[ATHENA] Appel à communications, colloque international "Nuclear Revival and Legacies"

[Maël Goumri <mael.goumri AT gmail.com>]

* avec nos excuses pour les doublons éventuels ! *

Cher·es collègues, 

 
Nous avons le plaisir de vous annoncer l'ouverture de l'appel à
communications pour le colloque international « Nuclear Legacies and
Revivals » que nous organisons à Ecole des Ponts ParisTech les 21 et 22
octobre 2024. Cette rencontre autour des reconfigurations récentes et
des héritages anciens de l’industrie nucléaire est ouverte à des
contributions en sociologie, histoire, philosophie, anthropologie,
géographie, sciences politiques, économie et STS. Vous trouverez l’appel
complet en pièce-jointe.

Short Abstract: In the context of climate change and geopolitical
tensions over energy supply, calls for a nuclear « revival »,
« relaunch » or « renaissance » are reviving and reconfiguring
justifications and promises that have accompanied nuclear technology
since the post-war years. Nuclear futures are framed by categories,
practices and materials inherited from the past and perpetuated until
today. What happens when the nuclear industry is simultaneously faced
with issues of decline and renewal? How does this configuration shed
light on the challenges of managing infrastructures that are presented
as crucial in the context of climate change?  

L'appel à communications est ouvert jusqu'au 31 mai 2024.

Au plaisir de vous lire,

Martin Denoun (Spiral, Université de Liège)
Maël Goumri (LAMSADE, Université Paris Dauphine)
Claire Le Renard (LATTS, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech)
Ange Pottin (Université de Vienne)

International Conference 

With the support of: 

Nuclear revival and legacies:  

insights from the humanities and social sciences 

Paris – 21-22 October 2024 

École des Ponts ParisTech, Cité Descartes campus, RER A station Noisy-Champs.

Call for proposals 

Nuclear energy was a minor topic in previous international negotiations on climate change.  However, it took an unprecedented place at COP 28 in Dubai in late 2023. The period opened  by the Fukushima disaster in 2011 seems to be drawing to a close - at least partially - as several  countries have affirmed a commitment to (re)developing nuclear energy. This so-called  “relaunch”, “revival” or even “renaissance” consists in strengthening or accelerating  development plans after years of crisis. In the context of climate change and geopolitical  tensions over energy supply, many actors are reviving and reconfiguring justifications and promises that have accompanied nuclear technology since the post-war years. These include  energy abundance, independence from fossil fuels, affordable electricity, welfare at the local  and national scale, economic growth, and technological innovation. Taken together, this  makes nuclear energy development appear necessary. However, nuclear power, which only  accounts for a small portion of the global energy mix, must also contend with the uncertainties  and costs associated with aging infrastructure, plant life extension, waste management, and  decommissioning. Moreover, recent projects have resulted in unprecedented cost overruns,  while the economic profitability of nuclear power as an argument is increasingly challenged  by the plummeting costs for many renewable energy sources (e.g. wind and solar). 

In this context, the humanities and social sciences can provide tools for understanding the so called revival through analysis rooted in different disciplines. This revival both presupposes  and engages legacies that persevere, such as the persistence of past futures (Koselleck, 2004),  “old” technologies (Edgerton, 2008), and large technical systems (Hughes, 1987). We argue  that nuclear futures are framed by categories, practices, and materials inherited from the past  and perpetuated until today. This hypothesis is supported by a methodological commitment  to analyzing nuclear technology and policy in the long term. 

While holding a futuristic promise echoing past discourses, nuclear power carries an ancient  legacy that weighs on its future. In the first decades as a civil industry, nuclear technologies  relied primarily on an ideal of economic or scientific progress. However, what happens when  the nuclear industry is simultaneously faced with issues of decline and renewal? How does  this configuration shed light on the challenges of managing infrastructures that are presented  as crucial in the context of climate change?

This conference aims to bring together social science and humanities perspectives on nuclear  issues in an unprecedented context. Sociology, history, philosophy, anthropology, geography,  political science, economy, and Science and Technology Studies approaches can complement  each other to provide new insights into developments in this sector. 

