The documentary describing Onkalo, the radioactive waste deposit that will be built in Finland
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him“Long ago man learned to master fire, which no other living creature had done before. Man has then conquered the world entire. One day she found a new fire, a fire so powerful it could never be put out. Then man thought of dominating what animates the universe. Then with horror he realized that his new fire could not only create, but also destroy, not only burn on earth, but inside all living creatures, inside his own children, animals and plants. The man sought help around him, but found none. Then he built a tomb, deep in the bowels of the earth, a hidden place to let that fire burn for eternity “. Like this Michael Madsen, co-author and director of the documentary Into eternity, he describes Cavity and why its construction began.
A spiral carved for kilometers in the rock formed 1.8 millions of years ago that goes down for 500 meters into the bowels of the earth, and at the bottom of the tunnel a network of tunnels will branch off underground. This is Onkalo, the place where the Finnish government has decided to bury its radioactive waste starting in 2020.
The was chosen granite rock because it provides the most stable and protected environment in which to isolate the material capable of damaging living organisms for at least the next 100.000 years. While it is impossible to predict what will happen on the earth's surface in the next 50, 100 or 1.000 years, the depths of the earth's crust seem to offer the best guarantee against earthquakes, wars, blackouts and attacks. Onkalo is a completely self-sufficient depot, for the operation of which energy, surveillance or maintenance will not be necessary.
Construction on the site began in 2003, and its closure is expected aroundl 2100. At the time of closure, the tunnels of the warehouse will be filled with concrete and its entrance sealed, will it be enough to protect us from the threat of radioactive waste?
The engineers working on the construction of the site seem to think so, but not everyone among the Finnish authorities is convinced. If in the future the site were discovered by men as distant from us as we are from Neanderthal man, what could they think of this mysterious structure for them? They would be able to understand what it contains? To assess the danger? These are the kind of questions Finnish experts ask themselves, and in seeking the answers they have formed two schools of thought.
On the one hand there are those who believe it is better signal the danger of the site with a marker system, visual indicators with warning signs and warnings on them in all languages of the United Nations. Pushing their imaginations that far in time, no one can predict what our successors will understand about Onkalo. Imagining them as curious as we are, they will not stop at the danger warnings we leave behind - just as the archaeologists of the last century did not stop at the inscriptions that curse the desecrators of Egyptian tombs.
On the other hand, however, there are those who believe that the site should be hidden and forgotten forever. Just like the meaning of his name, Onkalo, seems to suggest: hidden place, hollow in Finnish.
How difficult it would be to find gods universal and credible danger messages enough to be understood by all future generations - from here to 100.000 years -, so it would be difficult to do an imposing structure like Onkalo disappears into thin air.
All the questions remain open and the answers continue to be sought - with all due respect to Giorgio Veronsi -, in first among the nuclear countries to seek a solution to the problem of waste which is measured by the time it really takes to transform itself into something harmless.
Title: Into eternity. This hiding place should never be disturbed
Gender: Documentary
Duration: 75'
Language: English
Year: 2009
Movie director: Michael Madsen
Website: www.intoeternitythemovie.com/
