the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 24 Mar 2026
Dreams of Green Fields – The "grüne Wiese" in German Nuclear Decommissioning Discourse
Abstract. The term "grüne Wiese" (literally "green meadow" or "field") has become a prevalent expression in German nuclear decommissioning discourse, appearing across government reports, media articles, and activist actions. This article explores the rhetorical, symbolic, cultural and political dimensions of the "grüne Wiese" within German nuclear decommissioning discourse through the lens of cultural analysis, drawing on a visit to an actual "grüne Wiese" site, archival research, and analysis of media and anti-nuclear activist engagements with the term. Treating the phrase as a "floating signifier," it traces how the term emerged in anti-nuclear protest before being strategically deployed by industry and politicians to assuage public concern about nuclear power. As Germany enters an intensive phase of decommissioning and the search for a final repository, the term promises closure precisely at a moment when societal debate and engagement are needed most urgently.
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Status: final response (author comments only)
- RC1: 'Comment on sand-2026-5', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 Apr 2026
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RC2: 'Comment on sand-2026-5', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 May 2026
General comments
The article very interestingly explores ‘the rhetorical, symbolic, cultural and political dimensions of the "grüne Wiese" within German nuclear decommissioning discourse through the lens of cultural analysis’. This is a timely topic, and the author’s move to provide a focused analysis of nuclear-decommissioning-speak by paying attention to the use of one particular concept in a variety of contexts (industry, government, activism, art) is important and engaging. The author makes a convincing argument that the use of the phrase ‘grüne Wiese’ constitutes persuasive language.
Analytically, conceptually, and structurally, however, the discussion requires strengthening. There is also a lack of references to relevant literature on closely related topics; please see below.
Central in the discussion is the notion of rhetoric, which should be theorised more thoroughly. The workings of rhetoric can be approached with more sophistication than by briefly referencing a ‘“floating signifier” in the Laclauian sense’. How do rhetorical practice and a floating signifier exactly interrelate? What does relentless repetition of a phrase achieve? In what ways may the phrase be considered a speech act as in JL Austin’s usage, striving to make something happen in the world through sheer repetition? Does a grüne Wiese resonate particularly in a German context, perhaps tying in with (nostalgic?) cultural notions? Can we get a theoretical section here on rhetorical practice and persuasive language, both in corporate and in activist realms? Missing is engagement with existing studies of rhetoric in nuclear environments that would be appropriate and helpful here; Cram 2015 is mentioned but not for its engagement with (implicit) rhetorics in nuclear governance; Petra Tjitske Kalshoven’s writings on rhetoric and the nuclear industry are absent (Kalshoven 2023 in Visual Anthropology 36[5]; 2022 in Futures 144; 2022 in Cultural Anthropology 37[2]). Ethnographic studies of engagement with nuclear waste more generally would considerably enrich this piece, eg, Penelope Harvey’s work on nuclear waste and its governance in the UK; or Vincent Ialenti’s Deep Time Reckoning.
The idea of ‘dreams’ features only in the title – if it is kept in the title we should see some engagement with it in the body of the text. Why not something that is more in keeping with the rhetoric that sits at the core of this piece, eg, ‘promises’?
The paragraph on the use of greenfield and brownfield in England is confusing and requires rewriting: it mentions ‘“greenfield” as a site designated for industrial development’ but then also greenfield as ‘the less desirable opposite to a “brownfield” designated for industrial use’. Both terms are used in English discourse on nuclear decommissioning, both as end points for alternative usage. In my experience, ‘greenfield’ IS used in England as an end point but indeed problematised by nuclear players as requiring financially costly, and perhaps unnecessary, decontamination.
Related to this point: I am not convinced by the ‘conceptual pivot’ or ‘symbolic turn’ from what denotes a beginning to what denotes an end – the return to a ‘more natural’ previous state is a phenomenon that plays out in all kinds of contexts, eg, environmental interventions on degraded land. There is no need to insist on this alleged turn for the argument made in this piece – the author had better stick with the cyclical nature of the concept instead, as she does several times.
An interesting point is made on liminality: ‘“grüne Wiese” here marks a liminal phase where competing futures are being negotiated and contested, rather than an end point of a “nuclear cycle”’. This point can be highlighted and brought into conversation with the idea of cyclicity above, and with the central topic of persuasive language: does the liminal status of a grüne Wiese perhaps open it up to rhetorical usage?
