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Geographies of Nuclear Energy: An Introduction

Gutting, Alicia; Högselius, Per; Meyer, Teva; Mbah, Melanie

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 Geographies of Nuclear Energy. An Introduction

Alicia Gutting, Per Högselius, Teva Meyer & Melanie Mbah *

Abstract: »Geographien der Kernenergie. Eine Einführung«. Nuclear energy

has long attracted the attention of scholars in the humanities and social sci-
ences. With this HSR Special Issue, we would like to push the scholarly fron-
tier by highlighting the geographies of nuclear energy in the past and present.
Nuclear energy is inherently interwoven with geography. We argue that to
fully appreciate and grasp nuclear energy’s geographical and spatial dimen-
sions, approaches from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields are
needed. This special issue thus includes contributions from history, geogra-
phy, political science, technology assessment, science and technology stud-
ies (STS), and other fields. This article introduces this topic by outlining the
state of the art of the geographies of nuclear energy and discusses different
conceptual frameworks of how to understand nuclear-space interactions. In
addition, the individual articles in this issue are briefly presented here and
discussed within the research context. The articles themselves cover the ge-
ography of nuclear energy from beginning to end: from the mining of ura-
nium, the planning and construction of nuclear power plants, the formation
of public resistance, and the cooling of nuclear energy sites as well as the evo-
lution of research centres and, last but not least, the political control and stor-
age of nuclear waste. The collection of articles published here were part of
the double session “Geographies of Nuclear Energy,” presented at the RGS-
IBG Annual International Conference 2021, and of the session “Atomic Riv-
ers,” presented at the ESEH Conference 2023.
Keywords: Nuclear geography, nuclear power, radioactive waste, nuclear
disposal, infrastructure, spatiality, nuclear siting, uranium.

* Alicia Gutting, Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute
of Technology, Teknikringen 74D, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden; gutting@[Link]. ORCID iD: 0000-
0002-7402-0122.
Per Högselius, Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute
of Technology, Teknikringen 74D, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden; perho@[Link]. ORCID iD: 0000-
0001-9687-1940.
Teva Meyer, History and Heritage Department, Université de Haute-Alsace, 16 rue de la Fond-
erie, 68100 Mulhouse, France; [Link]@[Link]. ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8124-6760.
Melanie Mbah, Institute for Applied Ecology (Oeko-Institut e.V.), Merzhauserstrasse 173, 79111
Freiburg, Germany; [Link]@[Link]. ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9431-5537.

Historical Social Research 49 (2024) 1, 7-31 │ published by GESIS

DOI: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.01
1. Introduction

The history of nuclear energy can be traced back to the 1890s, when Henri
Bequerel and Marie and Pierre Curie began to explore the phenomenon of
radioactivity. This was followed during the first decades of the 20th century
by several key discoveries in physics and chemistry, the interpretations of
which led to new theorizations of the atom and its nucleus. By early 1939,
German and Austrian scholars were able to experimentally demonstrate and
interpret the phenomenon of nuclear fission, that is, the splitting of heavy
atomic nuclei. Researchers from different countries contributed to advanc-
ing the scientific frontier. But after the outbreak of World War II, much of the
transnational exchange of knowledge ceased, as nuclear research came to be
regarded as strategically important. What up until then had been essentially
a scientific endeavour now switched to practically oriented experimental ac-
tivities, centred on the efforts to build an atomic bomb (Radkau 1981; Rhodes
1986).
After the war and the violent destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, civil-
ian nuclear technology developed as a spinoff from work on nuclear weap-
ons. The period from 1950 to 1965 became a dynamic time of experimenta-
tion, leading to the development of numerous reactor types for electricity
production, most of which were inspired by military experience (Mazuzan
and Walker 1984; Hill 2013; Schmid 2015). Based on the light water reactor,
which ultimately emerged as the dominant reactor technology in most nucle-
arizing countries, civil nuclear power then saw its commercial breakthrough.
It paved the way for what can be described as the “golden age” of nuclear
power, which lasted from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Virtually all nu-
clear power plants in operation today around the world were built during that
period, with the exception of a few countries – mainly South Korea and China
– whose expansion in the field came later. However, if we look at statistical
data on the world’s nuclear power plants, we see how the number of new con-
struction starts already began to fall in 1976 (IAEA 2023). Scholars have of-
fered different interpretations of this reversal, citing internal technical prob-
lems in making the nuclear power plants work as intended, stricter require-
ments from regulatory authorities, growing public criticism against nuclear
power, and weaker growth in demand for electricity throughout the industri-
alized world following the energy crises of the 1970s (Radkau 1983; Kaijser,
Meyer, and Rubio-Varas 2021; Wellock 2021).
The stagnation in nuclear power expansion was reinforced in the 1980s and
1990s by the Three Mile Island accident (1979), the Chernobyl disaster (1986),
and later by the Fukushima catastrophe (2011). If we look specifically at the
European atomic age, we see that nuclear power’s contribution to energy sup-
ply grew rapidly and sometimes at an exponential rate over a period of 25

