Antinuclear

“Plutonium Pollyanna” – a review of film “Pandora’s Promise”

Finally (as Beyond Nuclear and other watchdog groups have noted), relying on nuclear power to mitigate CO₂-driven climate change is unaffordable and impractical since it would require putting a new reactor online every two weeks……

Ultimately, Pandora’s Promise comes across as a well-executed but disingenuous exercise in special pleading. Instead of devoting 89 minutes to honestly and fully assessing the pros and cons of renewable technologies alongside the risks and benefits of new, untried nuclear power systems,Pandora’s Promise promotes a narrow agenda. As a result, the film winds up as little more than a tunnel-vision exercise in “plutonium Pollyannaism.”

Another Take on Pandora’s Promise EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL BY GAR SMITH – JUNE 28, 2013 Pro-nuclear power film obscures as much as it reveals   You’ve got to give the producers of Pandora’s Promise credit for gumption. It takes a lot of chutzpah to release a pro-nuclear polemic in the wake of the triple meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. The film also suffered the ignominy of opening the same week that the owners of California’s troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station announced the permanent shutdown of the facility’s two crippled reactors. Even the film’s title takes a bit of nerve; it was Pandora’s Box, after all, that unleashed a host of once-contained evils into the world.

So, given the extensive history of nuclear mishaps and near-catastrophes, how do the producers of Pandora’s Promise manage to spin their counter-narrative of a “safe, green” nuclear future? Basically by: (1) at first accepting the criticisms of traditional nuclear power and then (2) arguing that the solution lies in “new, improved” nuclear reactors. Like a smart defense attorney, director Robert Stone begins by admitting all of the defendant’s worst foibles up front, thereby depriving the prosecution of an opportunity to score points by revealing these issues later…….

The filmmakers pronounce the radioactive contamination “infinitesimal” and proclaim there has been “no evidence of medical consequences.” No citations are offered to support this positive conclusion. The fact that 40 percent of Fukushima’s evacuated children have subsequently developed thyroid abnormalities goes unmentioned.

Where Are the “Anti-nuclear Environmental Leaders”?

Director Stone claims his goal is to share “the personal narratives of a growing number of leading former anti-nuclear activists” who have turned their backs on renewable energy solutions and switched their allegiance to nuclear power. So, who are these people? Well, Stone only managed to line up seven nuclear defenders and, as it turns out, none of them were ever what you would call “anti-nuclear leaders.”…….

The film leans heavily on the opinions of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Richard Rhodes. Although he is the author of the excellent book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Rhodes isn’t known for being anti-nuclear energy. In fact, in 1993 he wrote a pro-nuclear book called Nuclear Renewal: Commonsense about Nuclear Energy. The remaining two “independent thinkers” are Len Koch and Charles Till. Neither were environmental activists. Both worked at the government’s Argonne National Laboratory – building nuclear reactors.

In the only attempt at balance, Stone ambushes longtime anti-nuclear crusader Dr. Helen Caldicott in a crowd at a public event. With his camera about two feet from her face, Stone badgers Caldicott until she grows impatient and looses her temper.

It is worth noting that Pandora’s Promise was financed by a small coterie of wealthy men, including billionaires Paul Allen (Microsoft) and Richard Branson (Virgin Group) who, as Allen put it to Forbes, wanted to use the film to “get people thinking about nuclear in a whole new way.”

A Slanted View of Energy Options

Stone’s film is consistently dismissive of solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources. The script faults green power for being “intermittent” without mentioning workable solutions such as advanced batteries, smartgrids, microgrids and hydrogen fuel-cell storage, as well as “always-on” geothermal and tidal power sources. Pandora’s Promise also fails to fess up to the fact that nuclear plants are also “intermittent.” Reactors must be routinely shut down every 18 to 24 months for maintenance and refueling, and frequently need to be taken offline for costly repairs. Between 2003 and 2007, USnuclear plants were shut down 10.6 percent of the timefor repairs, while the failure rate for solar stations and wind farms was typically around 1 to 2 percent.

If I heard correctly, during one interview Shellenberger admits to a singular limitation that shadows the proposed nuclear solution – i.e., these new “cleaner, safer” reactors would have operating lifetimes of 60 years. This is clearly not enough time to undo the atmospheric havoc bequeathed by the age of fossil fuels. And rebuilding a nuclear infrastructure every 60 years is not a viable option……….

