James Bond villains harm nuclear power's public image, says scientist

Dr No's secret base in the James Bond film. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Cinetext Collection

He may have been On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but James Bond and the power-hungry villains he saved the world from did no service to the image of nuclear power, a leading scientist has claimed.

The film version of Dr No, first screened 50 years ago and still a TV favourite, and other Bond movies have helped frame public perceptions of the hazards of nuclear power along with accidents such as Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, according to David Phillips, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

He feared the portrait of the evil megalomaniac and his nuclear reactor hidden away on a Caribbean island contributed to the "entirely negative" and "remorselessly grim" perception of the industry as a force for evil.

Phillips told the BBC that when nuclear power was discussed "it is not at all surprising that the public at home and abroad are sceptical". But he said the society believed "nuclear power has to be part of the future national energy mix, in which it plays a major role, complemented by renewable sources. 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," he added.

Anti-nuclear campaigners were not convinced. "Although James Bond is fiction, the truth is that nuclear power is dangerous, dirty and unsafe," Penny Kemp, spokesperson for the Green party said. "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."

Richard George of Greenpeace said: "A handful of Bond films haven't tarnished the nuclear industry's reputation. They have managed to do that all by themselves. I don't think they have got a top secret fake volcanic island though. But if they did, it would probably be cheaper to build than a nuclear power station."

A glance at the society's website shows its members too enjoy Bond stories, incorporating them into scientific explanations. It tells how the spy is brought low by a poisonous chemical administered by evil Rosa Kleb in the book of From Russia with Love, although it is not until the following novel, Dr No, that its identity is revealed as tetrodotoxin or fugu poison. Another piece examines the science behind cocktails, including shaken, not stirred, vodka martinis.