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 8
years. Towards the end of the 1980s, no fewer than 182 commercial nuclear
reactors were in operation throughout Europe. In the 1990s, however, the tide
turned. Almost no new reactors were added, while a growing number of nu-
clear power plants were shut down. European nuclear power thus ended up
in a phase of stagnation and decommissioning, which we are still in today.
Currently, approximately one third of the former 182 European reactors have
been shut down, and the number of operational reactors continues to de-
crease year by year (IAEA 2023).1
Intriguingly, this distinctly negative trend co-exists with a recent wave of
expectations, in many countries, for a “nuclear renaissance.” Among other
things, from around 2020, alongside the interest in standard large-scale nu-
clear power plants, the world has seen a surge of interest in “small modular
reactors” (SMRs) which, or so the advocates claim, are cheaper, safer, and
more flexible than the large reactors built during the “golden age” (Lehtonen
2021; Kojo et al. 2023). Nuclear energy is portrayed by its proponents as being
critically important for scaling up electricity supply, for combatting climate
change and urban air pollution, and, in the world’s democratic countries, for
reducing energy dependence on Russia and other unfriendly nations. Gov-
ernments in countries such as France and Sweden actively seek to promote a
new wave of nuclear construction. Yet nuclear energy remains as controver-
sial as ever in its social, political, and economic context. Opposition to nu-
clear energy continues to loom large in Germany and other countries. Critics
point to the atom as a risky, dangerous, and unnecessary technology with un-
solved – or even unsolvable – problems concerning spent nuclear fuel and
radioactive waste. Economists emphasize the extreme cost escalations of
building new nuclear power plants. Recent nuclear projects such as Olkiluoto
in Finland, Flamanville in France, and Vogtle in the United States rank high
in the list of the world’s most expensive buildings. That is a far cry from ear-
lier visions of nuclear energy “too cheap to meter” (Strauss 1954). Proponents
of renewable energy sources, meanwhile, view nuclear energy as a hope-
lessly inflexible energy source that cannot match the intermittent nature of
solar and wind power. At the same time, nuclear energy is seen as competing
with renewable energy projects, potentially channelling investments away
from the latter.
Given these radically different views on nuclear energy’s future, now is a
good moment for historians and social scientists to revisit the past and pre-
sent of the atom’s societal career. In this HSR Special Issue, we propose to do
this by taking a step back from the better-known social and political conflicts
around nuclear energy and “star accidents” such as Chernobyl and Fuku-
shima. Instead, we choose to approach nuclear’s conflictual past and present
from a geographical perspective. This, we believe, has the potential to both

1
These figures include all current EU member states plus Britain and Switzerland.

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 9
add an important dimension to the academic discourse on nuclear energy
and enrich the public and political debate.

2. Geographies of Nuclear Energy: The State of the Art

Place and its significance for humans has long been a matter of interest for
scholars from multiple disciplines. In this section, we take a closer look at the
extent to which place and space play a role in historical and social studies of
nuclear energy.

2.1 The Spatial Dimension in Earlier Nuclear-Historical Research

Nuclear energy has long captured the imagination of historians. However,
while they have excelled in highlighting the complexity of temporalities in nu-
clear developments, historians have only to a limited extent scrutinized the
spatialities of such developments. Many of the best-known studies in the field
are surprisingly non-spatial in character, taking the form of national histories
that gravitate around reactor choices and political rivalry with foreign de-
signs (Radkau 1983; Anshelm 2000; Michelsen and Särkikoski 2007; Hecht
2009; Sovacool and Valentine 2012; Hill 2013; Hristov 2014; Schmid 2015; Bini
and Londero 2017; Rubio-Varas and de la Torre 2017). The “star” theme is the
American light-water reactor technology’s contested rise to global domi-
nance. Nuclear historians tend to be more fascinated by a few key personalities
– such as Enrico Fermi and Robert Oppenheimer (Rhodes 1986), John Cock-
croft (Hill 2013), Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn (Carson 2010), Niels Bohr
(Knudsen et al. 2012), and Igor Kurchatov, Nikolai Dollezhal, and Anatoly Ale-
xandrov (Schmid 2015) – than by the key sites of nuclear developments. Re-
cent initiatives such as the HSR Focus on “Global Protest against Nuclear
Power,”2 which examined anti-nuclear activities at several interconnected ge-
ographical scales (Mignon Kirchhof and Meyer 2014), along with a number of
intriguing site-specific histories (Kupper 2003; Hecht 2009; Brown 2013; Guth
2022; Frey 2019; Storm, Krohn Andersson, and Rindzevičiūtė 2019; Sesma-
Martín 2020) have taken steps in this direction, but much remains to be done.
Some of the most promising attempts to bring the spatial dimension into
nuclear-historical research come from environmental historians, in particu-
lar in their studies of how radioactive particles migrate through nature, even-
tually ending up in human bodies. Notable recent works on this theme in-
clude Robert Jacobs’ Nuclear Bodies (2022), which traces the global victims
both of nuclear weapons testing and civilian atomic accidents, and Togzhan
Kassenova’s Atomic Steppe (2022), which tells the story of the rise and fall of

2
[Link] (Accessed Janu-
ary 12, 2024).

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 10
Kazakhstan as the key site for Soviet nuclear weapons testing and its conse-
quences for the country. Kate Brown’s innovative book Plutopia (2013) traces
the intertwined US and Soviet plutonium disasters, and her Manual for Sur-
vival (2019) looks into the shocking health and environmental effects of the
Chernobyl disaster. The theme of radiation’s impact on human health is also
omnipresent in Gabrielle Hecht’s (2012) seminal work on the history of ura-
nium mining in Africa, which likewise entails a strong spatial dimension. Sev-
eral other works trace the health and environmental consequences of radio-
active contamination in the US West following uranium mining, plutonium
production, and nuclear weapons testing (Ringholz 1989; Amundson 2002;
Findlay and Hevly 2011; Mogren 2002; Pasternak 2010; Voyles 2015; Weisiger
2012). Davide Orsini, meanwhile, in The Nuclear Archipelago (2022), which is
set in the Mediterranean, has explored how fears of radioactive contamina-
tion take material form through the construction of sociotechnical systems
for the radiological monitoring of the environment.
Historians have sought to come to grips with the spatial dimension of nu-
clear energy in a few additional ways. Sara Pritchard’s Confluence (2011) ex-
plores France’s nuclear history through the lens of the remaking of the Rhône
River during the 19th and 20th centuries. Pritchard shows that the construc-
tion of numerous nuclear facilities contributed to the reengineering of the
river as a geographical entity. By extension, she demonstrates that nuclear
energy can be integrated into longer histories of efforts to “improve” nature.
A related, though more succinct narrative is offered by Richard White in The
Organic Machine (1995), which integrates the history of the plutonium-pro-
ducing reactors at Hanford, Washington, into an eco-biography of the Colum-
bia River basin. Authors such as Jacob Darwin Hamblin (2021), Helene Anne
Curry (2014), and Stefan Guth (2022) further discuss the spatial dimension in
their elaboration of historical visions to put nuclear energy to work for agri-
cultural development. In another work, Hamblin (2009) analyses the history
of techno-scientific debates and policies to dump radioactive waste in the
oceans. Other examples of spatial-environmental explorations of nuclear en-
ergy in historical perspectives include Dorothy Nelkin’s (1971), Robert Du-
rant’s (1984), and Samuel Walker’s (1989) early studies of thermal pollution
from US nuclear power plants.
Recent years have also seen a growing interest from historians to explore
nuclear disasters, which in at least a few cases brings the spatial perspective
to the forefront (Walker 2009; Plokhy 2022) – a trend that is also reflected in
popular culture through the success of Johan Renck’s HBO miniseries Cher-
nobyl and the Netflix documentary Meltdown: Three Mile Island.3 Another in-
triguing subfield that has seen a marked upswing is the study of nuclear en-
ergy from a heritage point of view, which has intersected in interesting ways