A fundamental premise underling Stone’s pro-nuclear argument is the belief in unlimited growth. If growth requires electricity, then mitigating global warming becomes a powerful argument for “carbon neutral” nuclear power. Stone includes a stunning computer animation from NOAA that shows global temperatures inexorably rising over the last century………..

The pro-nuclear argument remains tightly focused on the issue of CO₂ emissions – as if that were the only environmental threat haunting the planet. There is no recognition that continued consumption of resources and “endless growth” are patently unsustainable practices. If you are a forest, a river, a bat or a bobcat, it makes no difference whether a bulldozer is powered by a gas tank, a solar panel, or a fuel cell………….

Asked to assess the long-term problem of radioactive waste, Stewart Brand (ironically, the founder of the Long Now Foundation) opines that America’s nuclear stewards have devised a “pretty good” system for handing toxic nuclear garbage: dry-cask storage containers. Once again, there is no mention of the larger, and more problematic, part of the nuclear inventory – the mountains of radioactive “tailings” scattered at uranium mining sites around the world and the growing inventory of intensely radioactive fuel assemblies stored “temporarily” in densely packed spent-fuel pools alongside reactors. These pools need to be constantly cooled to prevent the fuel rods from overheating and triggering catastrophic fires and fallout.

Sure, there are 70,000 tons of radioactive waste in the US, one “pro-nuke environmentalist” suggests, but that’s no biggie since all of America’s nuclear waste could be packed up and stacked ten-feet-deep inside a single football stadium. And only a small percentage of that would be composed of deadly plutonium-239, which boasts a half-life of 24,100 years. …. Meanwhile, the world’s only state-of-the-art nuclear storage project – Finland’s Onkalo waste-tomb – won’t be able to accommodate more than one percent of the global nuclear industry’s waste.

Problems with the IFR

Looking beyond the ballyhoo, there are significant concerns about IFRs that Pandora’s Promise fails to address. To date, no breeder reactor has been commercially viable. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, shares David McKay’s concern about the 250-plus metric tons of excess plutonium moldering away in storage sites around the world. Makhijani, however, believes the idea that “sodium cooled-fast neutron reactors [could] be built to denature the plutonium reveals a technological optimism that is disconnected from the facts.” While some IFRs “have indeed operated well,” Makhijani notes, “roughly $100 billion have been spent worldwide to try and commercialize these reactors – to no avail.”

Fueled by a uranium-plutonium alloy, IFRs can produce (“breed”) more plutonium than they burn. But this plutonium can be used to produce nuclear weapons, which poses serious diversion and proliferation risks. Also, IFRs are cooled by molten sodium, not water. Sodium can explode when it comes in contact with water and, when exposed to air, sodium ignites and burns furiously. Sodium-cooled reactors are prone to coolant leaks. Fast reactor accidents have occurred in France, Japan, Scotland, at the Fermi 1 reactor in Michigan, and twice at a Simi Valley reactor site in southern California.

Several competing nuclear power designs are cited in Pandora’s Promise, but they receive little screen time. There is a brief mention of Liquid Fluoride Thorium reactors, a Traveling Wave Reactor (Bill Gates’ pet project), and the government’s support for “mini-nukes” that could be installed underground and fired up to power urban skyscrapers. How practical and safe are they? Pandora’s Promise provides few answers. There is no in-depth analysis of the pros and cons of any of these alternatives.

Finally (as Beyond Nuclear and other watchdog groups have noted), relying on nuclear power to mitigate CO₂-driven climate change is unaffordable and impractical since it would require putting a new reactor online every two weeks……

Ultimately, Pandora’s Promise comes across as a well-executed but disingenuous exercise in special pleading. Instead of devoting 89 minutes to honestly and fully assessing the pros and cons of renewable technologies alongside the risks and benefits of new, untried nuclear power systems,Pandora’s Promise promotes a narrow agenda. As a result, the film winds up as little more than a tunnel-vision exercise in “plutonium Pollyannaism.”

Gar Smith is Editor Emeritus of Earth Island Journal and author of Nuclear Roulette: The Truth about the Most Dangerous Energy Source on Earth (Chelsea Green). http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/another_take_on_pandoras_promise

June 29, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, media