It would be good for the author to engage more deeply with notions of ‘nature’, ‘re-naturalizing’ and what counts as natural that come up several times when Wiese /field /meadow are mentioned. ‘Nature’ is in itself a very ambivalent, and in many ways, misplaced term that remains unproblematised in the text. Here is an opportunity to make the discussion conceptually stronger.
Structurally, towards the end, the discussion moves away somewhat from its clear focus, broadening out to eg, calls for ‘nuclear heritage’, without tying this in with the discussion of rhetoric. Heritage work is a practice of presenting, selecting, and framing and thus a deeply rhetorical exercise in itself! The second paragraph in the section ‘beyond the German case’ adds little and is bound to be incomplete – better leave out and remain focused on the core contribution, which is the importance of paying attention to rhetorical discourse. Strong concluding paragraph on p.14.
Specific comments
‘Here, the “grüne Wiese” can serve as what Gabrielle Hecht has called an “interscalar vehicle” (2018) for moving across temporal and spatial planes, from local sites to federal storage sites, from the early nuclear age to the future of nuclear waste disposal’. This suggestion is interesting but needs much more elaboration to become convincing: explain what Hecht means by an i.v. and develop from there. And how does Hecht’s metaphor sit vis-à-vis GW as a rhetorical concept?
P13 ‘Yamamoto et al. stress, the concrete social forms of agency at play in decommissioning processes’: where do you place activists in this social process? Does your concluding discussion problematise their stance, perhaps, as well as that of the nuclear industry? Is it perhaps to be expected that activists proceed rhetorically, whilst the nuclear industry and their governing bodies are expected to speak ‘the truth’? There is scope here for a much more interesting discussion of how persuasive language works in society.
Line 76: ‘The “grüne Wiese” phrase, I suggest, might function as a prism…’ Is it the phrase that may function as a prism, or rhetorical use of the phrase? I suggest it is the latter.
Errors and technical corrections:
- P8 in UK usage, ‘decommissionng’ does not refer to all these stages; would be good to check usage more thoroughly – in English, too, the term is used loosely depending on who wields it.
- ‘The protest concerned plans for a large interim storage and logistics site for collecting and reprocessing nuclear waste from across Germany.’ Reprocessing refers to very specific and controversial operations, with an underlying philosophy pertaining to the nuclear cycle – is this really what is meant here? I very much doubt it. Please correct.
- P9 We need a sense of the production dates pertaining to the cartoons discussed on this page.
- Line 71 Correct plural/singular embedment of the quotation: ‘land conversions of former nuclear sites are [plural] “contingent and dynamic social process [singular]’
- P3 ‘material and immaterial nuclear heritage’ avoid ‘heritage’ here as the term is confusing in view of earlier mentioning of Rindzevičiūtė’s work; better use ‘legacy’ in this context
- Line 104 ‘populist resistance’ rephrase: ‘popular’ is meant there, not populist
- Cram 2016 is in the references but not in the text
- ‘the “green field,” which the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Customer protection seems to define as the removal of (almost all) built structures from the site (BSmUV, n.d.)’: this strikes me as very odd; what about soil contamination, remediation that may be required? Can we have the full text here so we can verify what is meant (rather than being convinced by ‘seems to define’)? Has the author had any discussions with nuclear professionals on the subject?
- ‘The area remains enclosed by high, rusting fences’: does this mean that the author was unable to enter? Clarify; and what does this mean for the status of a ‘decommissioned’ site?
