Sundance ’13: Pandora’s Promise

Nuclear energy does not burn fossil fuels, nor is it intermittent.  Appreciation of these obvious, incontrovertible facts led documentarian Robert Stone and five well known environmental activists to reverse their longstanding opposition to nuclear power.  Stone convincingly lays out their green case for nuclear in Pandora’s Promise (clip here), which screens during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

Stone made his name with the anti-nuclear doc Radio Bikini and would further burnish his green credentials with Earth Days.  Very concerned about global warming, Stone could no longer accept the environmental movement’s unrealistic claims about solar and wind power.  As his primary POV experts argue, any power plan with a significant wind or solar component will by necessity be heavily dependent on big dirty fossil fuel plants as a back-up.  The simple truth is the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, but coal burns 24-7.

To his credit, Stone tackles the Fukushima disaster right up front, rather than let it fester in the minds of skeptical audience members.  While the devastation of the area gives pause to noted British environmental author and nuclear convert Mark Lynas, the background radiation levels they record are considerably less than what anyone flying on a transatlantic commercial flight would be exposed to.

Stone’s battery of experts cogently explains the safety benefits and relative cleanliness of nuclear.  Yes, radioactive waste is a potentially inconvenient by-product, but the volume is a fraction of what the public widely assumes.  Furthermore, next generation reactors will be increasingly able to recycle the existing nuclear waste, as is already happening in France.  Of course, there have been disasters, but Chernobyl was the worst by far.  A sterling example of Soviet safety engineering, the Pripyat plant completely lacked any basic containment dome, whereas western reactors have multiple domes with elaborate built in contingency systems.

Surely some will try, but it is impossible to dismiss Stone as a right-of-center partisan.  Clearly, the Pandora contributors are entirely satisfied global warming is a very real and alarming phenomenon.  Indeed, that is largely the impetus for their nuclear apostasy.  Considering how many cold shoulders Stone, Lynas, and company are likely to get from former comrades at cocktail parties, their conviction cannot be questioned.  Their logic is also sound and consistent.  Highly recommended for anyone with an open mind self-identifying with the environmental cause (broadly defined), Pandora’s Promise screens again tonight (1/24) in Park City and Saturday (1/26) in Salt Lake as a Doc Premiere at this year’s Sundance.

Switch: Energy for the Future

Geologist Dr. Scott Tinker is serious about charting a rational energy policy for the future.  You can tell this because he can envision a positive role for both nuclear power and hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. fracking).  Visiting diverse energy-producing sites around the globe, Dr. Tinker looks for a balanced menu of options to replace so-called “legacy” fuels in Harry Lynch’s documentary Switch (trailer here), which opens in New York tomorrow.

It seems Dr. Tinker largely accepts the current terms of the global warming debate, but he never really belabors it in Switch.  He just starts from the premise sending a lot of emissions into the atmosphere is generally a bad idea.  Fair enough.  However, he is level headed enough not to endorse anything along the lines of the Kyoto Protocols.  According to Dr. Tinker, the West really is not going to be the problem in the future.  At current rates, China and India will be releasing far more emissions than America and Europe combined—and they are not going to stop unless they determine it is in their economic interests. 

He is also honest enough to admit the advantages of petroleum.  This is not something the evil oil industry forced onto reluctant consumers.  You can fill up your tank and drive for miles, yet it never leaves behind any soot or residue.  That is why replacing it is quite the trick.

Lynch follows Tinker as he visits some remarkably photogenic power plants, but he never really finds any one panacea.  Ocean and geothermal power are great if you happen to be in the perfect location, like Norway or Iceland, but not practical for a country the size of America, let alone China.  Solar and wind can be nice supplements, but they are intermittent.  Electric cars are cool, but they are still electric, which largely means more demand for coal.

Some unexpected dark horses emerge from the pack, like natural gas.  Yes, it is a fossil fuel, but a remarkably clean burning one.  Addressing the media scare campaign around hydraulic fracturing, Tinker’s experts flatly state there have never been documented cases of ground water contamination, arguing the greatest potential hazard would be spills at surface level.  Of course, this is not risk specific to fracturing, but applicable to just about every commercial endeavor.

Post-Fukushima nuclear power also factors into the mix.  While the media focuses Fukushima and Chernobyl, it has ignored France, where eighty percent of electricity is nuclear generated, without incident.  As Tinker and his colleague crunch the numbers, it is hard to see how the world would wean itself from fossil fuels if nuclear is not part of the calculus.

Dr. Tinker is a smart and engaging presenter, who is undeniably far more knowledgeable about energy than the ideologues typically populating documentaries.  Nonetheless, Switch gets a bit repetitive, showing scene after scene of Tinker touring big shiny installations, asking just what exactly does that valve-thingy do?

Be that as it may, Switch will definitely sharpen your thinking on energy.  It offers a pretty comprehensive Cliff Notes for all forms of energy generation, scrupulously free of bias.  While obviously part of a larger media campaign (just like Lee Hirsch’s Bully, a.k.a. The Bully Project, and a host of other theatrical docs), Switch will still reward open-minded viewers.  Recommended for slightly wonky types, it opens this Friday (9/21) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Requiem for a Reactor: Under Control

In the real world, you will find no Homer Simpsons in nuclear power plants. In point of fact, safety is of paramount concern to the very serious professionals who responsible for Germany’s atomic power. Documentarian Volker Sattel takes viewers on a tour of their computer regulated world in the surprisingly elegiac Under Control (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York at Anthology Film Archives.

There are risks involved with any form of power generation, but the plants seen in the not so ironically titled Under Control have multiple levels of fail-safe automation built in. They are marvels of engineering one official boasts. They are also closing. Following Three Mile Island and then Chernobyl, the German public politically turned against nuclear energy. Having overestimated their future consumption, the German government started decommissioning nuclear plants decades ago. (Indeed, Control’s buried lede apparently establishes the thirst for energy in the industrialized West is quenchable after all.)

Despite some sequences involving the storage of nuclear waste, Control is really not a cautionary film, per se. Rather, it is a lament for those nuclear scientists and managers who looked like Robert McNamera and dedicated their lives to an atomic future cut short by politics, as well as the hulking behemoths they left behind.

Stylistically, Control is closely akin to Into Eternity, Michael Madsen’s exploration of a subterranean Finnish nuclear waste site, which also screens at Anthology next weekend in conjunction with Sattel’s documentary. Both films almost fetishize the shiny stainless steel and ominous concrete of the Nuclear Age’s science fiction-like structures. However, Madsen has a clearer agenda, whereas Sattel has a stronger eye for imagery. If you have a choice, opt for the latter.

As director, cinematographer, and co-editor, Sattel masterfully frames his visuals. However, the combined effect of the film’s glossy look and ambient soundtrack becomes lulling over time. More of a film for connoisseurs of experimental cinema than advocacy documentaries, Control is strangely balanced in its presentation nonetheless. Not for wide audiences, Control is respectfully recommended for self-selecting viewers who consider film a canvas rather than a soapbox. It screens at AFA for a week and change, beginning this Friday (12/2).