3
Renck’s Chernobyl inspired a recent scholarly discussion featuring several shorter articles pub-
lished in Technology & Culture. See, in particular, Rindzevičiūtė (2020) and Schmid (2020).

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 11
with research on nuclear waste management (Kasperski 2018; Rindzevičiūtė
2021; Storm, Krohn Andersson, and Rindzevičiūtė 2019; Bauer and Penter
2022). Philosophers and anthropologists, for their parts, have sought to come
to grips with nuclear memories and the confusing time dimensions in nuclear
waste management, introducing notions such as “memory sites” (Ialenti
2020; Knowles 2022; Wendland 2020; Kalmbach 2013).

2.2 “Nuclear” in Geography

The development of nuclear technologies for power generation, weapons
manufacturing, food conservation, and medical procedures have multiplied
the places intertwined by this industry. In geographical research, this spatial
deployment is described as a planetary unifying force having “irrevocably
merged radiation with land and bodies” due to its “capacity to connect dispar-
ate geographies through its vibrant and invisible materiality” (Alexis-Martin
and Davies 2017). Yet, the atomic complex produced an archipelago of places
which are unevenly nuclear. Mobilizing the concepts of “geography of sacri-
fice” (Lerner 2012; Cram 2016a) and “nuclear colonialism” (Endres 2009; Nelta
2011; Jacobs 2013), research documented how unequally the burden of its en-
vironmental and social consequences was spatially shared. From an ontolog-
ical perspective, Gabrielle Hecht’s already mentioned work (2012) on ura-
nium mining in Africa showed that the very act of categorizing and consider-
ing places as nuclear was a technopolitical process fluctuating through time
and space, changing among actors, and decoupled from the actual nature of
the activity. While names like Hiroshima, Chernobyl, or Fukushima became
“geosymbols” (Bonnemaison 1981) of the atomic complex, other spaces
should gain this nuclear association as well because “nuclear technology also
inhabits more mundane spaces” (Alexis-Martin and Davies 2017), such as hos-
pitals using nuclear medicine daily and food-packing facilities ionizing fruit
and vegetables. The various components of this atomic archipelago are not
evenly considered as nuclear, and neither do places which once hosted
atomic activities lose their nuclearity after decommissioning.
While scholars took interest in the spatial dynamics of the atomic complex
early in the 1950s, nuclear geography experienced a renewal in the 2010s fol-
lowing the multiplication of radioactive waste disposal projects and the 2011
Fukushima accident (Alexis-Martin and Davies 2017). Once lacking integra-
tion and coherence, this constellation of research led to growing theorization
efforts (Alexis-Martin et al. 2021). Yet, a by-product of this renewal is the in-
flation of geographical concepts applied to signify places of the atomic com-
plex: “atomic lands” (Osseo-Asare 2016), “nuclear oasis” (Kari 2010), “nuclear
community” (Hänninen and Yli-Kauhaluoma 2014), “nuclear territory”
(Storm 2020), “nuclear landscapes” (Pitkanen and Farish 2018), “nuclear
spaces” (Stanley 2013), and “nuclear zones” (Alexis-Martin and Davies 2017).

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 12
These concepts do not constitute a coherent corpus. Articles do not always
formulate definitions for the terms they employ and often switch from one to
another without indicating any clear differences between them. Further-
more, while these notions have their own epistemology in geography litera-
ture, papers rarely reflect their ontologies.
Nuclear spaces are distinguished by the presence of things related to the
atomic complex. Some articles describe them as places enduring demo-
graphic and socioeconomic transformation caused by industry (Karafantis
2014). Others tend to focus on the presence of radiation and radionuclides.
Being invisible and intangible, the active process of designating radiation is
what allows “nuclear places to come into being” (Alexis-Martin and Davies
2017). Nuclear spaces – eventually coined as “irradiated spaces” (Alexis-Mar-
tin and Davies 2017) – are distinguished here both by the existence of radia-
tion and by the human actions of measuring, controlling, and delineating,
sometimes by means of maps or warning signs (Luedee 2021). Finally, nu-
clear spaces are places of exception “where different rules, modes of behav-
iour and exclusions apply” (Davies 2015), delimited by negotiated boundaries.
Consistent with a Sackian epistemology (Murphy 2012), nuclear territories
are defined by the borders that delimit them. For Storm (2020), nuclear terri-
tories are “social and industrial enclaves” whose borders are required by “the
level of secrecy and levels of calculated risk.” Their very existence is linked
to the presence of nuclear activity. Osseo-Asare (2016) is the only scholar mo-
bilizing the concept of atomic land, which he occasionally switches for “nu-
clear territory” and “toxic territory.” Borders define atomic lands, assembled
through administrative categorization and judicial work to enclose spaces
dedicated to nuclear operations.
Recurrently employed in papers on Chernobyl or Fukushima, nuclear zones
refer to well-delimited areas purposely produced to protect society from
risks, be it from radiation (Alexis-Martin and Davies 2017; Lerner 2012b;
Overy 2020) or atomic weapons in the case of nuclear-free zones (Clements
2015). Again, zones are defined by what they enclose and by the peculiar
norms, rules, and laws which are applied.
Nuclear landscapes gained the greatest momentum in the literature, embold-
ened both by the renewal of landscape research (Benediktsson 2007) and by
its association with other concepts such as “landscapes of justice” (Pitkanen
and Farish 2018), “landscapes of threat” (Davies and Polese 2015), “anti-ther-
apeutic landscapes” (Davies 2015), “post-industrial landscapes” (Dawney
2019), “subterranean landscapes” (Saraç-Lesavre 2019), and “irradiated land-
scapes” (Masco 2004). The nuclear landscape approach differs from the previ-
ous border-centred one.4 The term “landscape” is used to signify the fluidity
of radiation, indicating “that these spaces are ultimately impossible to

