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Paper short abstract

The study investigates how the emergent SMR-technology is imagined by different actors in the field. My research shows how seemingly impossible, dichotomous interpretations of this technology unite diverse actors in efforts to realise it.

Paper long abstract

Amidst the prospective nuclear renaissance, Sweden is currently planning for new nuclear power. This study focuses on how a new technology of small and medium size nuclear reactors (SMRs) is imagined by different actors in the field, prompting them to collectively pursue its realisation. This paper contributes to ongoing discussions about imagination in STS, exploring how imagination and technoscientific promises can mobilise different actors around a technology yet-to-exist (e.g., Lehtonen, 2023; Sovacool & Ramana, 2015; Latour, 1993).

The study draws on semi-structured interviews conducted with different actors involved in the planning of new nuclear power. The research also draws on different forms of documentation describing the SMR technology within the context of new nuclear power in Sweden.

The results show that SMRs are often imagined in ways that are contradictory and not easily combined. Perceived as e.g., both revolutionary and evolutionary, the SMR-technology is based on already tested and well-known technology, while at the same time being perceived as completely new and modern. This positions the SMR as safe, both by means of connecting it to Sweden’s long experience with conventional nuclear power, while at the same time disconnecting it from more negative sentiments of nuclear power being an old or outdated technology.

The research highlights how the SMR is a contradictory imagination, which cannot possibly fulfil all its expectations. Nonetheless, this imagination has the harmonising power to mobilise a large collective of actors to work towards its realisation.