Who Is Affected? Defining Nuclear Territories and Their Borders: A Historical Perspective on the Nuclearization of the Rhône River from the 1970s to the 1990s

Abstract

Through the example of two nuclear power plants (Superphénix and Saint-Alban) in France along the Rhône River, in the Isère département, I show that the areas involved and potentially "affected" by nuclear power at the local level do not overlap historically and that they are the result of a scientific, political, and administrative construction based on nuclear risk. I suggest that the various zones established around nuclear power plants (potentially affected by an accident, involved in public inquiries, included in various committees in charge of information and control, allowed to collect taxes) tend to grow under the influence of anti-nuclear protest, of local populations, and also of elected officials who are exposed to the effective or potential effects of nuclear power plants. Despite the difficulty of framing the nuclear risk spatially, it delimits a growing nuclear territory surrounding each nuclear power plant, from several municipalities at the beginning of the 1970s to an entire region at the beginning of the 1990s. The numerous maps available in French local archives thus shed historical light on the construction of nuclear territories.