Abstract

The Danish documentary Into Eternity: A Film for the Future has received substantial attention in recent years. It portrays the efforts in Finland to construct a permanent repository where used nuclear fuel is supposed to slumber for 100,000 years, and explores questions connected to this. As an intervention in nuclear debates, Into Eternity is effective. With restraint and subtlety, the film allows the waste problem's inherent drama to take center stage. Major aspects of the issue are depicted, including messages to future generations, the condition and value of the waste a thousand years from now, and the imagined technological competencies of the future. Other topics could have been given space in the documentary, such as economic perspectives and other technical solutions. But the film should serve as an excellent introduction for teaching technology, ethics, and related matters, or to commence discussions about time-spans involved in nuclear waste storage.

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