Into Eternity: A Film for the Future

I would say...

...that you are now on a place -

- where we have buried something from you to protect you.

And we have taken great... pain -

to be sure that you are protected.

We also need you to know -

- that this place should not be disturbed.

And we want you to know -

- that this is not a place for you to live in.

You should stay away from this place, and then you will be safe.

I am now in this place where you should never come.

We call it Onkalo. Onkalo means "hiding place".

In my time it is still unfinished -

- though work began in the 20th century when I was just a child.

Work will be completed in the 22nd century, long after my death.

Onkalo must last 100000 years.

Nothing built by man has lasted a tenth of that time.

But we consider ourselves a very potent civilization.

If we succeed, -

- it will most likely be the longest lasting remains of our civilization.

If you, some time far into the future, -

- find this, what will it tell you about us?

Once mankind started to use nuclear power to generate electricity -

- it was obvious that we would also generate some waste -

- which has to be treated so that it doesn"t... harm anybody.

And you can"t make nuclear waste go away.

You cannot make nuclear waste harmless.

So... several ways of how to get rid of the waste were explored.

Send it in a rocket out to the sun.

It disappears; it will never make harm to anyone.

But how to ensure that the rocket doesn"t explode on the launch pad?

Or sinking it to deep sea...

We would never be able to claim -

- that we can safely put something into the bottom of the oceans.

Because still we have an impression -

- that the oceans are really the mother of all life.

It"s not a safe way of handling spent nuclear fuel or radioactive waste.

How much waste exists in the world today?

Totally?

I am not quite aware.

I would say between 200000 and 300000 tons.

Somewhere between these two.

We already have enormous amounts of nuclear waste.

If this waste spills out into nature it will cause death and destruction.

Large areas will become uninhabitable for a long, long time.

Did that happen? Are there forbidden zones with no life in your time?

A hundred years ago, just three human generations ago, -

- when radiation was first discovered, -

- we didn"t understand that it was very dangerous.

But we noticed that it can be useful and we started to work with it.

Radiation is a sort of energy which can penetrate deep into your body -

- and harm your health. But it is an invisible danger.

We have no sense for it: You cannot see it, feel it or smell it.

And still it may even kill you.

Radiation may be described as small packages of energy.

And when they hit the genetic code, the DNA molecule, they can break it.

If you have a very serious whole-body exposure you don"t feel anything -

- until one hour or so afterwards when you start to feel nausea, -

- and you may vomit, and you may think you have got food poisoning.

In between you may feel better. After two weeks you start to bleed.

You have diarrhoea and fever.

And after a few weeks you may even die from this.

Radiation can also leave a trace in you.

It can change the genes. Mutate the genes.

It may cause malformation or disease or dysfunction.

So: Beware! Never stay in an area with an enhanced radiation level.

And never, ever touch upon a strong radiation source!

So we are storing the waste today above ground in water pools.

The reason why it"s kept in water -

- is that water creates a shield for radiation.

Keeping the waste in tanks -

- is probably possible for the next ten years, 20 years, 100 years.

1000 years...?

You just can"t guarantee stable conditions above ground -

for instance... for...

...well... for one hundred years, let alone thousands of years.

These storages need surveillance.

They need power in order to cool the water pools.

They need maintenance.

But we can"t keep this waste forever in the water pools.

There"ve been two world wars during the last 100 years.

The world above ground -

is unstable.

We have to find a permanent solution. Or a safer solution -

in the long run.

My civilization depends on energy as no civilization before us.

Energy is the main currency for us.

Is it the same for you?

Does your way of life also depend on unlimited energy?

What we must do is to take care of the waste from nuclear power plants.

More and more, societies that are using nuclear power -

- are realising that they have to do something.

We obtained the energy. We have used the energy.

Of course it is our mission to also take care of the waste.

There is no way of doing nothing.

This is something which ought to be the responsibility of all citizens.

Irrespective of whether they like nuclear power or not.

