back to the beginning where atomic bombs were dropped in WWII.

     The film then discusses why nuclear energy may be the way to go, because it dives into problems with other resources such as Coal, Oil, Wind, Hydro and Solar energy. The first fact that lined up with what I currently know is that "coal is not only the most widely used source of energy in the world, it's also the fastest growing source of energy. It's use is accelerating world wide." I came to now this through our research with our country in class. The country I have researched is Nigeria, who rely massively on coal, will only rely more on it to sustain their vastly increased population by 2050. Coal is looked at in a very negative view in the eye of Pandora, during the video they show a graph that represents that deaths that have occurred due to the energy sources. 

Captured from the film Pandora's Promise (Film)

The graph above, as stated before, depicts the deaths that are correlated with the process of obtaining certain types of energy. The graph eventually zooms into a smaller perspective where the viewers are able to see the deaths correlated to nuclear energy, which is second safest, only to wind. However it is important to take into consideration the scale of which these practices are taken, meaning nuclear is not done on a massive scale such as coal and oil, as well as if nuclear disasters occur that can cause complete destruction.

     Pandora's Promise may have been one of the more influential films I have watched in a very long time, it not only opened up my eyes to the nuclear energy opportunity, but educated the viewers on how it can be insanely affective if used properly. Nuclear power has an very plausible future in the world because of the little emissions that occur is operated properly. Nuclear Power in the United States has been around and the first power plant was built in 1956 at a shipping port in Pennsylvania, as a path to have cleaner energy. Pandora's Promise really opened up my eyes to the problems that the world will be facing in our generation. How will this generation provide a massive population energy without depleting all natural resources? The film dives into problems that other energy resources create like wind and solar, these types of energy are not very sustainable due to it will result in less energy being used for a increasingly growing population. 

     Pandora's Promise opened the possibility of nuclear power becoming a real prominent source of energy in the future, but I still feel as if it is very likely that many people will mismanage this source of energy. High risks and high rewards, but we need to learn how to manage this energy properly and affectively.

     -Ri