Mankind created nuclear waste — and it’s stuck with the deadly rubbish for at least the next 100,000 years. That’s the somber message in “Into Eternity,” a classy documentary by Michael Madsen (not the actor) that explores ways to store the material.
The focus is on Onkalo, a little-known project being built on a Finnish island some 100 miles northwest of Helsinki. It is there that engineers are digging a 4-mile-long tunnel 1,600 feet deep in 1.8 billion-year-old bedrock.
When completed in 10 years, the tunnel will be used to store tons of Finland’s nuclear waste. In another 10 years, the tunnel will be sealed, hopefully for 100,000 years, which is the time it takes for nuclear waste to decontaminate.
But there are problems. One is the Ice Age predicted to arrive in 60,000 years. (I could have sworn it was already here.) How will the weight of the ice affect the structure?
More importantly, how will today’s scientists let the next 3,000 generations of humans know the deadly danger that lurks beneath them? Nobody seems to know, although one chap suggests posting a copy of Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream.”
This isn’t your ordinary documentary. Madsen, a conceptual artist, often evokes sci-fi thrillers like Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” At other times, you think you are watching a music video.
Madsen interviews experts galore, but few seem to know what’s going to happen with this project in the next decade — let alone 100,000 years.
“Into Eternity” provides few solutions regarding the estimated 200,000 to 300,000 tons of N-waste lying around the world, but it does alert us to potentially devastating consequences. Will we heed the warning?