4
A number of articles also use “nuclear landscapes” in research on the issue of dark tourism in
post-accidental or post-industrial zones (Rush-Cooper 2020).

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 13
enclose” (Pitkanen and Farish 2018), blurring the “boundary between con-
taminated and safe” (Davies and Polese 2015). Intangible and uncontainable
(Masco 2004), “radiation could be anywhere, yet appears nowhere: it resides
in everyday spaces and on ordinary objects” (Pitkanen 2017), thus turning nu-
clear landscapes into places of uncertainty (Pitkanen 2020). This concept is
nurtured by the dualism between visibility and invisibility at the core of re-
search on landscapes (Figueroa 2018). This invisibility goes beyond the im-
perceptibility of radiation. Nuclear landscapes are outlined both by the “phys-
ical scars” (Wills 2001) and by the everyday actions (Pitkanen 2017), political
acts (Pitkanen 2020; Wills 2001), and ideologies (Dawney 2019; Edwards 2011;
Runyan 2018; Saraç-Lesavre 2019; Stanley 2008) sustaining them.
Nuclear communities have been mobilized in research investigating the ac-
ceptance of radioactive waste projects. While mainly an actor-centred and re-
lational concept, it bears two competing significations. On the one side, nu-
clear communities are municipalities hosting nuclear facilities (Haraldsen
2014; Litmanen, Kojo, and Kari 2010) coalesced by a “nuclear identity” (Kojo,
Kari, and Litmanen 2012). Sometimes coined as “nuclear neighbourhood” or
“host communities” (Kojo, Kari, and Litmanen 2012; Litmanen, Kojo, and
Kari 2010), they are characterized by their dependency shared with the indus-
try, which sustains unbalanced power relations. Congruent with this ap-
proach, (Blowers, Lowry, and Solomon 1991; Blowers 1999) introduced the
notion of nuclear oasis to distinguish remote, economically marginal, and
powerless communities, which are more prone to accept nuclear activities.
On the other hand, nuclear community refers to the results of strategic tools
used by the nuclear sector to build acceptant collectives around its facilities.
Nuclear communities are seen “not only as residents but also as a socially
constructed imagery of togetherness associated with nuclear works, local cul-
ture, and the past” (Hänninen and Yli-Kauhaluoma 2014).

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 14
Table 1 The Different Geographical Concepts of Nuclear-Space Interactions
Concept Defining ideas References
Places enduring socioeconomic trans- (Karafantis 2014; Meyer 2014,
formations induced by the industry 2021)
Designation of radiation in space by (Alexis‐Martin and Davies 2017;
Nuclear spaces
human actions Luedee 2021)
Exception; different rules and behav- (Alexis-Martin 2019; Cram
iour; exclusions 2016b; Davies 2015)
Bordered and delimited space; en-
(Broderick 2016; Carpenter
Nuclear territories claves for nuclear activity; protection;
2012; Davies 2013; Storm 2020)
secrecy and risk
Bordered and delimited space through
Atomic lands (Osseo-Asare 2016)
administrative and judicial work
Well-delimited areas; human-pro- (Alexis‐Martin and Davies 2017;
Nuclear zones duced; protecting society from risk; Blowers 1999; Clements 2015;
peculiar norms and rules Lerner 2012b; Overy 2020)
(Davies and Polese 2015; Daw-
ney 2019; Edwards 2011;
Fluidity; impossibility to enclose; in- Figueroa 2018; Kaur 2021;
tangibility; visibility vs. invisibility; im- Masco 2004; Pitkanen 2017,
perceptibility of radiation; produced 2020; Pitkanen and Farish 2018;
Nuclear landscapes by everyday actions and ideology; ma- Runyan 2018; Rush-Cooper
teriality vs. immateriality 2020; Saraç-Lesavre 2019; Stan-
ley 2008; Stawkowski 2016;
Wills 2001)

Evolution of countries’ nuclear policies (Bradford 2012)

Municipality hosting nuclear facilities (Haraldsen 2014; Kojo, Kari, and

being economically and politically in- Litmanen 2012; Litmanen, Kojo,
terrelated with the industry; actor-cen- and Kari 2010; Litmanen et al.
tred 2017; Vilhunen et al. 2019)
Nuclear communities
Acceptant community of actors built
(Hänninen and Yli-Kauhaluoma
by nuclear industries around facilities;
2014)
actor-centred

Remote, peripheral, economically mar-

(Blowers 1999; Blowers, Lowry,
Nuclear oasis ginal and more prone to accept nu-
and Solomon 1991; Kari 2010)
clear activities

