Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, August 11: JOURNEY TO THE SAFEST PLACE ON EARTH
Edgar Hagen’s search for a proper resting ground for nuclear waste premiered at DOK Leipzig in 2013. It has gone on to screen at CPH:DOX, DOXA, Planete+ Doc, Dokufest Kosovo, and DC’s Environmental fest, among others. FilmBuff now makes the doc available on various VOD platforms.
Hagen’s guide on his quest is Charles McCombie, an expert in the nuclear industry for the better part of four decades. Recognizing that humanity has already generated a staggering amount of waste in the short time that nuclear energy has been employed, various nations have invested decades of time and money researching viable options for disposal – locations which are geologically stable enough to permit long-term burial on the scale of hundreds of thousands of years. The unhurried McCombie leads Hagen – who offers a too-wry, occasionally irksome narration – around the globe to assess various sites, from China’s Gobi Desert to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain – some already deemed bad ideas, others which might hold promise, but are in need of further research. Along the way, questions of community cooperation emerge, as when nuclear nations wrongheadedly propose that remote, and notoriously anti-nuclear, Australia take one for the team as their disposal site; while in other locations, like Carlsbad NM, the economic benefits of welcoming such endeavors outweigh future concerns – for now.
what (not) to doc 