The “nuclear renaissance” of recent years is accompanied by the emergence of a new corpus of pro-nuclear energy cultural artifacts. They include documentaries like Pandora’s Promise (2013) and Atomic Hope (2022), campaigns by “Generation Atomic” and “Mothers for Nuclear”, or social media content by Isodope, the first self-proclaimed “nuclear energy influencer”. While tapping into pro-technological and ecomodernist discourses, their visuals and narratives also ‘green’ and ‘feminize’ pro-nuclear culture, transforming visions of nuclear energy futures through the mobilization of tropes historically found in anti-nuclear discourses. These reorientations point towards a powerful new (pro-)nuclear sociotechnical imaginary emerging in the 21^st century which presents an enticing alternative to more radical visions of system change and degrowth in Western environmental movements.

This paper examines these contemporary pro-nuclear energy narratives and aesthetics through an analysis of cultural artifacts such as documentaries, social media posts, activist statements, and campaign materials. With a theoretical grounding in the environmental, energy, and nuclear humanities, it seeks to develop an understanding of contemporary sociotechnical imaginaries of nuclear power to grasp shifting public debates about a sustainable and equitable energy transition in the US and Western Europe.

How to cite: Klaubert, H.: Atomic Hope? – A Cultural Analysis of Contemporary Pro-Nuclear Sociotechnical Imaginaries, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-39, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-39, 2025.

Twenty-year boom and bust cycles characterise the history of Finnish uranium exploration since its beginning in the 1950s. These oscillations, reflecting wider trends in world economy, energy politics, and general interest in nuclear power, are not only evidenced on the pages of industry reports and published research but can be felt through the material traces of uranium prospecting and mining. Drill holes, quarries, and rehabilitated mines linger in the Finnish landscape as evidence of 70 years of repeated attempts to exploit the country’s uranium deposits.

The rhythms of anti-uranium mining activism follow those of uranium exploration, and, just like periods of intensive prospecting and mining, the dissident voices, too, were recorded in the Finnish bedrock where they survive in the form of environmental rock carvings created by artists and activists opposing uranium mining. In this paper, I give an overview of Finnish anti-uranium mining rock art and, through a case study on the reconstruction and public re-reveal of one such artwork, reflect on how ritualised revisiting of environmental art could serve as a platform for remembering and understanding boom and bust in Finnish uranium exploration.

How to cite: Marila, M. M.: Remembering boom and bust in Finnish uranium exploration: An artist’s view from the ground, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-53, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-53, 2025.

We are in the midst of a contested and complex energy transition, aiming to shape a livable planet for coming generations. Today’s children express both hopes and worries for their future, primarily in relation to climate change but also to new technologies, like new types of nuclear power. Hitherto, we know little about how children living close to, for example, a nuclear facility makes meaning of the transition. By uniquely combining our own emerging concept of “decommissioning generations” with perspectives from nuclear cultural heritage, energy transitions and energy justice literature, we explorea space where young generations can articulate experiences of the energy transition, including nuclear power, on their own terms. We also explore the method of painting workshops for including children’s experiences in contemporary societal energy debates.

Material is collected through interviews, group discussions, and most importantly painting workshops, with 10-12-year-olds in Swedish schools close to three nuclear sites with different characteristics and relations to the surrounding vicinities. Barsebäck represents phases of dismantling, Forsmark embodies ongoing operations and promises for waste management, and Marviken represent past dashed hopes and new dreams of nuclear power. Local and national political visions of developing the sites by establishing so called SMRs or new full-scale reactors show the imaginations and prospective of a nuclear renaissance.

To include a range of voices is key to achieve an inclusive energy transition, both in local communities and in society at large. Children’s experiences could decisively enrich local processes of strengthening belonging and identity, as their perspectives are proven to be different than those of adults and elderly.

How to cite: Edberg, K. and Storm, A.: Children painting local energy landscapes: generational meaning-making of nuclear power in transition, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-42, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-42, 2025.

Although situated firmly in the present, The Half-Life Afterlife is an ongoing, evolving and time-travelling sculptural installation/exhibit reflecting on our pioneering and problematic human-generated nuclear activities from the vantage point of an unspecified and undefined post-nuclear future. It assumes the form of a collection of ancient looking bentonite clay objects, recently discovered in the vicinity of Gloucestershire Airport which was thought to have become the site of a Geological Disposal Facility or GDF where the UK’s most hazardous and long-lived nuclear waste was eventually buried, deep underground.

Possibly created as radioactive waste burial charms these found objects have been subject to speculative research methods fusing nuclear fact and fiction before being catalogued and displayed in a very human attempt to imbue them with cultural significance and meaning as future nuclear artefacts.

Deliberately wide-ranging in scope although with a UK centric focus, The Half-Life Afterlife is conceived as an easily accessible and occasionally humorous storytelling device through which to stimulate thoughts and conversation around the physical and cultural legacies of nuclear power, weapons and waste.

Within a conference/symposium environment it would take the form of a 15-20 minute oral presentation with accompanying powerpoint/pdf slide show.