2.3 Governing Nuclear Geographies

In the political sciences, nuclear energy gained importance in connection
with the rise of anti-nuclear movements. The significance of the geographical
dimension, in this research, came to the fore especially in the debate about
the disposal of nuclear waste. Scholars observed how anti-nuclear move-
ments stimulated public awareness that “something is going wrong” in the
course of nuclear weapon testing, dumping nuclear waste in the sea, serious
nuclear accidents, and the realization that even civilian use of nuclear energy

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 15
might be a threat to human health. Meanwhile the nuclear industries needed
to find spatial solutions for their waste – for low- and medium-level, but es-
pecially for high-level waste (mainly spent nuclear fuel). To this end, political
actors and the nuclear industry tried to enforce solutions by seeking sites for
nuclear waste disposal following a classical “decide-announce-defend” ap-
proach to decision-making, without participatory procedures. This hap-
pened, for example, in France, Switzerland, Germany, and the United States
– and in all of these countries, the attempts failed (Di Nucci, Brunnengräber
and Isidoro Losada 2017; Hocke and Kallenbach 2015; Krütli et al. 2010;
Macfarlane and Ewing 2006). These difficulties in announcing a site for radi-
oactive waste disposal generated an interest in alternative ways of managing
the waste issue in its spatial context, from government in terms of a top-down
decision-making to governance, as a process of decision-making in which a
broader range of actors are integrated (Chhotray and Stoker 2009; Kuppler
and Hocke 2019).
In the scholarly community, there has been considerable interest in how
and why countries differ in their political approaches. The literature on nu-
clear waste governance has been addressing such differences in descriptive
ways for years. Studies focused primarily on describing the changes from a
government approach to more participative governance approaches in coun-
tries such as France, Belgium, and Germany (Hocke and Kallenbach 2015; Pa-
rotte and Delvenne 2015; Lehtonen 2010). Analysts have emphasized that
there are significant differences between the countries examined, which can
be traced back to historical and socio-cultural variations as well as to existing
political traditions and frameworks. In France, for example, attitudes to-
wards nuclear energy are much more positive and the overall role of nuclear
energy in the economy much more significant than in Germany (Meyer 2018).
In geographical terms, the centralist character of the French state still has its
effects today, which means that the regional administrative structures can act
independently only to a limited extent, with the consequence that decisions
at the regional level on certain topics (e.g., transport) differ from those at the
national level (Sperfeld et al., n.d.). In contrast, the political life of nuclear
power in Germany is characterized by numerous controversies and conflicts,
which have their roots in the nuclear-critical attitude of the population. At the
same time, federalism in Germany is very pronounced. This affects the
search for a site for a high-level waste repository and makes a national con-
sensus difficult or puts a process in the foreground that is based on the crite-
ria of participation, science, learning, self-questioning, and transparency
(Hocke and Brunnengräber 2019). Therefore, the political science literature
focuses primarily on nuclear waste governance, rooted in historical experi-
ences of former muddling-through and decide-announce-defend politics
with a future orientation, in order to find procedural elements for decision-
making as the basis for a participative and fair governance that is oriented

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 16
towards the common good and has a long-term perspective to guarantee gen-
erational fairness and sustainability.

3. The Diversity of Nuclear Geographies: An Overview

of the Special Issue

The articles in this special issue encompass different segments of what the
nuclear industry refers to as the nuclear fuel cycle. The “cycle” concept may
be criticized (Hill and Ashipala 2024, in this special issue), because it is hard
to find any truly “cyclic” features of nuclear energy in its global setting. Apart
from a limited amount of spent nuclear fuel that has undergone “repro-
cessing,” the popular vision of a nuclear circular economy, much promoted
in nuclear energy’s early days, has not materialized. This is, of course, the
underlying reason why the quest for a final repository for spent nuclear fuel,
as discussed in the preceding section, has become so prominent in the polit-
ical debate. Rather than using the cycle concept, it would seem more reason-
able to use the notion of a nuclear fuel supply chain, where the fuel moves
from the mine to various processing and reactor sites and ultimately ends up
in waste repositories. Such chains highlight the intricate spatial-systemic in-
terconnectedness of what at first glance may seem like isolated nuclear activ-
ities, and they remind us that nuclear energy is not only about nuclear power
plants. As emphasized in some of the best-known works on nuclear history
(Hecht 2012; Brown 2013), it is useful and necessary for historians and social
scientists to explore uranium mining and milling, uranium conversion and
enrichment, spent nuclear fuel reprocessing, and radioactive waste manage-
ment. Not to be forgotten are the often-controversial transports of uranium,
nuclear fuel, and radioactive waste and the extensive research and develop-
ment (R&D) complexes that mushroomed across the world during and after
World War II. Our special issue highlights this diversity of nuclear activities,
offering in-depth analyses not only of nuclear power plants in their historical-
geographical context, but also of the uranium mining industry, the global
uranium trade, research activities, and waste management.
The first two articles in the special issue analyse geographies of uranium.
Christopher R. Hill and Saima Nakuti Ashipala zoom in on Namibia’s Rössing
uranium mine, the world’s largest until 1984. This mine became controversial
over the years as Namibia was controlled by Apartheid South Africa from the
onset of the atomic age until the country’s independence in 1991. Tying into
Gabrielle Hecht’s theorization of “nuclearity” as a socially constructed feature
of uranium that is transformed as the ore, in raw and refined forms, moves
from one place to another, Hill and Ashipala discuss how Rio Tinto Zinc, the
multinational company that brought the Rössing mine into production, was

