Whose renaissance is it anyway? Rethinking the speculative futures of the nuclear renaissance within the anthropocene

In recent months, the prospect of a coming nuclear renaissance has become more palpable: nuclear energy has emerged as a crucial technology within international efforts to model and imagine ‘carbon free futures’; advancements in nuclear energy and waste management technologies have conjured familiar visions of promise of nuclear energy and the power of humanity in harnessing the immense power of the sun; the backing of nuclear power by civil society organisations, such as Finnish Greenpeace, demonstrates all too clearly the presence of a certain ‘a nuclear renaissance’ for some. And yet, the pronouncement of ‘a nuclear renaissance’ demands critical attention, especially if it is to avoid the human-centred trappings of the anthropocene and the hubris associated with designating a new temporal horizon of ‘the nuclear renaissance’ for all of humanity. Rather than simply asserting the nuclear-renaissance-as-temporal-epoch, I seek instead to critically examine the terms on which this temporal moment is asserted, and to consider who is included and excluded from this prospective renaissance. Making this argument, this paper comprises two sections. First, I outline how the pronouncement of a nuclear renaissance is not new, but rather a notion that has previously been beckoned by the nuclear social sciences - especially in Europe and North America. Second, I consider what promises and pitfalls arise from developing a more spatially and temporally situated understanding of ‘a nuclear renaissance’. To do so, I draw on speculative research emphasising that any understanding of future temporal horizons must begin with an attention to contingent relations of experience. Apprehending this contingency, I contend, may provide one way to begin imagining a nuclear renaissance besides certain anthropocentric limits of thought.