In lieu of an oral presentation it can also be issued as a 10/20 page illustrated booklet.

https://nuclearinformationcentre.org.uk/The-Half-Life-Afterlife

How to cite: Pehkonen, N.: The Half-Life Afterlife, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-33, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-33, 2025.

From the perspective of visitors, the significance of the two radioactive exclusion zones—Chornobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan—is often not well understood. This presentation aims to explore the similarities and differences in how visitors visually depict these nuclear accident sites through a comparative study focused on these two contaminated exclusion zones, specifically Chornobyl and Fukushima, analyzed through the lens of visual culture. Using qualitative interviews and photographs taken by visitors at both sites, my research investigates the cultural experiences surrounding nuclear power. It examines how individuals interpret and derive meaning from radioactive landscapes. I focus on how these experiences are translated into visual storytelling and the specific semiotic resources that visitors utilize in their photographs to express their presence in environments altered by radioactive contamination. This approach sheds light on how visitors frame nuclear objects visually and how these practices contribute to the material-discursive legacy of nuclear cultural heritage. Analyzing visitors' visual interactions with the material resources in these two radioactive zones reveals their evolving pictorial interests in the context of participatory digital visual culture. The study provides insights into participatory culture as a transformative force that shapes perceptions and experiences of contaminated sites. Furthermore, this presentation aims to illuminate the public's role in the interpretive processes of the nuclear Anthropocene and highlights their function as contemporary creators of digital nuclear archives.

How to cite: Ojala, V.: Chornobyl and Fukushima Visual Archives: Visitors Practices of Curatorship of the Nuclear Accident Sites, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-34, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-34, 2025.

Nuclear power production is in a peculiar position in Central and Eastern Europe: on the one hand, it is characterized by dependency on other countries, while at the same time being the main source of electricity provision. This paper explores this double bind in the context of the so-called ‘nuclear renaissance’ by looking at projects for expanding existing nuclear capacities, whether through new nuclear facilities, or by expanding existing ones. The focus will be on comparing Hungary and Romania, because of their two different trajectories in tapping into the nuclear hype. Whereas the former strengthened the ties with Russia and plans to build a new plant in cooperation with Rosatom, the latter is still looking for a potential partner, either in the US, Canada, or China, for the expansion of its nuclear power plant. The paper will contribute by showing that the unfolding of the nuclear renaissance in the provinces reveals important lessons about its contradictions at the centers of nuclear power production.

How to cite: Novac, S.: The renaissance in the province: Nuclear dependencies, conflicts, and hopes in Central and Eastern Europe, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-63, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-63, 2025.

The “nuclear renaissance” of recent years is accompanied by the emergence of a new corpus of pro-nuclear energy cultural artifacts. They include documentaries like Pandora’s Promise (2013) and Atomic Hope (2022), campaigns by “Generation Atomic” and “Mothers for Nuclear”, or social media content by Isodope, the first self-proclaimed “nuclear energy influencer”. While tapping into pro-technological and ecomodernist discourses, their visuals and narratives also ‘green’ and ‘feminize’ pro-nuclear culture, transforming visions of nuclear energy futures through the mobilization of tropes historically found in anti-nuclear discourses. These reorientations point towards a powerful new (pro-)nuclear sociotechnical imaginary emerging in the 21^st century which presents an enticing alternative to more radical visions of system change and degrowth in Western environmental movements.

This paper examines these contemporary pro-nuclear energy narratives and aesthetics through an analysis of cultural artifacts such as documentaries, social media posts, activist statements, and campaign materials. With a theoretical grounding in the environmental, energy, and nuclear humanities, it seeks to develop an understanding of contemporary sociotechnical imaginaries of nuclear power to grasp shifting public debates about a sustainable and equitable energy transition in the US and Western Europe.

How to cite: Klaubert, H.: Atomic Hope? – A Cultural Analysis of Contemporary Pro-Nuclear Sociotechnical Imaginaries, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-39, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-39, 2025.

Twenty-year boom and bust cycles characterise the history of Finnish uranium exploration since its beginning in the 1950s. These oscillations, reflecting wider trends in world economy, energy politics, and general interest in nuclear power, are not only evidenced on the pages of industry reports and published research but can be felt through the material traces of uranium prospecting and mining. Drill holes, quarries, and rehabilitated mines linger in the Finnish landscape as evidence of 70 years of repeated attempts to exploit the country’s uranium deposits.

The rhythms of anti-uranium mining activism follow those of uranium exploration, and, just like periods of intensive prospecting and mining, the dissident voices, too, were recorded in the Finnish bedrock where they survive in the form of environmental rock carvings created by artists and activists opposing uranium mining. In this paper, I give an overview of Finnish anti-uranium mining rock art and, through a case study on the reconstruction and public re-reveal of one such artwork, reflect on how ritualised revisiting of environmental art could serve as a platform for remembering and understanding boom and bust in Finnish uranium exploration.

How to cite: Marila, M. M.: Remembering boom and bust in Finnish uranium exploration: An artist’s view from the ground, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-53, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-53, 2025.