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 17
able to keep it up and running even in the face of international sanctions
launched in the 1980s. They argue that we can only explain the conflicts that
loomed large at that time by adopting a longer historical perspective, while
including both “vertical” and “horizontal” geographies in the analysis. In par-
ticular, uranium mining in Namibia, as well as at many other sites worldwide,
can be seen to build on historical forms of resource colonialism. The Rössing
mine’s success, after it started up in 1976, was rooted in a socio-ecological re-
ordering of the territory that German colonists and scientists had initiated
nearly a century earlier. Hill and Ashipala show that it is no coincidence that
Germany, Britain, and South Africa – the three countries that colonized Na-
mibia at different moments in history – also became the ones most deeply
engaged with uranium mined at Rössing during the 1970s and 1980s. Moreo-
ver, they trace the parallel emergence and evolution of Rio Tinto as an in-
creasingly global actor after its founding in 1874. In the post-war era, its man-
aging directors firmly believed that “multinationals should fill in the void left
by British decolonisation,” a perspective that came to shape the company’s
rise to dominance at Rössing and, more widely, in global uranium mining.
Michiel Bron, in his contribution to the special issue, adds to the historical-
geographical analysis of uranium mining by analysing the interconnections
between the oil and uranium industries and the development of a uranium
cartel. He shows that there has been a long history of entanglement between
oil and uranium extraction, originating in shared geological resources and
spillovers of technological know-how. His analysis focuses particularly on
one of the major companies in uranium mining, Gulf Oil, which participated
in the uranium cartel. He identifies two technology spillovers that served to
bridge the gap between oil and uranium exploration. The first, radioactive
well logging, made it possible to locate new oil reservoirs. When it was used
for uranium mining, it helped to identify uranium deposits in different geo-
logical structures. Bron shows how this invention can be traced back to the
activities of geologists and geophysicists as well as to innovations of oil explo-
ration companies in various countries, such as Germany, France, and Russia.
After World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) took interest in
this technology as a promising method for locating uranium deposits. The
AEC installed an advisory board of leading oil actors and opened the uranium
market to private actors, promising to buy all uranium found. At the same
time, other countries began to engage in uranium mining, for example, the
Netherlands and France, in their colonial territories. In this context, new in-
ventions, such as in-situ leaching (ISL), were devised, which stimulated oil
companies to engage in uranium mining. ISL is the second technology at fo-
cus in Bron’s analysis of the entanglements between oil and uranium. ISL dis-
solves the minerals with chemicals and pumps the solution up to the ground
surface. This made uranium mining much cheaper, as excavation in under-
ground or open pit mines was no longer needed. These innovative

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 18
developments led to price decreases on the uranium market, which explains
why the uranium cartel – which was dominated by five big companies based
in different countries – was implemented, and why Gulf Oil became part of
it.
Next, Matteo Gerlini’s article shifts the focus away from uranium mining and
towards the geographies of nuclear research and development. More pre-
cisely, Gerlini spotlights the tensions between European identity, the Italian
region of Lombardy, and the Centre Commun de Recherche (Euratom’s Joint
Research Centre, CCR/JRC) that was established at Ispra in the years around
1960. In doing so, Gerlini illuminates an early nuclear discourse in relation to
geography. In these early days of nuclear energy research, debates often con-
cerned the location of research centres, similar to the construction of nuclear
power plants but with a different focus. Gerlini traces how negotiations took
place within the Euratom Commission and which locations were considered
suitable. For in addition to the European plans, the individual countries also
had their own plans, which they prioritized. This case also stands for an early
example of European integration because the employees of Ispra saw them-
selves neither as members of the local population nor as belonging to Eur-
atom. The newcomers were given the opportunity to leave their mark on the
place, as it was, like so many places of nuclear energy, rather rural. These
“development attempts” were not always well received and led to controver-
sies. Nevertheless, a certain enthusiasm can be noted among the Ispra em-
ployees, who also perceived their new place of residence as an opportunity
for lasting Europeanisation.
The next four articles in the special issue explore the geographies of com-
mercial nuclear power plants. Alicia Gutting and Per Högselius examine nu-
clear development from a riverine perspective, focusing on the Rhine, the
Danube, and the Elbe. They note that nuclear power development has tradi-
tionally been researched mainly from a national perspective. By taking river
basins as their main unit of analysis, the authors challenge the national focus
and introduce a transnational research angle. Taking inspiration from earlier
social and historical research on rivers, Gutting and Högselius conceptualize
cooperation and conflict around nuclear power in the three river basins by
distinguishing between three dimensions of “water interaction”: space, envi-
ronment, and infrastructure. By applying the water interaction concept, the
authors highlight that conflict and cooperation often go hand in hand and
cannot be analysed apart from each other. By also including the tributaries in
their analysis, the authors are able to trace how intensively nuclear planning
was pushed along the individual rivers. Not all planned nuclear power plants
were completed, but the maps show how immense the planning of industry
and politics was. Conflicts and cooperation arose in many respects. On the
one hand, nuclear energy planners cooperated with non-nuclear actors by
making use of and adapting existing water infrastructure in the form of dams

