Too Hot to Handle: The Controversial Hunt for Uranium in Greenland in the Early Cold War (2013)
Nielsen, Henry (Author)
Knudsen, Henrik (Author)
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Volume: 55, no. 3
Issue: 3
Pages: 319-343
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Perspectives on Cold War Science in Small European States”
Language: English
Before WW2 Danish geologists had found traces of uranium in Greenland. But being squeezed from both sides in the escalating Cold War between East and West, in the first decade after WW2 the Danish government did not support expeditions to explore Greenland's potential uranium deposits. The situation changed abruptly after President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace address in December 1953, as a result of which a Danish Atomic Energy Commission (AEK) was set up in early 1955. Besides building a large atomic energy research facility (Risø) one of AEK's first initiatives was to support big scale uranium expeditions to South-West Greenland. The ultimate goal for the leaders of AEK was to liberate Denmark from its dependence on imported fossil fuels by developing Danish nuclear reactors, fuelled by natural uranium from Greenland. In the late 1960s, after more than a decade of uranium explorations, this was still a goal, albeit much more long term. For many reasons the hunt for uranium in Greenland after WW2 was unsuccessful, but the main ones were Danish sovereignty concerns, techno-scientific nationalism and devastating institutional clashes of interests. The present paper will explore these problems.
...MoreArticle Heymann, Matthias; Martin-Nielsen, Janet (2013) Introduction: Perspectives on Cold War Science in Small European States. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 221-242).
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