Vortrag von Siegfried Evens (Linköping) & Per Högselius (Stockholm): Book Launch - Meet the Editors: The Nuclear-Water Nexus (MIT Press)

Erste Veranstaltung des Berlin-Brandenburger Colloquiums für Umweltgeschichte (BBC) im Sommersemester 2026, das zu drei Terminen im Mai und Juni einlädt.

Veranstalter: Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam

Montag, 18. Mai 2026 | 18-20 Uhr

Zum Vortrag
Siegfried Evens (Linköping) & Per Högselius (Stockholm): Book Launch - Meet the Editors: The Nuclear-Water Nexus (MIT Press) (in English)

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. In The Nuclear-Water Nexus, we examine these processes through a set of in-depth case studies.

Short biographies:
Per Högselius is professor of history of technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. He holds an MSc in engineering physics, a PhD in innovation studies, and a Docent (Habilitation) degree in the history of science and technology. His teaching and research span the history of energy (in its multiple forms), natural resources, and technological infrastructures, with a particular focus on transnational aspects. His English-language publications include the award-winning Red Gas: Russia and the Origins of European Energy Dependence (2013), Europe’s Infrastructure Transition: Economy, War, Nature (co-authored with Arne Kaijser and Erik van der Vleuten, 2016), Energy and Geopolitics (2019), and The Soviet Nuclear Archipelago: A Historical Geography of Atomic-Powered Communism (2024, with Achim Klüppelberg). He led the ERC project NUCLEARWATERS: Putting Water at the Centre of Nuclear Energy History (2018–2024).

Siegfried Evens is a historian specialising in technology, energy, (environmental) risk, and disaster. In the last few years, he has worked on several research projects on nuclear energy and reactor safety. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at SPRU at the University of Sussex, as well as a postdoctoral researcher at Linköping University in Sweden and a Guest Professor at the University of Hasselt in Belgium. Between 2024 and 2025, he was a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) based at KU Leuven. In 2024, he obtained his PhD from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. As part of the ERC project NUCLEARWATERS, he researched the role of water and steam technologies in nuclear safety governance. Evens worked with various (nuclear) policymakers in Sweden, France, the US, and Belgium. Previously, he has also published on mining and fire risks.