The Nuclear-Water Nexus
An edited collection that takes a deep dive into the complex interactions between nuclear energy and water.

Splitting atoms is a water-intensive business. To operate efficiently and safely, a standard nuclear reactor needs around 50 cubic meters (13,000 gallons) of water per second—equivalent to the flow of a mid-sized river or large irrigation canal. In The Nuclear-Water Nexus, Per Högselius and Siegfried Evens bring together 25 authors from 12 countries to explore the resulting entanglements between society, technology, and nature, to show how nuclear energy’s dependence on water has shaped the atomic age in decisive ways.

Water has been the key factor in forging a global nuclear geography, as the water needs of nuclear facilities require them to be located near the sea, major rivers, canals, or lakes. As an unintended consequence of such locations, nuclear facilities have become vulnerable to droughts, floods, erosion, and climate change—with much higher stakes than most other energy installations. Consequently, the “wet” geography of nuclear energy translates into threats to the wet environment, in the form of both radioactive contamination and thermal pollution. Water has, over the years, generated social conflicts—and cooperation—between nuclear energy and other water-intensive activities, such as agriculture, fisheries, navigation, military activities, hydropower production, drinking water supply, landscaping, leisure and tourism—and even fossil fuel extraction. This book examines these processes through a set of in-depth case studies.

Contributors:
Elisabetta Bini, Kate Brown, Peter Burt, Joanna L. Dyl, Siegfried Evens, Carlos Gonzalvo, Elizabeth Hameeteman, Per Högselius, Sonali Huria, Roman Khandozhko, Achim Klüppelberg, Maximilian P. Lau, Sabine Loewe-Hannatzsch, Anaël Marrec, Victor McFarland, Jan-Henrik Meyer, Sarah E. Robey, Diego Sesma-Martín, S. Duygu Sever, Kumar Sundaram, Jonathon Turnbull, Thomas Turnbull, Mar Rubio-Varas, Agnès Villette, Heather Williams
1146363367
The Nuclear-Water Nexus
An edited collection that takes a deep dive into the complex interactions between nuclear energy and water.

Splitting atoms is a water-intensive business. To operate efficiently and safely, a standard nuclear reactor needs around 50 cubic meters (13,000 gallons) of water per second—equivalent to the flow of a mid-sized river or large irrigation canal. In The Nuclear-Water Nexus, Per Högselius and Siegfried Evens bring together 25 authors from 12 countries to explore the resulting entanglements between society, technology, and nature, to show how nuclear energy’s dependence on water has shaped the atomic age in decisive ways.

Water has been the key factor in forging a global nuclear geography, as the water needs of nuclear facilities require them to be located near the sea, major rivers, canals, or lakes. As an unintended consequence of such locations, nuclear facilities have become vulnerable to droughts, floods, erosion, and climate change—with much higher stakes than most other energy installations. Consequently, the “wet” geography of nuclear energy translates into threats to the wet environment, in the form of both radioactive contamination and thermal pollution. Water has, over the years, generated social conflicts—and cooperation—between nuclear energy and other water-intensive activities, such as agriculture, fisheries, navigation, military activities, hydropower production, drinking water supply, landscaping, leisure and tourism—and even fossil fuel extraction. This book examines these processes through a set of in-depth case studies.

Contributors:
Elisabetta Bini, Kate Brown, Peter Burt, Joanna L. Dyl, Siegfried Evens, Carlos Gonzalvo, Elizabeth Hameeteman, Per Högselius, Sonali Huria, Roman Khandozhko, Achim Klüppelberg, Maximilian P. Lau, Sabine Loewe-Hannatzsch, Anaël Marrec, Victor McFarland, Jan-Henrik Meyer, Sarah E. Robey, Diego Sesma-Martín, S. Duygu Sever, Kumar Sundaram, Jonathon Turnbull, Thomas Turnbull, Mar Rubio-Varas, Agnès Villette, Heather Williams
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The Nuclear-Water Nexus

The Nuclear-Water Nexus

The Nuclear-Water Nexus

The Nuclear-Water Nexus

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Overview

An edited collection that takes a deep dive into the complex interactions between nuclear energy and water.

Splitting atoms is a water-intensive business. To operate efficiently and safely, a standard nuclear reactor needs around 50 cubic meters (13,000 gallons) of water per second—equivalent to the flow of a mid-sized river or large irrigation canal. In The Nuclear-Water Nexus, Per Högselius and Siegfried Evens bring together 25 authors from 12 countries to explore the resulting entanglements between society, technology, and nature, to show how nuclear energy’s dependence on water has shaped the atomic age in decisive ways.

