James Bond villains to blame for nuclear bad image, says RSC

Evil supervillains in James Bond movies are to blame for the enduring negativity towards nuclear power, the president of the Royal Society of Chemistry has claimed.

Speaking ahead of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the first James Bond film, Professor David Phillips said that image of evil genius Dr No, who had his own nuclear reactor on a Caribbean island, has helped to create a "remorselessly grim" reputation for atomic energy.

Professor Phillips, who received an OBE in the 2012 Queen's New Year's Honors list, hopes to create a "renaissance" in nuclear power, but environmental charities claim that the industry is behind its own bad image.



Dr No, the first James Bond film released in 1962 to huge acclaim, laid the foundation for an enduring bad image of atomic power, said Professor Phillips, as being something that could be used for world domination and destruction.

The supervillain is ultimately stopped by British agent James Bond, played then by Sean Connery, after being thrown into a cooling pool in the reactor.

According to the Royal Society of Chemistry, millions of people who watched the film felt that nuclear was a "barely-controllable force for evil", reports BBC News. Later Bond movies also featured nuclear-based plots from Bond's arch-nemeses.

Professor Phillips accepted that there were worries over nuclear safety, such as seen following last year's tsunami in Japan, but he feels that the public response is always shaped by these overwhelmingly negative portrayals.

"It is not at all surprising that the public at home and abroad are sceptical. But the RSC asserts that nuclear power has to be part of the future national energy mix, in which it plays a major role, complemented by renewable sources," he said.

"Fossil fuels have to be eradicated for people to live in a healthy environment. Let's say yes to nuclear and no to Dr No's nonsense."



However, environmental charities have argued that the Bond films merely reflect public concerns over nuclear power, rather than create phantom fears.

"A handful of Bond films haven't tarnished the nuclear industry's reputation, they've managed to do that all by themselves," said Richard George of Greenpeace.

"I don't think they've got a top secret fake volcanic island though. But if they did, it would probably be cheaper to build than a nuclear power station."

Green Party spokesperson Penny Kemp said that films like 1999 Bond movie The World Is Not Enough, which featured the agent foiling a plot to increase petrol prices by triggering a nuclear meltdown off the coast of Istanbul, merely reflected the genuine fears in the public after a major nuclear disaster.

"Although James Bond is fiction, the truth is that nuclear power is dangerous, dirty and unsafe," said Kemp.

"It is improbable to think that people's perceptions have been influenced solely by The World is Not Enough, but this film came after the Chernobyl disaster so the film was merely picking up on a real fear people have of nuclear power. And rightly so."



Meanwhile, Daniel Craig's James Bond will return this year in Skyfall, the 23rd movie in the long-running MGM espionage franchise.

The entire James Bond series will also be released in a Blu-ray boxset for the first time to mark its 50th anniversary.