Mathijs Boom

2 doctoral positions on the '(Dis)Empowered Communities: A Comparative Study of Decommissioning Nuclear Sites' project led by Davide Orsini at the @carsoncenter.bsky.social

Deadline: 30 November

#histtech #envhist #energyhistory #nuclearhistory

www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/about_rcc/jo...

Open PhD position at KTH: "AI Planetary Futures: Climate and environment in Silicon Valley's AI paradigm". Apply by Oct 23! lnkd.in/dCs8eZjb

The project analyzes the climate and environmental aspects of Silicon Valley-based general-purpose AI systems developed by Big Tech companies.

There are many versions of this nuclear fuel cycle diagram, but I like this hand-drawn one with a little A-bombs being jettisoned by various nodes in the process.

Volgende week dinsdagavond bij het IISG!

This Friday, 12h, I'll talk more about the place of Urenco's enrichment facilities in Almelo and Namibian uranium in the Dutch nuclear debates of the 70s at the @uvahumanities.bsky.social's Environment & Society seminar.

Cool posters for what turned out to be the largest ever demonstration against nuclear facilities in the Netherlands, in March 1978. The one about Brazil's military dictatorship is creepy though, with its 'third world' imagery.

Volgende week dinsdagavond bij het IISG!

Poster showing a wind turbine from frog perspective. The picture is in light pink and blue nuances and announces a PhD course in energy humanities. More information can be found in this website. https://www.uis.no/en/research/collaboration/the-greenhouse-centre-for-environmental-humanities/humanities/apply-for-phd

I am really excited to announce the call for the PhD Course in Energy Humanities!

Held at the @greenhouseuis.net from 1-5 December.

Applications are welcome until 24 October.

#envhum #envhist #energyhistory

Het is nu ondenkbaar dat er honderdduizenden mensen de straat op gaan tegen kernenergie en -wapens, zoals in de jaren '80 gebeurde. Terwijl minstens zo actueel is. Voor iedereen die meer wil weten over de antikernenergiebeweging tot nu toe.
iisg.amsterdam/nl/events/de...
@mathijsboom.bsky.social

Ubiquitous assumptions about ‘peak oil’ and shifts in energy use, in a ‘82 DHV report about Dutch energy policy and developing countries.

Back to 80s energy scenarios at the Nationaal Archief where letters offer a good reminder of serious ’computing costs’. Modeling futures demanded time, energy and digital infrastructure.

Not in the forms. But maybe if you contact specific libraries?

Poster of the MPIWG Institute’s Colloquium. It features the titles of its five events below an image that shows a colorful mixture of liquids in red, orange, yellow, green, and violet.

Our Institute’s Colloquium Program 2025–26 is now available online! This year we will be "Rethinking Time in the History of Science" 🕰️⌚️

📍 MPIWG & Harnack-Haus

🔗 For the full program and information on registration, please check bit.ly/42Zq98m

#HistSci #DeepTime #Anthropology #ReligiousStudies

You could probably file a scan request through Worldcat. Or do you need Dutch account?

Western politicians love the excuse “Why should we invest in renewables when China isn’t doing anything?”
adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-...

Well, this is what China is upto:
China installing wind & solar equivalent of 5 nuclear plants per week
globalenergymonitor.org/report/china...

250.000 marching in Amsterdam, in solidarity with Gaza, and to ask our government to finally draw a f-ing line.

Handbook of the Historiography of the Earth and Environmental Sciences This open access handbook assesses the historiography and the future of major themes and approaches within the history of the earth sciences.

Very happy to announce that the Handbook of the Historiography of Earth and Environmental Sciences I coedited with Elena Aronova and Marco Tamborini is now available, for free (open access) via this link:
link.springer.com/referencewor...

Karen Russell Reads Louise Erdrich Podcastaflevering · The New Yorker: Fiction · 01-10-2025 · 49 min.

Still love this Erdrich story: “A stone is a thought that the Earth develops over inhuman time.” podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/t...

Google Books has a scan of Dawson's "Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands," there are some strewn across the internet, and some in the historical work of the geographers I mentioned.

Gotta love the poster collection at @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social

To be fair, this committee gave pretty serious consideration to zero-growth futures.

1974 thoughts on the 'distant future' (2015) from a Dutch committee for energy research: modeling pol and soc-econ change is silly, but modeling demand for energy and raw materials is less so.

Stunning indeed. Reminded Jason Grek-Martin and Bruce Braun's research ("vertical territory") on the geological survey of Haida Gwaii in 1878 by George Dawson. Dawson took ethnographic notes and simultaneously disappeared the Haida in his geological maps—irrelevant to future extractive purposes.

My informed guess is that gas reserves in the province of Groningen shaped the Dutch response. Most scenarios envisioned a boost in coal (imports) for liquifaction, but mostly to save strategic domestic gas reserves. (Groningen's gas field is fascinating, but I'm not familiar with English lit on it)

The most well-known effect in the case of unfolding climate breakdown is in Malm and Carton's 'Overshoot': because IPPC-models project the use of negative emissions tech, they can keep up the appearance that the world is somehow still steering clear of the worst climate outcomes.

Scenario methods (like models) have a complicated legacy: they did (and do) help to think through consequences of intended policies, but they also have their own "politics of anticipation" (doi.org/10.1017/sus....), helping to bring about the worlds they imagine.

Gov't scenarios were contrasted with Shell's: the first aimed at thinking through the interplay between exogenous developments and policy, while the second tried to imagine different futures in which Shell would have to operate (see also @jennande.bsky.social's doi.org/10.1017/S000...)

Fascinating gov't archives on Dutch energy scenarios of the late 70s and early 80s: in the wake of the Arab oil boycot and intense public debate about nuclear energy different policy scenarios for 2000 and 2025 were developed, including a zero-growth one.

De atoomsplijtzwam: kernenergie in Nederland Kernenergie heeft altijd voor veel discussie gezorgd, met argumenten over milieu(rampen), pacifisme, nucleair afval en hoge kosten. Daarbij ontstaan soms tegenstrijdige posities onder de voor-en tegen...

Voor de maand van de geschiedenis en als onderdeel van ons onderzoeksproject organiseren we bij het @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social een avond over het kernenergiedebat van nu in historisch perspectief: over activisme, energietransities en een reactor in je achtertuin. iisg.amsterdam/nl/events/de...

For those of you in Amsterdam: on October 10th, 12-13h, I'll present new research done at @iisg-amsterdam.bsky.social about "plundered uranium" and how nuclear fuel made it into the Dutch nuclear energy debate of the 70s and 80s, at the @uvahumanities.bsky.social's Environment & Society seminar.