Water has been the key factor in forging a global nuclear geography, as the water needs of nuclear facilities require them to be located near the sea, major rivers, canals, or lakes. As an unintended consequence of such locations, nuclear facilities have become vulnerable to droughts, floods, erosion, and climate change—with much higher stakes than most other energy installations. Consequently, the “wet” geography of nuclear energy translates into threats to the wet environment, in the form of both radioactive contamination and thermal pollution. Water has, over the years, generated social conflicts—and cooperation—between nuclear energy and other water-intensive activities, such as agriculture, fisheries, navigation, military activities, hydropower production, drinking water supply, landscaping, leisure and tourism—and even fossil fuel extraction. This book examines these processes through a set of in-depth case studies.

Contributors:
Elisabetta Bini, Kate Brown, Peter Burt, Joanna L. Dyl, Siegfried Evens, Carlos Gonzalvo, Elizabeth Hameeteman, Per Högselius, Sonali Huria, Roman Khandozhko, Achim Klüppelberg, Maximilian P. Lau, Sabine Loewe-Hannatzsch, Anaël Marrec, Victor McFarland, Jan-Henrik Meyer, Sarah E. Robey, Diego Sesma-Martín, S. Duygu Sever, Kumar Sundaram, Jonathon Turnbull, Thomas Turnbull, Mar Rubio-Varas, Agnès Villette, Heather Williams

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780262552288
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication date: 07/01/2025
Pages: 416
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.15(d)

About the Author

Per Högselius is Professor of History of Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. His English-language publications include the award-winning Red Gas, Europe’s Infrastructure Transition (coauthored with Arne Kaijser and Erik van der Vleuten), and Energy and Geopolitics. He led the ERC-funded project NUCLEARWATERS.

Siegfried Evens is a historian specialized in the history of technology, risk, and disaster. He obtained his PhD at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in 2024. His thesis was part of the ERC-funded NUCLEARWATERS project and studied the regulation of water and steam technologies in nuclear power plants. He is currently a FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellow at KU Leuven.

Table of Contents

  • Contents
  • List of Figures
  • List of Tables
  • Introducing the Nuclear-Water Nexus
  • Per Högselius
  • Part I: Envirotechnical Entanglements: Problems and Conflicts around Nuclear Cooling
  • 1 The Sisyphean Risk: Governing Corrosion in Nuclear Power Plants
  • Siegfried Evens
  • 2 Water: The Limiting Factor for Nuclear Power Generation in Spain?
  • Diego Sesma-Martín and Mar Rubio-Varas
  • 3 “Atomi in risaia”: Conflicts over Water Resources in the Italian Nuclear Program
  • Elisabetta Bini
  • 4 Water, Fish, and Contamination in Chernobyl’s Cooling Pond
  • Achim Klüppelberg
  • 5 Lake Stechlin: A Thermal Sink for East Germany’s First Atomic Power Plant
  • Thomas Turnbull and Maximilian P. Lau
  • 6 The Nuclear-Water Nexus and the Origins of European Environmental Policy: Thermal Pollution as a Transnational Problem
  • Jan-Henrik Meyer
  • 7 The Unsustainability of India’s Nuclear Energy Policy: Resisting the Gorakhpur Nuclear Project
  • Sonali Huria
  • 8 Exploring the Nuclear-Water Nexus in India’s Adivasi Heartland: Nuclear After-Lives of the Narmada River Protests
  • Kumar Sundaram
  • Part II: Reactors on the Beach: Exploring the Atomic Coasts
  • 9 A Nuclear Power Plant in the Loire Estuary: Navigating the Politics of Siting
  • Anaël Marrec
  • 10 The Mark of Water on Spain’s Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant
  • Carlos Gonzalvo Salas
  • 11 SONGS of the Southland: The Nuclear-Water Nexus in Southern California
  • Heather Williams and Joanna L. Dyl
  • 12 Soviet Envirotechnical Landscapes and Crimea’s Contested Nuclearization
  • Roman Khandozhko
  • 13 Dreams of Abundance: America’s Cold War Vision of Nuclear Desalination
  • Elizabeth Hameeteman
  • 14 Reviving Nuclear Desalination? Challenges and Prospects in the Arab Gulf States
  • S. Duygu Sever
  • Part III: Water’s Malicious Agency: The Threat of Wet Radioactive Pollution
  • 15 The Waters of Project Plowshare: Hydraulic Engineering and Fracking with Nuclear Explosives
  • Victor McFarland
  • 16 Swamped: Flooding and Fibbing at the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment
  • Peter Burt
  • 17 Below the Surface: Groundwater in Idaho’s Nuclear History
  • Sarah E. Robey
  • 18 The SDAG Wismut: The Nuclear-Water Nexus in Uranium Ore Mining and Milling
  • Sabine Loewe-Hannatzsch
  • 19 Archeologies of Toxicity: The St Hélène River Liquid Archive
  • Agnès Villette
  • 20 Compounding Catastrophes in Polissya: Chornobyl’s Legacy Along the E40 Waterway
  • Jonathon Turnbull and Kate Brown
  • Contributors
  • Notes
  • Index
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