- P5 ‘the promise of new businesses–and with them, tax revenue and employment opportunities–offer’ Correction: offers
- P13 second, third; awkward, omit
- What is meant by ‘released waste’ in note 1? Is this VLLW? It would be good to have the text reread by a nuclear professional to avoid ‘technical errors’
- Problems with footnotes: Line 171 has an icon for footnote 1 that does not seem to refer to an actual note; same problem in line 223
- ‘marking’, how so? Rephrase
- Line 186 activist’s, correct: activists’
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/sand-2026-5-RC2
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The overall argument of this article is relevant in the context of emerging social and cultural studies about nuclear decommissioning. The author exposes her main argument quite clearly. Using Ernesto Laclau's concept of "floating signifier" (derived from the Saussarian approach distinguishing signifier and signified as the two components of the sign) the author describes how in the German context communities of experts and anti-nuclear movements have mobilized the word "greenfield" in their discourses about decommissioning. Born as a tool of contestation among anti-nuclear activists to index a portion of land disrupted by the erection of a nuclear facility, since the mid-1980s the term has been picked up by regulators and experts to point to the end status of decommissioning activities with the intention of demonstrating the sustainability of nuclear power through the possibility of returning decommissioned nuclear sites to their original "natural" status. The use of Karlstein and Niederaichbach as exemplary cases in German decommissioning discourse is quite revealing of the ambiguous meaning of "greenfield." More recently, anti-nuclear activists have been using "greenfield" or rather "green meadows" exactly to flag the gap existing between words and deeds in the uncertain decommissioning processes and outcomes. The discussion of specific examples of the different uses of the "greenfield" metaphor as emerging in official documents, reports, popular magazines, cartoons, and newspapers makes the argument solid.
The author's use of Laclau's analytical tool to describe the ambiguities of the term "greenfield/green meadow" in the German context (which, as the author underlines, is quite different from the English speaking one) is probably the most problematic aspect of the paper. I would suggest to think about "greenfield" more thoroughly to move beyond the mere description of its multiple and conflicting uses. Are "greenfield" and "green meadow" metaphors? Maybe myths (in Roland Barthes' sense) ? Maybe symbols? If so, how do they work and what is their performative deployment? The author touches upon it in multiple instances, but she shies away from digging more into the analysis of the performative function of the formula. One example of such an approach is O'Connor and Hilgartner's book "Nukespeak" or the analysis of "Containment" (2000) by William Kinsella. I think the author might benefit from discussing these two examples as a way to anchor her analysis to a broader discussion of the ways in which language is deployed in power struggles, especially in the nuclear field.
There is also another aspect about the ambiguity of the term "greenfield" and its suggestive deployment to represent the ideal(istic) outcome of decommissioning projects. Official definitions of nuclear decommissioning by regulatory authorities in different contexts and countries are quite generic. Take the US NRC one, for example: " The process of safely closing a nuclear power plant (or other facility where nuclear materials are handled) to retire it from service after its useful life has ended. This process primarily involves decontaminating the facility to reduce residual radioactivity and then releasing the property for unrestricted or (under certain conditions) restricted use. This often includes dismantling the facility or dedicating it to other purposes." The fact that "greenfield" is not ever mentioned and that it is used by the industry to demonstrate its ability to "close the cycle" or to be compliant with the idea of "sustainability" or "circular economy" is exactly the demonstration that decommissioning is not a mere technical endeavor, but a technopolitical one. That is, private companies, public decommissioning companies, and regulators in different countries establish different decommissioning practices and rules, despite adopting similar definitions. Usually these definitions never take into account "bottom up" perspectives, and that is why the IAEA has organized numerous technical workshops on "stakeholder involvement" just to demonstrate that conflicts over the very setting of decommissioning objectives can be managed in a fair way.
Imagining a decommissioning site as a post-nuclear space, as the author compellingly argues, is a field of conflict and contestation, so she rightly points out that thinking about it involves taking into account socioeconomic attachments that blur the lines of past and future (memory, identity, fear, contestation, socioeconomic prosperity, and imaginations of alternative paths). This dimension of decommissioning is quite important and I would encourage the author to include a brief (a very short paragraph may be enough) discussion of the relevant literature that has recently emerged about this aspect. In particular I refer to Marissa Bell's piece on "nuclear communities" in Canada, Saraç-Lesavre's piece on nuclear attachments in New Mexico, and Orsini's recent article on nuclear decommissioning in Italy. The last article might also be useful to expand the analysis on one of the last points (line 395/396) raised about the entanglement of individual nuclear sites decommissioning projects (together with choices, possibilities, and constraints) with larger processes of waste governance and energy politics.
Lastly, I would suggest that the author rephrase the paragraph comprised between the lines 173 and 184, as it's a bit convoluted. Goertz et Al. (line 216) is not in the reference list.
I strongly recommend the publication of this article because it offers a compelling analysis of one crucial and controversial aspect of decommissioning processes: conflicts and disagreements about the very possibility of a future for decommissioning sites. Furthermore, the piece contributes to building a sorely needed comparative analysis of decommissioning regulatory regimes and practices by exploring in depth the German case (which is obviously extremely relevant).