This call invites contributions documenting cases in Europe and beyond. We welcome papers  analyzing nuclear issues at different scales: local, regional, national, transnational, or global.  Although this conference focuses on the nuclear case, we welcome contributions analyzing how the dynamics of the nuclear sector are linked to other issues and sectors concerned with  achieving an energy transition. 

Submissions 

Abstracts should be submitted before May 31st 2024, on the following platform:  https://cyfu-nuclear.sciencesconf.org (the platform will be open in early May)  Format: 400-word abstracts accompanied by a short bibliography, a 50-word biography, and  3 to 6 keywords. 

Notification of acceptance will be given by mid-June. 

For queries, please write to cyfu AT sciencesconf.org 

Possible topics 

Proposals may relate to one or more of these themes. Proposals that are not directly related  to these themes but that provide an insight into nuclear issues more broadly are also welcome. 

• Energy transition and new socio-technical networks 

Current policies to develop nuclear power are most often justified by the urgent need to curb  global warming. By becoming an integral part of so-called 'energy transition' policies, nuclear  power is part of a promise to achieve 'net zero' carbon emissions targets. This promise  requires new infrastructures, whether of old design like large-scale pressurized water  reactors, or under development such as small modular reactors, and comes with risks and  uncertainties. It also introduces interdependencies between technologies, as some other  energy transition projects, such as hydrogen, now depend on the development of nuclear  power. What new entanglements between technologies does this development create? How  are the promises of energy transition and net zero creating new socio-technical networks?  How are lessons learnt from recent cost overruns of nuclear projects being considered in relaunch policies? To what extent is this relaunch challenging the economy of nuclear energy? 

• Scales of revival: interplay between national, European and global scales At the European level, no country can revive nuclear power in isolation, due to various  interdependencies. These include increasing power interconnections on a European scale, the  huge capital needed to finance a revival (e.g. Chinese funds for Hinkley Point C in the UK), and  political decisions on the qualification of nuclear power (e.g. green taxonomy). In addition, the  nuclear policies of other countries around the world are also having an impact on the ability  of European actors to revive nuclear power on an industrial level. How are the scales involved  in these relaunch announcements intertwined? What does "European revival" mean  institutionally and industrially? To what extent are European supply chains currently  dependent on Chinese and Russian industries, which have been very active over the past 20  years?

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• Territories of nuclear power 

In the early days of nuclear power, some countries envisaged the construction of small-scale  reactors in the immediate vicinity of towns and cities. This idea was later abandoned because  of concerns about the risks involved. With the promise of small modular reactors comes a new  idea of proximity between electricity generation and demand, together with significant land  requirements. Can technologies such as small modular reactors change the geography of  nuclear power? Revival announcements also entail consequences at the regional scale: what  does it mean for a region to become a site for nuclear power, or to be destined for nuclear  power over the long term? How do the infrastructure choices made for nuclear power affect  the possibility of developing other energy sources? How does the abundance of nuclear  energy shape local energy demand policies in regions and cities? 

• Visions of energy futures inherited from the past 

Current visions of energy futures are framed by previous representations of energy in society:  in different countries, nuclear energy has been associated with energy abundance, specific  lifestyles, particular economic worldviews, independence from fossil fuels, and geopolitical  stakes, amongst others. Visions of energy futures shape decisions; they are informed  by modes of representation and mobilization of the future, be they sociotechnical imaginaries,  technoscientific promises, or energy scenarios associated with dedicated modeling activities. How do past visions inform current expectations and configurations presented as  solutions to climate change? What continuities and discontinuities modify these past visions  of the future? How are these tensions formulated and addressed in expert circles or wider  arenas of public debate and policymaking? 

• Policies and politics of nuclear energy 

Recent evolutions of nuclear power policies and politics deserve scholarly attention. How have  institutions, decisions, and instruments evolved, e.g. the crafting and justification of economic  tools designed to encourage nuclear energy in electricity policies? Public opinion research  and discourse analysis can renew our understanding of the emergence and treatment of  nuclear questions in politics: have these issues co-evolved with other issues inside or outside  the energy sector, such as industrial policies and political discourses on environmental issues?  How have debates, controversies, political parties, and social movements evolved? While anti nuclear movements have received scholarly attention in the past, the emergence of a vocal  pro-nuclear movement using the internet in some countries could be an object of digital  sociology. The current context thus calls for an extension or renewal of studies carried out by  political science, as well as sociological, historical, and economic approaches. 