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 19
or straightened rivers that ensured a constant flow of cooling water. On the
other hand, the rivers as key sources of cooling water for the nuclear plants
often generated conflict. For example, nuclear power plants were sometimes
planned too close to each other along one and the same river, and concerns
were also raised over thermal pollution. Furthermore, the authors show that
some nuclear power plants were prevented because they were planned along
rivers that also functioned as borders between countries. All in all, the au-
thors provide a comprehensive synthetic account of nuclear planning in
(transboundary) river basins and the challenges planners faced from the
1950s on.
Christian Götter, in his contribution, follows up on the nuclear cooling prob-
lem by zooming in on three large-scale nuclear projects in Europe: The
Oldbury-on-Severn nuclear plant in the United Kingdom and Germany’s Bib-
lis in Hesse and Lingen in Lower Saxony. Götter explains how the utilities in
charge of these projects sought to make sure that sufficient volumes of cool-
ing water would always be available to cool the reactors. In the process, sur-
rounding nature, notably in the form of rivers, became part of wider enviro-
technical systems centring on the nuclear plants. The arrangements differed
strongly from site to site. At Oldbury, the main envirotechnical component
was a cooling pond built in a tidal river. At Biblis, the focus was on multiple
cooling towers. And at Lingen, the engineers relied on an artificial lake, sup-
ported by tall dikes, in combination with a single, massive cooling tower. The
article explores how these arrangements led to local controversies, which
typically dominated the public discourse about nuclear energy in the local
setting. However, Götter also shows that the controversies could often be
overcome, especially if the cooling systems were equipped with features that
were regarded as positive for the surrounding environment and social life.
The river perspective is also strongly present in Louis Fagon’s contribution.
On the basis of historical maps from French archives, Fagon reconstructs
how French decision-makers continuously constructed and developed differ-
ent kinds of risk zones around the two nuclear power plants of Superphénix
and Saint Alban on the Rhône from the 1970s to the 1990s. Despite the fact
that the potential risk posed by nuclear power plants was very difficult to con-
ceptualize geographically, planners and officials set up multiple zones
around each plant. Fagon distinguishes between five types of zones, ranging
from “the area affected by the risk,” “the area involved in the decision-making
process,” “the zone receiving information,” “the economic benefit zone,” and
“the area of contestation.” While the existence of zones around nuclear power
plants is a well-known phenomenon, Fagon uniquely demonstrates how they
emerged and evolved historically. He also shows which actors were involved
in zoning around nuclear power plants. While the zones were initially defined
by the French electricity company, EdF (now EDF), other actors were able to
negotiate new zones through social pressure. Fagon argues that it remains

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 20
questionable to what extent risks such as radioactivity or the thermal load of
the Rhône can be zoned and where risk begins and ends. Zones around nu-
clear power plants also meant that communities near nuclear power plants
had a right to monetary compensation or could demand taxes and more in-
formation. In the course of the 1980s, “local information commissions” were
established, which kept the local population informed about risks and devel-
opments around nuclear power plants, while also highlighting the fact that
the risks emanating from nuclear power plants cannot actually be limited ge-
ographically.
Jan-Henrik Meyer’s article adopts a strongly transnational approach to nu-
clear geographies, Meyer bridges border studies with European integration
history, analysing the ultimately failed attempts to establish common Euro-
pean regulations for siting nuclear facilities in border regions. As theorized
by geographers, borders often constitute valuable resources. This is why,
Meyer argues, nuclear power plants are often located near borders. There,
nuclear builders were able, or so they hoped, to access cooling water from
border rivers, share construction costs with neighbours, or externalize eco-
logical and political impacts. Growing awareness of the cross-border environ-
mental impact of nuclear installations led to increasing transnational ten-
sions. Using both EU and national archives, Meyer points to two Christian
Democratic actors, Belgian Prime Minister Leo Tindemans and German
member of the European Parliament Hanna Walz, as the main proponents of
a common European siting policy for nuclear installations. But despite being
addressed as early as Euratom’s foundation in 1957, this issue was never fully
regulated by the European Commission. This failure, as Meyer explains, can
be interpreted through different lenses. From the perspective of European
integration, it reflects the difficulties introduced by the unanimity rules in EU
decision-making. Defence of national interest, particularly by France or
Western Germany, favoured bilateral negotiations over European proce-
dures, while small countries, such as Ireland, pushed in the opposite direc-
tion. Geographical imaginaries played a central part in discussions over siting
policies. For France, the lack of domestic coal resources and its situation up-
stream of major rivers suitable for nuclear power plants encouraged Paris to
disavow any European-scale solution. Incapacity to regulate cross-border in-
stallations at the European level is also a consequence of the waning interest
in this issue during the 1970s, as declining growth rates following the energy
crisis decelerated the construction of new nuclear power plants on the conti-
nent. However, as Meyer concludes, this failure was not complete. European
countries continuously pursued bilateral consultation when nuclear infra-
structure was to be located at borders, and these experiences paved the way
for international interventions on cross-border issues by the International
Atomic Energy Agency following the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 21
 The last two articles in the special issue explore geographies of nuclear
waste. Melanie Mbah and Sophie Kuppler, in their article, look at the long-term
problem of ensuring safety of nuclear waste storage. The authors argue that
people’s relations to (their) place need to be considered in the decision-mak-
ing for a storage or reprocessing site. Siting processes are usually rather con-
troversial, as nobody wants nuclear waste in their vicinity. Mbah and Kuppler
note that while the concept of place attachment has been applied in various
disciplines before, it has not been researched in relation to nuclear power.
The authors argue that insights into place attachment can be used for suc-
cessful decision-making concerning the siting of nuclear waste as locals ap-
ply different boundaries to “their” place than, for example, municipal bor-
ders. In that way locals could be involved in the decision-making process,
which would lead to a higher rate of acceptability of nuclear waste sites. Fo-
cusing on three specific locations – Recklinghausen, Görlitz, and Heilbronn
– the authors show that the sense of belonging to a place can be essential for
the local population. The sense of belonging varies depending on the region,
but the results clearly show that the consideration of the sense of place should
be an important factor in the long-term planning and governance of the stor-
age of nuclear waste. The local population must be given the chance to accept
the final repository and integrate it into their sense of belonging. The last
thing such a place needs is insecurity and unrest due to hurt feelings.
Teva Meyer’s contribution, finally, offers to continue the conceptualization
effort of the spatial dimensions of Gabrielle Hecht’s “nuclearity” by studying
it through the frame of “bordering.” Both concepts focus on the creation of
socio-spatial distinctions, built upon strategies of ordering and othering
spaces. The article’s central attention is directed to analysing when spaces
come to be treated as nuclear. To do so, Meyer studies frontier objects which
navigate between the nuclear and non-nuclear world. He focuses on very low-
level radioactive wastes in Germany and their process of clearance, which re-
fers to the administrative act of denuclearizing radioactive materials and al-
lowing them to be recycled or disposed of in the conventional sector. The em-
phasis is on studying the movement of these materials and identifying how
their circulation tends to nuclearize some places and not others. Meyer ar-
gues that the nuclearity of space is dependent on three main dynamics. First,
nuclearity appears in situations of negotiations and tensions between actors
where the nature of space is debated. Space is labelled as nuclear when such
discourses are dominant and others silenced. Second, nuclearity is revealed
in practices and performances. These entail the everyday actions of militants
who perform the division of space between ordinary and abnormal, conven-
tional and nuclear, by treating them as distinct from others through differen-
tiated policies. Here, Meyer’s article highlights the importance of sticking to
nuclear mundanity as compared to nuclear exceptionalism to understand its
everyday consequences. Third, nuclearity is multidimensional, as factors

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 22
constituting it are contingent on actors evolving in particular historical and
geographical contexts. Finally, Meyer underlines the role of agency, of local
actors and militants perceiving political opportunities in nuclearizing one
place, depending on their own strategic agendas.

