Current IMDB User Reviews

Exactly! They vote it down before it even comes out just because they are anti-nuclear energy and have a knee jerk reaction to anything that might challenge their dogma.

I know - it's quite insane.

I was fortunate enough to get to see a special screening of Pandora's Promise at the TEAC5 Thorium Energy conference in Chicago on Thursday, and the arguments in the film are water tight.

If you're an Environmentalist, the goal has to be to reduce CO2, reduce deaths and minimise environmental pollution. Opposing Nuclear has the exact *opposite* of all of these goals.

Coal power plants kill significant numbers of people each year. It's estimated over 13,000 people die annually in the US from respiratory illnesses as a result of coal power plants, and over 100,000 annually in China. Coal mining in the US kills 30 people per year, and over 6000 per year in China. A recent study showed existing Nuclear Power plants had actually prevented 1.8 *million* deaths globally:

http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Prevents-Deaths-Causes.html

That's more 450 times more deaths than September 11th, and look at the outrage people had for that! The real outrage should be against Coal power plants.

Coal power plants pump significantly more radiation into the atmosphere than a Nuclear plant, 10-100 times more, because Coal contains radioactive elements including Uranium and Thorium, which become airborne.

To quote environmentalists themselves, "by 2030, global energy consumption is projected to be 55 per cent higher than it is today". They want to meet this through adoption of renewable energy. Is that happening? No, it's not! It's coming from, and will continue to come from Coal, Gas and other fossil fuels!

By opposing nuclear, the Environmentalists have basically consigned the world to runaway climate change. Well done, good job.

Nuclear is the only power generation technology that has the energy density we need at the price we need that doesn't produce CO2.

There's a good rebuttal to the criticism of Pandora's Promise:

http://www.whatisnuclear.com/resources/pandoras_promise.html

Unfortunately Pandora's Promise chose to highlight the Integral Fast Reactor as a possible future Nuclear technology, rather than far more promising technologies such as the Molton Salt Reactor. Molton Salt Reactors really do have the possibility to solve the energy crisis because they:

1. Burn 99% of the fuel, because it's dissolved in a liquid salt that can circulate and be reprocessed on-line
2. Produce 1% of the waste of conventional nuclear reactors
3. Can actually consume existing nuclear waste stockpiles
4. Can't melt down, are passively "walk-away-safe" thanks to their inherent safety features
5. Can't have a steam explosion, unlike a pressurised light water reactor, because they're not under pressure and don't use water
6. Can run on Thorium instead of Uranium which is as common as lead and effectively free - it's a byproduct of mining
7. Are significantly smaller and cheaper to construct. So much so that the energy from one can be on a par with coal, if not cheaper

Two Molton Salt reactors were built in the 50s/60s but the technology wasn't pursued for political reasons. But the technology worked - the reactors produced power. This was over 50 years ago - imagine what could be done today.

There are a number of companies trying to resurrect the Molton Salt Reactor technologie, such as Flibe Energy, Transatomic Power, and Terrestrial Energy. China's National Academy of Sciences is now building a prototype reactor due to come on-line in 2020, just 7 years away. Their effort is being headed up by Jiang Mianheng, son of former leader Jiang Zemin, so they understand the potential and are taking this very seriously.

There's more information on Molton Salt Reactors here, which I'd highly recommend everyone watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

Yes, we need to conserve energy. Yes, we need renewables. Yes, we must move away from fossil fuel power. But we also need safe, modern, clean nuclear energy too.

Opposing Nuclear is suicide, genocide, and consigning the planet to runaway climate change.

negativeions101, I'm so glad you've elaborated with your name calling and references to “immortal spiritual beings.” That, coupled with your comment that “one doesn’t have to even see it,” clearly puts your comment in perspective.

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Well, I just finished watching the film in its later-night repeat. So, there's that!

I gave it a 7. It is good, it is just pretty casual in its approach, kind of going back and forth between topics, weakening its potential impact.

This happens fairly often with documentaries, where the film is truly made in the editing room. I have the feeling that the editing of the film was kind of done on-the-fly, instead of carefully taking the footage, seeing what you have, then structure your film accordingly.

I could go into my feelings on nuclear power (I believe it should be part of our energy grid), but this is a film board!

"I. Drink. Your. Milkshake! [slurp!] I DRINK IT UP!" - Daniel Plainview - "There Will Be Blood"

Well, it's a fact of life that people do things they shouldn't. It's not like if people stopped doing that the reviews would be any better. I'd like it if we could know real stats ... like how many people who comment actually watched the movie on Amazon Prime, or bought it off Amazon? Some real metrics would be good. I don't think the solution is in forcing people into anything ... just bring as much data to the reader as possible. Lots of reviews on Amazon and elsewhere are valuable so they are faked. The more guerrilla you can be, the less suspecting the audience, the more sway is possible ... so what needs to happen is that the readers need to develop more cynicism and doubt ... learn to be skeptical and think about the facts. That's a long haul kind of thing.