We are in the midst of a contested and complex energy transition, aiming to shape a livable planet for coming generations. Today’s children express both hopes and worries for their future, primarily in relation to climate change but also to new technologies, like new types of nuclear power. Hitherto, we know little about how children living close to, for example, a nuclear facility makes meaning of the transition. By uniquely combining our own emerging concept of “decommissioning generations” with perspectives from nuclear cultural heritage, energy transitions and energy justice literature, we explorea space where young generations can articulate experiences of the energy transition, including nuclear power, on their own terms. We also explore the method of painting workshops for including children’s experiences in contemporary societal energy debates.

Material is collected through interviews, group discussions, and most importantly painting workshops, with 10-12-year-olds in Swedish schools close to three nuclear sites with different characteristics and relations to the surrounding vicinities. Barsebäck represents phases of dismantling, Forsmark embodies ongoing operations and promises for waste management, and Marviken represent past dashed hopes and new dreams of nuclear power. Local and national political visions of developing the sites by establishing so called SMRs or new full-scale reactors show the imaginations and prospective of a nuclear renaissance.

To include a range of voices is key to achieve an inclusive energy transition, both in local communities and in society at large. Children’s experiences could decisively enrich local processes of strengthening belonging and identity, as their perspectives are proven to be different than those of adults and elderly.

How to cite: Edberg, K. and Storm, A.: Children painting local energy landscapes: generational meaning-making of nuclear power in transition, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-42, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-42, 2025.

Although situated firmly in the present, The Half-Life Afterlife is an ongoing, evolving and time-travelling sculptural installation/exhibit reflecting on our pioneering and problematic human-generated nuclear activities from the vantage point of an unspecified and undefined post-nuclear future. It assumes the form of a collection of ancient looking bentonite clay objects, recently discovered in the vicinity of Gloucestershire Airport which was thought to have become the site of a Geological Disposal Facility or GDF where the UK’s most hazardous and long-lived nuclear waste was eventually buried, deep underground.

Possibly created as radioactive waste burial charms these found objects have been subject to speculative research methods fusing nuclear fact and fiction before being catalogued and displayed in a very human attempt to imbue them with cultural significance and meaning as future nuclear artefacts.

Deliberately wide-ranging in scope although with a UK centric focus, The Half-Life Afterlife is conceived as an easily accessible and occasionally humorous storytelling device through which to stimulate thoughts and conversation around the physical and cultural legacies of nuclear power, weapons and waste.

Within a conference/symposium environment it would take the form of a 15-20 minute oral presentation with accompanying powerpoint/pdf slide show.

In lieu of an oral presentation it can also be issued as a 10/20 page illustrated booklet.

https://nuclearinformationcentre.org.uk/The-Half-Life-Afterlife

How to cite: Pehkonen, N.: The Half-Life Afterlife, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-33, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-33, 2025.

From the perspective of visitors, the significance of the two radioactive exclusion zones—Chornobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan—is often not well understood. This presentation aims to explore the similarities and differences in how visitors visually depict these nuclear accident sites through a comparative study focused on these two contaminated exclusion zones, specifically Chornobyl and Fukushima, analyzed through the lens of visual culture. Using qualitative interviews and photographs taken by visitors at both sites, my research investigates the cultural experiences surrounding nuclear power. It examines how individuals interpret and derive meaning from radioactive landscapes. I focus on how these experiences are translated into visual storytelling and the specific semiotic resources that visitors utilize in their photographs to express their presence in environments altered by radioactive contamination. This approach sheds light on how visitors frame nuclear objects visually and how these practices contribute to the material-discursive legacy of nuclear cultural heritage. Analyzing visitors' visual interactions with the material resources in these two radioactive zones reveals their evolving pictorial interests in the context of participatory digital visual culture. The study provides insights into participatory culture as a transformative force that shapes perceptions and experiences of contaminated sites. Furthermore, this presentation aims to illuminate the public's role in the interpretive processes of the nuclear Anthropocene and highlights their function as contemporary creators of digital nuclear archives.

How to cite: Ojala, V.: Chornobyl and Fukushima Visual Archives: Visitors Practices of Curatorship of the Nuclear Accident Sites, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-34, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-34, 2025.

Nuclear power production is in a peculiar position in Central and Eastern Europe: on the one hand, it is characterized by dependency on other countries, while at the same time being the main source of electricity provision. This paper explores this double bind in the context of the so-called ‘nuclear renaissance’ by looking at projects for expanding existing nuclear capacities, whether through new nuclear facilities, or by expanding existing ones. The focus will be on comparing Hungary and Romania, because of their two different trajectories in tapping into the nuclear hype. Whereas the former strengthened the ties with Russia and plans to build a new plant in cooperation with Rosatom, the latter is still looking for a potential partner, either in the US, Canada, or China, for the expansion of its nuclear power plant. The paper will contribute by showing that the unfolding of the nuclear renaissance in the provinces reveals important lessons about its contradictions at the centers of nuclear power production.

How to cite: Novac, S.: The renaissance in the province: Nuclear dependencies, conflicts, and hopes in Central and Eastern Europe, Third interdisciplinary research symposium on the safety of nuclear disposal practices, Berlin, Germany, 17–19 Sep 2025, safeND2025-63, https://doi.org/10.5194/safend2025-63, 2025.