• Assessing and (re)organizing nuclear safety 

The present acceleration of nuclear projects led countries like France to restructure their  nuclear risk expertise and regulatory system. The controversial reform of France’s Nuclear  Safety Authority highlights how the acceleration of nuclear projects can imply, for some  actors, a so-called “optimization” of safety. On the other hand, a decade after the accident at  Fukushima, the risk of a major nuclear disaster seems to be becoming less significant than in  the past, given the imminent danger posed by climate change. Controversial but popular  public figures consider the danger of nuclear energy negligible compared with climate change and state that the Fukushima disaster caused no casualties. Do relaunch policies represent a  turning point in the approach to nuclear safety? How are the promises of nuclear safety 

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reactivated in the face of climate emergency? What are the new risks and uncertainties engendered by a rapid revival of nuclear energy?  

• Nuclear residues 

Nuclear waste, with its radioactive decay time often measured in centuries or thousands of  years, is generally seen as one of the most extreme forms of residue we inherit from industrial  activity. Contested deep geological repository projects in Finland, Sweden, France or the  United States are now presented as guaranteeing control of the entire nuclear "cycle". But  nuclear waste is more than the high-level waste destined for this very particular type of  treatment. Low-level waste represents large quantities which will increase as past and present  nuclear infrastructure is decommissioned. Moreover, the nuclear "revival" implies more  future waste, including new and more complex types of waste such as those produced by  small modular reactors. How is this waste-making future taken into account in the way actors imagine its development? How do residues that were neglected in the past appear in the  current context? What multiple temporalities are unfolding around nuclear waste? How is  nuclear waste constituted as a material and political entity? 

• Aging and decay of nuclear infrastructure 

To fully comprehend the implications of the recent relaunch announcements, it is essential to  place them in the broader context of aging nuclear infrastructures. Rather than new reactor  constructions, we are witnessing numerous announcements of life extensions for existing  nuclear reactors in Europe and North America. However, this aging process intensifies long standing challenges, such as breakdowns and cracks, making maintenance practices a major  issue. Furthermore, it is clear that the issue does not just concern aging facilities, but also new  ones. All nuclear power plants currently under construction in Europe are facing defects and  delays. How do declarations of massive construction plans integrate these issues? How do  announcements of life extension relate discursively to a possible revival of nuclear power?  How are these tensions problematized by stakeholders and what form of nuclear economics emerges from them? 

• Analyzing the nexus between military and civilian nuclear 

Nuclear power is a paradigmatic example of dual-use technology. What does this imply, and  how does the nuclear industry's military past persist in current "revivals"? Potential military  uses have framed the international nuclear order through treaties, monitoring infrastructures,  and institutions such as the IAEA, and have also played a central role for nation-states aiming  to achieve technological modernization, geopolitical status and military power. What forms  does the "peaceful atom" imaginary take today, an idea that has been regularly challenged in  debates on nuclear proliferation? What role do the interdependencies between military and  civilian infrastructures play in calls for a "revival" of the industry? How does the vulnerability  of nuclear power plants in wartime contexts - as illustrated by the current situation in Ukraine  – reshape approaches to nuclear infrastructures? 

Organizing team 

Martin Denoun (Spiral, University of Liège) <martin.denoun AT uliege.be> Maël Goumri (LAMSADE, Université Paris Dauphine) <mael.goumri AT dauphine.psl.eu> Claire Le Renard (LATTS, École des Ponts ParisTech) <claire.le-renard AT enpc.fr> Ange Pottin (ERC project INNORES, University of Vienna) <ange.pottin AT univie.ac.at >

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Indicative bibliography  

Barthe, Y. (2006). Le pouvoir d’indécision. La mise en politique des déchets nucléaires. Economica. 

Bensaude-Vincent, B., Boudia, S., & Sato, K. (Éds.). (2022). Living in a nuclear world: From Fukushima to  Hiroshima. Routledge. https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/98553 

Bernas, H. (2023). Les merveilleux nuages : Que faire du nucléaire ? Éditions du Seuil. 

Blanck, J. (2021). Déconstruire l’héritage nucléaire: Le démantèlement des installations du Commissariat à  l’Énergie Atomique. VertigO, Hors-série 35. https://doi.org/10.4000/vertigo.33016 

Brown, K. (2013). Plutopia : Nuclear families, atomic cities, and the great Soviet and American plutonium  disasters. Oxford University Press. 

