How Homer Simpson and Hippies Have Hindered the Electric Revolution

Why Nuclear Power isn’t Popular, and What We Can Learn From It

By: Sam Polstein, Managing Director for Communications at Pericles

If you want to get a sense of how nuclear energy is generally viewed in American culture, just turn on an episode of America’s longest-running sitcom. The Simpsons, which is still the most streamed show on Disney+, centers on Homer, a notoriously negligent safety officer at the fictional Springfield nuclear power plant. Homer’s lackadaisical approach to safety in an industry widely viewed as dangerous is every bit as hilarious and culturally resonant in 2023 as it was in 1989, when the show first aired. It even prompted the U.S. Department of Energy to put together a listicle that pushes back against the public misconceptions about nuclear energy stemming from The Simpsons. 

To be clear – this long-running bit isn’t the sole cause of nuclear power’s brand issues, but it is a potent case study of what can happen when an emerging technology enters popular consciousness with a radioactive reputation. For founders and proponents of emerging technologies, there are some important lessons that we can take from nuclear’s cautionary tale – 1) never let the tech speak for itself; 2) consider the cultural context, and 3) don’t be afraid to raise your hand for new rules. 

Let’s first establish some background on the reputation of nuclear power beyond cultural anecdotes. It’s been 65 years since the opening of the first nuclear power plant in the U.S. and public opinion still remains largely divided over whether it should be a part of our future energy mix. 

Despite evidence that nuclear energy is one of the cleanest and safest sources of energy available, nuclear power plants in the U.S. are shuttering at a faster rate than they are opening. Once shut off, nuclear plants are generally replaced with coal or natural gas - a major obstacle to limiting both carbon emissions and America’s reliance on foreign oil and gas. From the 1973 oil crisis to climate change to Russia’s ongoing energy squeeze on Europe, strong macro incentives have not turned the tide in favor of a shift to nuclear power. How did we get here? 

For starters, early advocates for nuclear energy shouldn’t have let the tech speak for itself - a common mistake and one that the team behind Bing’s new AI chatbot is quickly learning from (both literally and metaphorically). New technologies should be introduced and released to the public with a specific vision, purpose, and use case that fits into the broader cultural context or they risk being shelved forever. Nuclear’s supporters assumed that the general public would not conflate nuclear energy with nuclear weapons. But when your technology is associated with a “destroyer of worlds,” proactive differentiation is necessary.  It doesn’t matter how life-changing or world-altering a technology could become - recent strides in nuclear fusion point to some pretty wild possibilities - the reputation that it holds will resonate for decades and could sink it forever.

The lack of any coherent articulation for the role of nuclear energy left a vacuum that the growing anti-nuclear movement was eager to fill - led by left-leaning environmental organizations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. Early nuclear energy advocates were overly focused on developing the technology and building use cases - they didn’t do enough to articulate a compelling case for nuclear power. 

A demonstrator waited outside the main gate of the Seabrook N.H. nuclear plant site in 1977. Source: Boston Globe.

Additionally, the cultural context into which nuclear energy was born - sandwiched between the devastation of WWII and social uprising of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s - served as the perfect recipe for anti-nuclear energy activism. Early nuclear energy advocates should have considered the cultural context and created a broader coalition of supporters and surrogates, beyond President Eisenhower and his atoms for peace. By activating a larger coalition of supporters, across age and partisan affiliation especially, advocates for nuclear energy could have insulated themselves from the firestorm of activism that was to come.

Lacking an organized advocacy strategy and facing a growing opposition movement, nuclear energy was dealt a near-fatal blow with the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. The partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island facility provided the perfect example of the dangers of nuclear energy, despite subsequent studies concluding that there had been no resulting deaths or injuries. 

The incident proved to be pivotal to the degradation of nuclear energy’s reputation and is a great example of why founders and proponents of emerging technologies shouldn’t be afraid to raise their hands for new rules. The equipment malfunction and human error at Three Mile Island could have been avoided if the nuclear energy industry had pushed for stricter safety regulations and redundancies. This push, successful or not, would have put the onus for the incident on policymakers for failing to implement common-sense regulations on an emerging technology, rather than an inherent flaw of the technology itself. Advocating for increased regulation can seem counterintuitive to most tech entrepreneurs but it can also shift the responsibility for policymaking back to policymakers. The right regulatory framework can ensure that a burgeoning industry cannot be brought down by the failure of one company (or in this case, power plant).

This is why, at Pericles, we aim to work with startups developing emerging technology at the very beginning, before it is introduced to the public. When we’re talking about new, paradigm-shifting tech - brand positioning matters and if you don’t put in the work early, your tech will be defined for you, often by the biggest skeptics and critics. While the connective tissue may sometimes be obfuscated, political inputs (public opinion and elections) drive the outputs (policy) and the cement of those inputs starts to dry as soon as a new technology is introduced.

Nuclear energy is a testament to the fact that no matter how powerful a technology is, it will never advocate for itself. In fact, the more powerful a technology is, the more likely it is that organized opposition will form. Better to start early, speak clearly, consider the cultural context, and advocate for a fair set of rules. Otherwise, your new tech may disappear from the market — just like Homer into the hedgerow.