Welcome to the inaugural Nuclear Reaction Awards 2008. As the year comes to its close we’d like to recognise those who have help make the nuclear industry the over-subsidised and under-scrutinised joke it is today.

Today’s Award: Outstanding contribution to the anti-nuclear energy cause

There could only be one winner of this award. No company has worked harder this year to help destroy what’s left of nuclear energy’s ragged reputation. Whether it be building massively over-budget and behind schedule reactors with thousands of safety issues, mining uranium in the poorest countries of the world, or spinning around the world while feverishly trying to sell its untested technology.

The company is, of course, Areva. We salute it for providing so many examples this year of how nuclear power is anything but clean, safe and cheap and how its supporters are anything but trustworthy.

We hope that in years to come that the word Areva, like the word 'boondoggle’, will come to be synonymous with unbelievable wastes of time and money. Try it out this Christmas if you’re given an expensive but useless present. ‘This musical toilet roll holder is so Areva…’