Brown, K. (2019). Manual for survival: A Chernobyl guide to the future. W.W. Norton & Company. 

Chateauraynaud, F. (2011). Sociologie argumentative et dynamique des controverses : L’exemple de  l’argument climatique dans la relance de l’énergie nucléaire en Europe: A contrario, n° 16(2), 131-150.  https://doi.org/10.3917/aco.112.0131 

Denoun, M. (2022). Du salut énergétique au sauvetage de la filière nucléaire française. Enquête sur  l’évolution des visions du futur au cœur d’un système sociotechnique [Thèse de doctorat en Sociologie].  EHESS. 

Edgerton, D. L. (2008). The shock of the old: Technology and global history since 1900. Profile Books. 

Felt, U. (2015). Keeping Technologies Out: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Formation of Austria’s  Technopolitical Identity. In S. Jasanoff & S.-H. Kim (Éds.), Dreamscapes of modernity : Sociotechnical  imaginaries and the fabrication of power (p. 103-125). The University of Chicago Press. 

Foasso, C. (2012). Atomes sous surveillance : Une histoire de la sûreté nucléaire en France. P.I.E. Peter  Lang. 

Fressoz, J.-B. (2022). La « transition énergétique », de l’utopie atomique au déni climatique, USA, 1945- 1980. Revue d’histoire moderne & contemporaine, n° 69-2(2), 114-146.  

https://doi.org/10.3917/rhmc.692.0115 

Fressoz, J.-B. (2024). Sans transition : Une nouvelle histoire de l’énergie. Seuil. 

Garcier, R. J. (2012). One cycle to bind them all? Geographies of nuclearity in the nuclear fuel cycle. In C.  Alexander & J. Reno (Éds.), Economies of recycling: The global transformation of materials, values and  social relations (p. 76-97). Zed Books. 

Garcier, R. J. (2021). The experience of nuclear waste. In Z. Gille & J. Lepawsky, The Routledge Handbook  of Waste Studies (1re éd., p. 211-223). Routledge; https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003019077-14 

Goumri, M. (2021). Apprivoiser le cygne noir. Construction et circulation des savoirs et des ignorances dans  le gouvernement de l’accident nucléaire majeur. [Thèse de doctorat en Sociologie, Université de Paris].  

Gutting, A., Högselius, P., Meyer, T., & Mbah, M. (2024). Geographies of Nuclear Energy. An Introduction.  Historical Social Research, 49, 731. https://doi.org/10.12759/HSR.49.2024.01 

Hecht, G. (2009). The radiance of France : Nuclear power and national identity after World War II. MIT  Press. 

Hecht, G. (2014). Being nuclear: Africans and the global uranium trade. MIT press. 

Hughes, T. P. (1987). The evolution of large technological systems. In W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes, & T. Pinch  (Éds.), The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of  technology (p. 51-82). MIT Press. 

Ito, K., & Rentetzi, M. (2021). The co-production of nuclear science and diplomacy: Towards a  transnational understanding of nuclear things. History and Technology, 37(1), 4-20.  https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2021.1905462

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Jasanoff, S., & Kim, S.-H. (2009). Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in  the United States and South Korea. Minerva, 47(2), 119-146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-009-9124-4 

Johnstone, P., & Stirling, A. (2020). Comparing nuclear trajectories in Germany and the United Kingdom :  From regimes to democracies in sociotechnical transitions and discontinuities. Energy Research & Social  Science, 59, 101245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101245 

Joly, P.-B. (2010). On the economics of techno-scientific promises. In M. Akrich, Y. Barthe, F. Muniesa, & P.  Mustar (Éds.), Débordements : Mélanges offerts à Michel Callon (p. 203-221). Presses des Mines.  http://books.openedition.org/pressesmines/747 

Kalmbach, K. (2020). The meanings of a disaster: Chernobyl and its afterlives in Britain and France.  Berghahn Books. 

