On the Enactment of Relevance in Nuclear Technological Innovation

In recent years, nuclear energy has regained political support, with its expansion seen as not only desirable but imperative to address climate change and ensure energy security. Today, nuclear advocates seem to be pinning their hopes on a "new" type of nuclear reactor technology, the small modular reactor (SMR). In 2022, the Belgian government granted EUR 100 million to the Belgian Nuclear Research Center to study a Lead-cooled Fast Reactor (LFR) SMR. Among the arguments for pursuing an LFR-SMR, the institute posited its strong and demonstrated expertise in heavy liquid metal (HLM) technology. Besides being of instrumental use, prior experience serves a strategic discursive function; it lends credibility to a project, a key condition for constructing successful technological promises. Yet, on closer inspection, the instrumental use of past experience in nuclear technological innovation is not that evident. This becomes clear when approached from an empirical and practice-oriented point of view. Drawing on in-depth interviews and the author’s observations of the SMR-LFR pre-licensing activities within the Belgian Nuclear Research Center, this paper takes a closer look at what it means, in practice, for a nuclear research institute to leverage past experience. It explores the situated work required to render past experience useful and ultimately relevant. In doing so, the paper grapples with the theoretical question of how the categories of difference, sameness and relevance are enacted in nuclear technological development. Conceptually, then, the article draws on ideas from innovation studies and on the ontological turn within empirical philosophy.