Containment

Using nuclear energy for any purpose, whether in weapons or to generate power, involves disposing of radioactive waste that will remain toxic for thousands of years. Filmmakers Robb Moss and Peter Galison's documentary Containment visits places that are already affected by contamination—the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where plutonium was produced for atomic bombs beginning in the 1950s, and Fukushima, Japan, where a 2011 tsunami struck a nuclear plant, not only resulting in the evacuation of the entire district, but also requiring a massive cleanup campaign that will result in the destruction of another region where the mountains of waste will ultimately have to be buried. The major focus here, however, is on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad, NM, where thousands of drums of nuclear waste were entombed in storage rooms carved out of a geological salt formation more than 2,000 feet underground before a drum breach brought a temporary halt to operations in 2014. Local boosters of the project enthusiastically cite the economic benefits that it has brought to the region, but the film draws attention to the efforts of a government-appointed group of futurists who are tasked with devising warnings against disturbing the site that will be intelligible to earthlings—or even extraterrestrial visitors—some 10,000 years from now. Paradoxically, the fact that Washington is taking such action is both comforting and frightening. A thought-provoking documentary about a millennia-long problem, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)