Thirty years ago, having been brought up on the patriotic propaganda of the time, I too was enthusiastic about the peaceful use of nuclear energy, but over the years, like most other people, I learned about the terrible dangers that accompany it, which in the euphoria of technological progress and Britain's leading role in it, had been overlooked, played down or ignored.

It is frightening, but for a dispassionate observer also interesting, to see how such learned "fellows", as I am sure they must be, can nevertheless still be so blind to the dangers posed by nuclear energy, not just for those living close to a nuclear facility, but, as Chernobyl showed, for 1000's of miles around. And not just on the day that an (extremely improbable) incident occurs, or the weeks or months that follow, but for 100's of years, for generations afterwards!

Admittedly, the chances of something going badly wrong, as they did in Chernobyl and very nearly did at 3-Mile Island, to give the two best known examples, are very small, but the consequences if they do are so horrific and so long-lasting that, to my mind, even the smallest risk is not worth taking.

Putting oneself at risk is one thing, but putting so many others at risk, especially when most of them have yet to be born, is quite another! And we won't even be around to apologise for the suffering that our stupidity in taking the risk is likely to cause over the coming centuries.

Since September 11 it is clear that the biggest risk is not from accidents or human error, but from deliberate attack. Bin Laden and his boys will see an opportunity to make a sizable area of Great Britain uninhabitable through radioactive contamination as a path to Paradise. That may be as incomprehensible to most people as Hitler's gas chambers are, but if there is one thing we should learn from history, especially the most recent, it is man's fallibility, blindness, stupidity, nastiness, and, on occasion, his capacity for downright evil (historians should be in the forefront of those warning us about the dangers of nuclear energy in all too human hands).

Maybe the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalists can be eliminated over the next few years, but I doubt it. And even if it is, there are a 101 other threats, already existent or waiting to arise. Who in 1900 could have imagined just a fraction of the horrors that the 20th Century had in store for mankind?

Are we going to kid ourselves into believing that human nature has radically changed or that our situation now is so completely different . . ?!

Before the next nuclear power plant is built in this country, I want a 99.9999% guarantee that we will not be involved in any wars and have no acts of terror committed on our soil for the next 500 years!

I know that such a guarantee cannot be given, which is why I am totally opposed to any expansion of nuclear power. On the contrary, I want the plants we already have decommissioned as soon and as safely as possible.

Our nuclear energy programme - along with those in so many other countries - was a tragic mistake. When I think of where we could now be with renewable sources of energy (solar, wind, biomass, etc.) and energy conservation if just a fraction of the money put into nuclear power had been put into developing these instead, I feel like crying.

And of course, Royal Society members, while rubbishing organic farming, are also promoting GM crops for all they are worth. 

I would nevertheless recommend them as government advisors - provided ministers know to do the opposite to what they advise!

Build more nuclear plants, Royal Society says, 10 February, 2003

Attack on nuclear plant 'could kill 3.5m', 16 February 2003