It is totally not surprising seeing this much of people trying to protest against such a powerful source of energy, due to the impacts it had on societies as well as the disasters it caused. Pandora’s Promise is a weird experience for both supporters and environmentalists. Although I think the main focus of the film is towards the environmentalists despite Republicans whom already in love of the idea of having more nuclear plants.
The film make one intriguing assertion by saying that nuclear power is second only to wind turbines in terms of safety. However, many more people were killed by air pollution from burning coal. Even the making of solar panels are more lethal. Helen Caldicott appears in the film calling the nuclear industry a “death industry” and accusing that the number of people who died from the disaster that happened in 1986 at Chernobyl nuclear plant were up to 1 million people, where the United Nation had said that they were around 50. That’s a big difference in number, and no one in the film appears to reconcile it.
The film also argue about radiation, which is admittedly dangerous. However, there are good reasons to be skeptical of nuclear power. The film had enumerated some of them such as plutonium and byproduct of uranium fission could be used to create weapons. France is another example where 80 percent of its power comes from 50 clean nuclear plants, which is held up as success story.
Another thing attracts my attention during the film was that anti-nuclear activists calling nuclear power “wicked” and “evil”. However, they are not given much opportunity to disprove the arguments that Pandora’s Promise sets forth. At times they sound as surprised to hear their own words. There are also some scenes in the film that are honestly little offensive, especially showing those barefoot children wandering with clear implication that nuclear power is the cause of their poverty. I think nuclear power’s worst enemy is not the anti-activist as the movie imply, but those who made the technology look good and created the attitude of complacency which made accidents happened like the one in Japan. Nuclear power will only be successful if realists acknowledge its issues and work very hard to solve them, not coaxing ideologues like the film maker or the stars of “Pandora’s Promise”.