"Pandora's Promise"

Along with the documentary that I watched for my paper, I also watched the 2013 documentary "Pandora's Promise".

My dad is a nuclear Engineer, so when I read the summary and watched the trailer it interested me. I have grown up having nothing but positive thoughts about nuclear power because it is my family's source of income. But growing up, in science classes I started to hear the negative accusations and effect of nuclear power plants.

After I read about the documentary on the list Dr. Kyburz's list and watched the trailer I showed it to my dad and he asked if I wanted to watch it with him. I few nights later we watched the documentary. It was kinda weird for me in the beginning watching it with him because there were a lots of nasty things said as the film opened. The nuclear industry is my dad's lively hood, this career of over 25 years and how he supports his family and, in the moment, I kinda regretted having him watch it. 

The documentary then went onto discuss the common misconceptions of nuclear energy and give facts to them being untrue. They also included explanation of the the real and valid danger of nuclear energy, explaining how it can go wrong, but also the procedures plants and the NRC have to keep the public safe at all costs. There was a lot of information about the formation of nuclear power and how it works. I knew most of this stuff just by talking to my dad over the years. 

There was one scene that really stood out to me; when discussing how nuclear is the only large threat to the coal plants, they showed articles promoting solar power THAT WERE FUNDED BY THE COAL PLANT COMPANIES! That was something my dad pointed out after too. It's crazy because they know that things like wind and solar alternative energies will not keep you with the public's demand for power by themselves. On days when it is not super windy or sunny then the coal plants will have to fill the demand.   

The topic comes up in any discussion about Nuclear Power; they explained the disaster at Chernobyl Power plant in Russia in 1986. Anti nuclear activists will yell about millions of people and babies dying because of this event, but the documentary provided evidence and records of not one person dying due to overexposure of radiation in or around the area of the disaster. 

This came as a surprise to me because I always assumed that everyone is the area was killed. Then the documentary said that 20% of people around the world will get cancer in their lifetime and many will die. Obviously people in Russia and in Japan after their nuclear malfunction in 2012 will freak out when they get cancer and blame it on the nuclear plant, when humans will get cancer and die of it anyway, nuclear plants or not. 

I really liked the documentary and I encourage others to watch it. There was a lot that I did not know and there was a lot explained that added to my knowledge of nuclear power. (I also got to spend time with my dad while I watched it, which does not happen too often). 

Kayla Audrey