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Instead, Mr. Grad signed a letter threatening legal action against Tadeusz Pastusiak, president of "Lubiatowo Dunes", a tiny environmental tourism organisation. Grad's letter accused Pastusiak of spreading lies that would tarnish the good name of giant PGE and could lead to social unrest!

Mr. Pastusiak lives near where PGE plans to turn a unique dune landscape into a huge 3,000 MW nuclear power plant. He makes his living through environmentally friendly tourism. What has he done to upset Mr. Grad so much?

PGE wants to do some research to see if its chosen sites are suitable for two or three huge nuclear reactors, turbine halls, radioactive waste storage, transformer stations and so on.

Part of the chosen site at Lubiatowo is a protected Natura2000 area, with free-flowing sand dunes and a low-growing pine forest – a uniquely beautiful piece of nature. A month ago, I saw a lesser-spotted eagle fly up among the trees on the edge of the beach there.

PGE sent all inhabitants around the proposed sites a leaflet explaining the research. Nice and transparent, isn't it? Wrong. PGE did not mention the Natura2000 protection. Didn't mention the nuisance the research could bring to the local community.  Above all, it remained completely silent about research activities that could irreversibly damage the entire dune eco-system.  Dozens of 200-meter-deep holes would be drilled; roads expanded, and heavy machines would be used.

The leaflet didn't discuss what would happen if Lubiatowo were unsuitable for a nuclear power plant. What would happen with the shallow pools and the ground water when the underground was turned into an Emmentaler cheese? Where would the lesser-spotted eagle go when heavy machines are driving around in the dunes?

It is the European habit – no, it is the law – that a company investigates these issues and discusses them with all involved, including the public, through an Environmental Impact Assessment of the proposed research. That's what the law says, what EU Directives say, what the Aarhus Convention on public participation says, and what common sense demands. But PGE was not prepared to do any of this – at least not according to the company's leaflet.

So, the tiny NGO "Lubiatowo Dunes" decided to give the local inhabitants a bit clearer and more complete picture. They spoofed the PGE leaflet to outline their concerns and put it on their web-page. They thought they have the right to do so in a democratic country that is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression and the right to hold opinions.

So you can imagine the angry picture in office of nuclear boss Grad, A lawyer was brought in to formulate a threatening letter. Completely forgotten was that it was 26 April, the 27^th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe.

Just to put a few things straight:

• It is completely legitimate to illustrate your concerns with a few pages from a leaflet that has been spread house-to-house in an entire municipality. In copyright law, that's called "fair use".

• "Lubiatowo Dunes" is completely right stating that the leaflet is not telling the whole story.

• When PGE forces through a time-line without an environmental impact assessment of its research activities, it is not following the law on environmental impact assessment, the EU EIA Directive and the Aarhus Convention which prescribe public participation when potential irreversible environmental damage could occur – especially to a Natura2000 site.

• And, yes, spreading half-truths and lies can lead to social unrest. If PGE knows that, why did they spread that soft-blue-green leaflet?

Poland has been warned. Legitimate concerns will be met with bullying from PGE's Grad.

Greenpeace supports "Lubiatowo Dunes" fully! You have made a fair point and obviously PGE has something to hide.

Yech – nuclear bullies... we don't need you. There are cleaner, cheaper and more democratic alternatives to provide safe and sufficient energy to this beautiful country needs.

Jan Haverkamp is a Greenpeace expert consultant on nuclear energy and energy policy and Greenpeace's candidate for the position of director of PGE EJ.

Image: © Greenpeace / Jan Haverkamp

"The harbour of Antwerp is being filled with windmills, and the chemical industry is next to it. If there is an accident like a break in one of the wings, that is a guillotine. If that goes through a chloride pipe somewhere, it will be a problem of a bigger magnitude than what can happen at [Belgian nuclear power plant] Doel. Windmills are more dangerous than nuclear power plants."

Wind turbines are more dangerous than nuclear power plants? Tell that to the people of Chernobyl and Fukushima, Mr Bens.

It's such a mind-boggling thing to say, I'm not sure where to begin. This is just a theory but it's possible that Mr Bens is just a little confused. Maybe he watched the movie Mission Impossible 3 and mistook it for a documentary…

Yes, wind turbines are clearly dangerous. If you're a ruggedly handsome superspy flying recklessly through a wind farm in a helicopter while someone is firing missiles at you and you're trying to save someone's life, that is. If you're not, you're perfectly safe.

De Morgen, the media outlet that ran the Bens/dangerous windmills story in the first place, was so surprised by his outburst that it followed up with an opinion piece that called Bens Nuclear Ali, comparing him to former Iraqi information minister Comical Ali, who steadfastly said Iraq was winning the war with the US even as American tanks were rolling into Baghdad.

So why would Mr Bens say such an unbelievably ridiculous thing? Can he really mean it? Or could the actual reason for his outburst be him trying to deflect attention from the news that his organisation has just sanctioned the reopening of two nuclear reactors in Belgium which were closed after cracks were found in their reactor vessels?

It's not a handful of microscopic cracks we're talking about here, but more than 8,000 cracks in the Doel 3 reactor and more than 2,000 in Tihange 2. There is no certainty about how the cracks occurred, only guesses and assumptions. 

Guesses and assumptions on emergency planning are also why Greenpeace Belgium has filed a lawsuit against the Belgian government for gross negligence. A document filed with the case refers to a review showing the emergency plans are completely inadequate.

And really odd in some details. For example, emergency evacuation centres for Doel include a deteriorated, now unused slaughterhouse and other centres between 14 and 20 km of the reactor. Would you like to be evacuated to a slaughterhouse? Would you like to be evacuated to a centre only 14 or 20 km from a reactor accident, when people in Chernobyl were evacuated within 30 km and people in Fushima within 20 km, plus a few areas up to 50 km away?

Experts and other nuclear watchdogs seriously doubt the safety of Doel 3 and Tihange 2, including, the French nuclear watchdog ASN, Dieter Majer, the former head of the German nuclear control agency, and Willy De Roovere, the guy Bens replaced as FANC director

When did you last hear a coalition of experts and watchdogs warn about the safety of a wind farm?

This is how and why wind energy and nuclear power are so completely different. Talking about the dangers of wind compared to nuclear is like talking about the dangers of kittens compared to tigers.

Do wind farms need "emergency contingency planning"? When was the last time we had a meltdown at a wind farm? Does wind power have the potential to cause the destruction we see at Chernobyl and Fukushima?

Why am I even asking these questions? Thanks making us laugh, Mr Bens, but can we have a more serious contribution to the debate next time?