Nuclear Energy and The Darkest Nightmare

I like the way the Sundance Film Festival tries to square a bunch of circles in selling its showings (beginning January 18) of Robert Stone’s Pandora’s Promise, his pro-nuclear energy documentary:

The atomic bomb, the specter of a global nuclear holocaust, and disasters like Fukushima have made nuclear energy synonymous with the darkest nightmares of the modern world. But what if everyone has nuclear power wrong? What if people knew that there are reactors that are self-sustaining and fully controllable and ones that require no waste disposal? What if nuclear power is the only energy source that has the ability to stop climate change?

Need we note that domestic nuclear energy, the subject of the film, has nothing whatever to with the atomic bomb or “the specter of a global nuclear holocaust?” I hope not. If you allow that, “Darkest nightmares of the modern world” might seem a bit hyperbolic, yes?

But fine: if it inspires people to wander in and see the film, fine. They may get some of their preconceptions about nuclear energy, as represented by the blurb, shaken up, and that would be a good thing.

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