Kalshoven, P. T. (2023). The Skyline is Changing: Editing Space and Discourse in Nuclear Decommissioning.  Visual Anthropology, 36(5), 487–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2023.2280426 

Kasperski, T., & Storm, A. (2020). Eternal Care: Nuclear Waste as Toxic Legacy and Future Fantasy.  Geschichte Und Gesellschaft, 46(4), 682-705. https://doi.org/10.13109/gege.2020.46.4.682 

Kirchhof, A. M. (Éd.). (2020). Pathways into and out of nuclear power in Western Europe: Austria,  Denmark, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, and Sweden (1st edition). Deutsches Museum. 

Koselleck, R. (2004). Futures past: On the semantics of historical time. Columbia University Press. 

Krige, J. (2010). Techno- Utopian Dreams, Techno- Political Realities: The Education of Desire for the  Peaceful Atom. In M. D. Gordin, H. Tilley, & G. Prakash (Éds.), Utopia/Dystopia (p. 151-175). Princeton  University Press; https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400834952.151 

Le Renard, C. (2021). Le prototype défait. Superphénix, des glissements de la promesse technoscientifique  aux épreuves de la « démocratie technique » [Thèse de doctorat en Sociologie, Université Paris-Est]. 

Lehtonen, M. (2023). Brand New or More of the Same Nuclear? (De)Constructing the Economic Promise  of the European Pressurised Reactor in France and the UK. Science as Culture, 32(1), 29-57.  https://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2022.2087505 

Masco, J. (2020). The nuclear borderlands: The Manhattan Project in post-Cold War New Mexico (New  paperback edition). Princeton University Press. 

Masco, J. (2021). The future of fallout, and other episodes in radioactive world-making. Duke University  press. 

Mattina, C., Bini, E., Curli, B., & Fournier, P. (2023). Les territoires des transitions énergétiques. Nucléaire  et énergies renouvelables en Italie et en France. Karthala. 

Merad, M., & Trump, B. D. (2020). Expertise under scrutiny : 21st century decision making for  environmental health and safety. Springer. 

Meyer, T. (2023). Géopolitique du nucléaire : Pouvoir et puissance d’une industrie duale. le Cavalier bleu. 

Mortensen, H. B., & Karnøe, P. (2016, avril 6). Framing the Deal for Hinkley Point C - Trials of Strength in  valuation Frames of Nuclear Energy in the UK. 6th Latin American and European Meeting on Organization  Studies, Viña del Mar - Chile. 

Müller, W. C., & Thurner, P. W. (Éds.). (2017). The Politics of Nuclear Energy in Western Europe. Oxford  University Press. 

Parotte, C., Macq, H., & Delvenne, P. (2024). The Efficacy Paradox Revisited: “Closing Up” Commitments in  Nuclear Waste Governance. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 49(2), 344-370.  https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439221112459 

Pélopidas, B. (2022). Repenser les choix nucléaires : La séduction de l’impossible. Presses de Sciences Po. 

Pottin, A. (2022). Matière Fertile. Le résidu radioactif, le capital fissile et l’écologie imaginaire de l’industrie  nucléaire. [Thèse de doctorat en Philosophie]. PSL Research University.

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Saraç-Lesavre, B. (2021). Deep time financing? ‘Generational’ responsibilities and the problem of rendez vous in the U.S. nuclear waste programme. Journal of Cultural Economy, 14(4), 435–448.  https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2020.1818601 

Stirling, A., & Johnstone, P. (2018). A Global Picture of Industrial Interdependencies Between Civil and  Military Nuclear Infrastructures (SPRU Working Paper Series 2018-13). University of Sussex, SPRU.  https://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/documents/2018-13-swps-stirling-and-johnstone.pdf 

Thomas, S., & Ramana, M. V. (2022). A hopeless pursuit? National efforts to promote small modular  nuclear reactors and revive nuclear power. WIREs Energy and Environment, 11(4), e429.  https://doi.org/10.1002/wene.429 

Tompkins, A. (2016). Better active than radioactive! Anti-nuclear protest in 1970s France and West  Germany. Oxford University Press. 

Topçu, S. (2014). Organiser l’irresponsabilité ? : La gestion (inter)nationale des dégâts d’un accident  nucléaire comme régime discursif. Ecologie & politique, N°49(2), 95.  

https://doi.org/10.3917/ecopo.049.0095 

Wellock, T. R. (2021). Safe enough? A history of nuclear power and accident risk. University of California  Press.

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