A Little Lesson in Public Relations

Now, many nuclear power plants sit off in the middle of nowhere-in-particular creating those little jolts of electric goodness in relative private, but some roost much closer to population centers. They are seen by people driving by on the highway or zipping by in boats or, in general, going about their business. And one of the more disquieting aspects of the plants are their cooling towers, because the image of cooling towers was so prevalent in the Three Mile Island days and became the dominant image used henceforth in raising fears of nuclear energy.

We can guarantee that any filmmaker can make an audience tingle by showing cooling towers in the distance with steam coming out of them (darkened, of course, to make it satanic) and violin driven chords thrumming under the image. Time has done a lot of the job of softening the image of the towers and will continue to do so, but oh, so much more could be done.

For example:

We’re not sure we love the neon blue ring at top, but otherwise, it’s a winner. This was not done by a utility, but by Hennie van der Most, who bought Schneller Brüter, a plant constructed by Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands but never opened. The park he converted it into is called Wunderland Kalker – the link points to its about page but you can tour around their site from there and make reservations if you want. The tower sits in Kernie’s Familienpark, the amusement park section of the Wunderland, and (we’re not positive about this) is used to house a water splash ride.

No, we’re not suggesting amusement parks at nuclear power plants, though people on all side of the nuclear argument can find many jokes to make about the possibility. But using the towers as a canvas and installing creative lighting to show off the result is without question community friendly, image enhancing and individual.

We spotted this tower in the great Der Spiegel writeup on nuclear energy. Head over there for a package of stories. Looking for a fuller shot, we found this at Rick Wezenaar’s site. Visit his site to see some more of his work and by all means hire him for your upcoming shoot if you’re in the neighborhood.