Human sexuality is an amazing, complex thing. People can be turned on by the strangest things. For example, in the UK last year, a man was prosecuted for making love to his bicycle. The media labelled him a ‘cyclesexualist’.

So what do we call someone aroused by nuclear power stations? Radiasexual? Fissionophile?

We ask because Lady Barbara Judge, chairwoman of the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority, has found a novel way of describing nuclear power. ‘Atomic was a dirty word but now it's certainly a sexy one,’ she said.

That’s right. Nuclear power is sexy. No, it’s not the first word we’d have used to describe it either. Is it all to do with hot ‘rods’ being ‘inserted’ to get things steamy, do you think?

The operators at the Czech nuclear plant at Temelin say, ‘There is no better feeling than to watch the indicators, as the neutron flux increases and the reactor slowly wakes up. It is actually something like an orgasm of a reactor.’ No better feeling? Oh dear.

Be honest though, is this sexy?

Reactor construction at Olkiluoto 3 (© Greenpeace/Nick Cobbing)

No? How about this:

Anslem Roanhorse Jr., executive director of the Navajo Nation Division of Health, said 520 radioactive uranium mines on the Navajo Nation were abandoned without being cleaned up.

No, us neither. What about this:

Just as Britain decides to build new nuclear power stations, new research, commissioned by the German government, reveals that children under five who live within 5 km of a nuclear power plant, have twice the risk of suffering from the blood cancer leukaemia.

Feeling sexy yet? If anybody finds any of that arousing, we’d like to suggest they seek professional help immediately. It’s difficult to believe that such things give anyone a tingle in the trousers.

There’s only one aspect of the nuclear industry that’s even remotely sexy: the enormous injections of hard cash. We can only assume that it’s the thought of the nuclear industry’s bank accounts tumescent with taxpayers’ billions that’s getting Lady Judge all hot and bothered.