Journal for the History of Environment and Society

This article is focused on nuclear transboundary issues between Portugal and Spain, two countries that share a long history of nuclear collaboration and conflict of late, where national borders played a crucial role. The issues at stake cover the full spectrum of the nuclear cycle: uranium mining, power production and waste disposal. The first stage, under two fascist dictatorships, was characterised by collaboration within a common techno-political imaginary, where nuclear energy was understood as a driver of modernity, but with the absence of the public in decision-making processes. The second stage was marked by the advent of democracy in both countries and the reconfiguration of nuclear policies: while Portugal abandoned the nuclear endeavour, Spain implemented a nuclear moratorium but kept ten reactors operative. The third phase, which started in 1986 and goes until the present time, was marked by two crucial events: joining the European Communities (EC) and the Chernobyl accident. The first event allowed Brussels to become a referee on Spanish/Portuguese nuclear disputes. The second one implied that Portugal expanded its institutional vigilance on Spanish nuclear activities and led to the emergence of transboundary social movements against nuclear power.

The Barsebäck power plant is located 20 km from Copenhagen and the large Swedish cities Malmö, Lund and Landskrona are also within a 30 km radius. When the power plant was planned in the mid-1960s the location seemed ideal with short distances to many consumers in both Sweden and Denmark. In the early 1970s a critical debate on nuclear power began in both countries and Barsebäck became a symbol for the risks of nuclear energy, attracting large-scale annual protest marches from 1976 onwards with participants from both Sweden and Denmark. Once Denmark decided not to pursue nuclear power in the mid-1980s, the Danish Parliament demanded Barsebäck's closure. Indeed, Barsebäck was the first Swedish nuclear power plant to be phased out. This article systematically examines the implications of the border location for transboundary relations involving both conflict and cooperation of those engaged in promoting, building and opposing the Barsebäck nuclear power plant.

The "Superphénix" fast breeder nuclear reactor was a Franco-Italian-German project resulting from a shared ambition to develop new technology through European industry collaboration in the 1960s-1970s. Transnationality contributed to rendering the industrial-scale investment possible. Such projects had to be sited between partner countries, therefore it was located in Creys-Malville, between Lyons and the Italian border, yet even closer to the Swiss border near Geneva. This industrial-scale FBR prototype triggered a cross-border controversy fuelled by scientists in France and Switzerland, as well as mass protests on a European scale, followed by successive lawsuits. Focussing on the mutual influence the borders and the project exerted on each other, the paper examines institutional responses leading to the project's reframing as a research facility in the 1990s, and subsequent developments facilitating its shutdown in 1998. The conclusion addresses the shifting geographical scales and distribution of power over the course of the project.

This article examines the porosity of national borders using the examples of two nuclear facilities at Gorleben and Morsleben located at the West German municipality in the state of Lower Saxony as well as the former Börde district of Saxony-Anhalt (former East Germany). Gorleben and Morsleben became known for their final nuclear waste repositories located directly at the German-German border. Debates and protests surrounding the facilities began in the 1970s and continued after the wall came down. Since opponents had to deal with two different political systems, protests differed in their duration, effect, and methods, even though the border as such was not the problem since West Germans were allowed into the GDR. Transboundary relations were much rather limited by the dictatorial regime on the one side, by the absence of anti-nuclear groups in the GDR until the mid-1980s, and by sufficient coalition partners for West German activists in their own country. Since the disclosure of environmental data by the East German government and the Chernobyl accident a few years later, transboundary relations increased and activists interconnected in many ways. With their protest they indicated that even if the border was a fact, concerns of people in both states transcended it and that borderlands are often characterized by relationality and entanglement.