4. Concluding Thoughts

With this special issue we want to push the scholarly frontier of nuclear-his-
torical research by merging it, in an interdisciplinary way, with social science
research on nuclear energy. We want to let historians interact with geogra-
phers, political scientists, STS scholars, and others around one of the most
intriguing themes in the past and present of nuclear energy: the theme of ge-
ography and space. The nine articles in the special issue demonstrate the sur-
prising richness of this theme, and how it can lead us to new insights that help
shape not only discourses about the past, but about the present and the future
as well. The articles enrich the field by theorizing the geographies of nuclear
energy in terms of zones and territories, nuclearity and bordering, vertical
and horizontal geographies, resource colonialism and water interaction, nu-
clear settlers and place attachment, among other concepts that the authors
mobilize. They also span a vast empirical domain, comprising studies of dif-
ferent parts of the nuclear fuel cycle – from uranium mining and nuclear re-
search and development to large-scale nuclear power plants and radioactive
waste management – while targeting both a number of European regions and
wider global developments. It is our hope that this variety of theoretical and
empirical lenses, and our effort to let different approaches speak to each
other, will serve as inspiration for further research.

Special References
Contributions within this Special Issue
“Geographies of Nuclear Energy”
Bron, Michiel. 2024. The Uranium Club: Big Oil’s Involvement in Uranium
Mining and the Formation of an Infamous Uranium Cartel. Historical Social
Research 49 (1): 55-76. doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.03.
Fagon, Louis. 2024. Who Is Affected? Defining Nuclear Territories and Their
Borders: A Historical Perspective on the Nuclearization of the Rhône River
from the 1970s to the 1990s. Historical Social Research 49 (1): 148-166. doi:
10.12759/hsr.49.2024.07.
Gerlini, Matteo. 2024. Nuclear Settlers in a European Land? The Making of Centre
Commune de Recherche in Ispra. Historical Social Research 49 (1): 77-91. doi:
10.12759/hsr.49.2024.04.

HSR 49 (2024) 1 │ 23
Götter, Christian. 2024. Accepted to Cool: Conflicts about Cooling Technologies
for Riverside Nuclear Power Plants. Historical Social Research 49 (1): 126-147.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.06.
Gutting, Alicia, and Per Högselius. 2024. Nuclearized River Basins: Conflict and
Cooperation along the Rhine, Danube, and Elbe. Historical Social Research 49
(1): 92-125. doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.05.
Hill, Christopher R., and Saima Nakuti Ashipala. 2024. “Follow the Yellowcake
Road”: Historical Geographies of Namibian Uranium from the Rössing Mine.
Historical Social Research 49 (1): 32-54. doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.02.
Mbah, Melanie, and Sophie Kuppler. 2024. Governing Nuclear Waste in the Long
Term: On the Role of Place. Historical Social Research 49 (1): 193-226. doi:
10.12759/hsr.49.2024.09.
Meyer, Jan-Henrik. 2024. Nuclear Power and Geography: How the European
Communities Failed to Regulate the Siting Of Nuclear Installations at Borders
In the 1970s and 1980s. Historical Social Research 49 (1): 167-192. doi: 10.12759/
hsr.49.2024.08.
Meyer, Teva. 2024. Bordering Nuclearity: Very Low-level Radioactive Wastes’
Clearance and the Production of Spatial Nuclearities in Germany. Historical
Social Research 49 (1): 227-245. doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.10.

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All articles published in HSR Special Issue 49 (2024) 1:
Geographies of Nuclear Energy in Past and Present. International Studies

Introduction
Alicia Gutting, Per Högselius, Teva Meyer & Melanie Mbah
Geographies of Nuclear Energy. An Introduction.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.01

Contributions
Christopher R. Hill & Saima Nakuti Ashipala
“Follow the Yellowcake Road”: Historical Geographies of Namibian Uranium from the Rössing Mine.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.02

Michiel Bron
The Uranium Club: Big Oil’s Involvement in Uranium Mining and the Formation of an Infamous Uranium
Cartel.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.03

Matteo Gerlini
Nuclear Settlers in a European Land? The Making of Centre Commune de Recherche in Ispra.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.04

Alicia Gutting & Per Högselius

Nuclearized River Basins: Conflict and Cooperation along the Rhine, Danube, and Elbe.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.05

Christian Götter
Accepted to Cool: Conflicts about Cooling Technologies for Riverside Nuclear Power Plants.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.06

Louis Fagon
Who Is Affected? Defining Nuclear Territories and Their Borders: A Historical Perspective on the
Nuclearization of the Rhône River from the 1970s to the 1990s.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.07

Jan-Henrik Meyer
Nuclear Power and Geography: How the European Communities Failed to Regulate the Siting of Nuclear
Installations at Borders in the 1970s and 1980s.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.08

Melanie Mbah & Sophie

Governing Nuclear Waste in the Long Term: On the Role of Place.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.09

Teva Meyer
Bordering Nuclearity: Very Low-level Radioactive Wastes’ Clearance and the Production of Spatial
Nuclearities in Germany.
doi: 10.12759/hsr.49.2024.10

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