Linking the issue of nuclear waste with nuclear power -

- could easily divert attention from the material which we have -

- and must somehow handle in a responsible way.

Not to harm future generations.

This tunnel feels like a time capsule sometimes.

When you arrive in the morning -

- it may be sunny, almost like summer outside.

When you come out again at the end of the day -

- it may have snowed like hell.

The weather will have changed completely, -

- and you think "How long did I actually spend in the tunnel?"

And likewise: You go to work and it"s dark, -

- and when you come back up after work it is dark.

And it feels like time has stopped.

Five, four, three, two, one, fire!

Final disposal of spent nuclear fuel -

- hasn"t been implemented anywhere so far.

We are forerunners in this field.

And we are dealing with very, very long time frames.

Meaning that this repository should last at least 100000 years.

100000 years is beyond our understanding and imagination.

Our history is so short in comparison.

How is it with you?

How far into the future will your way of life have consequences?

That"s what we really want to prove: That we can isolate the waste -

- from human beings and other live organisms for 100000 years.

We have come to a conclusion -

- that the bedrock, the Finnish bedrock -

1.8 billion years old -

- is the medium that we can predict far into the future.

At least 100000 years ahead.

A very important factor is that the repository is self-contained.

We shouldn"t have to guard it in the future.

It should just be able to be left.

And that"s a necessity. Because conditions on the ground will change.

The conditions down in the rock will be stable.

But on the surface you never know what"s going to happen.

There could be wars, there could be an economic depression.

At the surface the clock runs very fast.

In the rock it goes very, very slowly.

It"s the most stable environment we know of.

Olklluoto, Eurajokl has been chosen

- as the slte of the dlsposal faclllty for spent nuclear fuel.

Onkalo.

Where are you now on the plan?

We"re here somewhere.

Then we"II start widening this area. More, more, a bigger area comes.

Like a big cave, or...

An unimaginable big cave... it"s like a big city underground.

The repository acts like a cocoon, if you like, a Russian doll.

With barriers that complement each other.

If one barrier might fail -

- other barriers are able to mitigate all the consequences.

The flnal dlsposal faclllty wlll be constructed In stages -

and decommlssloned In the 2100s.

When It Is ready-

- a thlck concrete closure Is cast at the tunnel mouth.

We will fill the chambers of Onkalo with nuclear waste from Finland, -

one little country in the north.

After one century we will seal Onkalo for all eternity, -

- just like the tombs in the Pyramids were sealed -

never to be opened again.

The safety of disposal shall not be dependent -

- on any active management, or active surveillance, -

- or any acts of human beings to be safe.

So it has to be fully passive.

The repository will be closed down; it will be back filled.

The idea of this back filling is to return the conditions -

- to those which prevailed before we excavated the tunnel.

There will be forests, there will be houses.

Hopefully there will still be people, -

- not perhaps the same persons who were there from the beginning.

But perhaps their children and grandchildren -

- will still live and use the land.

We always bring up the question of the Ice Age -

- as some kind of very dramatic change -

- in the situation. And of course it will have an impact.

If we look at our assumptions and scenarios -

- it will happen within 60000 years from now.

So everything... disappears...

...disappears from here when the ice comes.

Everything gets frozen, the vegetation will die -

- and then this will be more like a... tundra.

Would it be forgotten during an ice age?

Yes, I think it would be forgotten in such a case.

If you were a person evaluating this concept from the outside -

what would you be afraid of?

Nothing.

Once upon a time man learned to master fire, -

- something no other living creature had done before him.

Man conquered the entire world.

One day he found a new fire, -

- a fire so powerful that it could never be extinguished.

Man revelled in the thought -

- that he now possessed the powers of the universe.

Then in horror he realised that his new fire could not only create, -

- but also destroy. Not only could it burn on land, -

but inside all living creatures, -

- inside his children, the animals, all crops.

Man looked around for help but found none.

And so he built a burial chamber deep in the bowels of the earth, -

- a hiding place for the fire to burn ...into eternity.

You are now in the tunnel.