Into Eternity

According to an expert interviewed in the mesmerizing conceptual documentary Into Eternity, the world currently has between 250,000 and 300,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. The radiation from that waste is toxic to human beings, and it’s estimated that exposure to it will be a danger for at least 100,000 years. Currently, radioactive waste is being placed in interim storage like water baths, which act as a shield against their effects, but anything on the surface is vulnerable to all manner of human and environmental disasters. Since blasting the stuff into space isn’t an option—engineers in the film immediately rule out that possibility, because the launch could ignite the waste—another solution is to bury it far underground. To that end, the ambitious Onkalo nuclear-waste repository in Finland, a series of tunnels carved five kilometers deep into solid rock, seeks a more permanent home to hazardous waste. But is there such a thing as permanence?